Governare le differenze in uno spazio chiuso: il ghetto e l’organizzazione politica degli Ebrei nella prima età moderna

This article examines the Jewish ghettos of Venice, Florence, and Rome in Early Modern Time as spaces of institutional experimentation rather than mere instruments of segregation. Moving beyond an interpretative framework focused exclusively on repression and exclusion, it argues that the ghetto functioned as a laboratory of communal governance in which systems of representation, conflict regulation, and negotiation with external authorities were formalized and refined. Through a comparative analysis of normative sources, communal statutes, and documented disputes, the study highlights how different political contexts shaped distinct models of Jewish self-government: a negotiated and relatively autonomous structure in Venice, a more top-down and ducal-controlled framework in Florence, and a vertically organized, papal-supervised system in Rome. By shifting attention from the vertical relationship between Jewish communities and ruling powers to the internal micropolitics of difference within the ghettos themselves, the article contributes to a reassessment of early modern Jewish political agency and the institutional creativity fostered under conditions of constraint.