The Palazzo Pannolini is a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

-style palace located on Via Valdonica 1/5 in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, region of

Emilia Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

, Italy. The palace, owned by the

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

, since 1999 houses the Museo Ebraico di Bologna or ''Jewish Museum of Bologna''.

History

A palace at the site had been constructed by the bread merchant, Francesco Pannolini. In his will of 1595, he left the property for the creation of a school for poor children, intending to study the trade as merchants. By 1619, the Collegio Pannolini had been created. The college was closed in 1765 by Pope Benedict XIV, and the site was transferred to the ''Academy of Sciences''. The Malvasia family acquired the structure, and merged it with their adjacent Palazzo Mavasia. The museum incorporates part of the Malvasia palace.

Ghetto of Bologna

A Jewish community had lived in Bologna since the 14th century. Jews were circumscribed to a ''ghetto'' starting in 1556 by Pope

Paul IV Pope Paul IV, born Gian Pietro Carafa, C.R. ( la, Paulus IV; it, Paolo IV; 28 June 1476 – 18 August 1559) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 May 1555 to his death in August 1559. While serving as pap ...

. The Jewish district in Bologna was present just southwest of the Museum, in an area delineated by the intersection of via del Carro and via Zamboni, via Oberdan where an arch looks onto vicolo Mandria, and the start of via de' Giudei. The entrances to the Ghetto were sealed from sunset to sunrise. By 1569, the Jewish community of Bologna was expelled by Pius V. Allowed to return in 1586 under Sixtus V, they were again expelled in 1593 under Pope

Clement VIII Pope Clement VIII ( la, Clemens VIII; it, Clemente VIII; 24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605), born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1592 to his death in March 1605. Born ...

, and did not return until the Napoleonic occupation. In 1593, nearly 900 people left the city, mostly taking refuge with the Jewish community in

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

.Bologna Welcome
website. Jews returned to Bologna in the 19th century. It was in Bologna in 1858, that

Edgardo Mortara The Mortara case ( it, caso Mortara, links=no) was an Italian ''cause célèbre'' that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a six-year-old boy named Edgardo ...

was stolen from his parents. By the Second World War, over a thousand Jews lived in Bologna. The anti-Jewish laws of 1938 forced 51 Jewish professors to retire from the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

and 492 foreign Jewish students were dismissed. Only Italian Jewish students already enrolled at the university were allowed to finish. Jewish professional were no longer permitted to practice. With the German occupation of Italy in September 1943, persecution increased. About 114 Jews from Bologna were deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

, where nearly all of them died.Jewish Virtual Library
entry on Bologna.

References

{{Authority control Pannolini Jewish museums in Italy Museums in Bologna History museums in Italy Renaissance architecture in Bologna