Jewish pre-emancipation: Ius commune, the Roman Comunità, and marriage in the early modern Papal State

Robert Bonfil has enriched us over the years with studies on so many aspects of early modern Italian Jewry. His seminal work has led to revision, whether in the fields of intellectual or social history, or the history of historical writing itself. And it is in this spirit that I wish to dedicate the following essay to him, in the hope that it, too, will stimulate fresh thought. The question it asks is, simply, when chronologically does the history of Jewish Emancipation properly begin and what criteria determine this date - one, it turns out, that is centuries before the time of formal Emancipation itself.