Abstract

The events relating to the management of Jewish communities – as can be seen both from the correspondence of the inquisitors and from the inquisitorial trials – offer a closer look at the conflicts of jurisdiction between Inquisition courts and political authorities. At the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, in a duel often favouring the ecclesiastical authority, the Government of the Duchy of Modena used to claim its own prerogatives on Jewish issues, in order to safeguard its jurisdictional rights and its economic interests. This was in spite of the fact that the courts of faith were meanwhile extending their control over everything that concerned relations between Jews and Christians, with growing difficulties in the territories furthest away from the capital.