July 19, online event

The Congregation Schara Tzedeck of Vancouver, in partnership with the MEIS, presents the online lecture “Stormy Waters and Unsafe Harbors: The Dramatic Experiences of Jews in Italy during the Counter-Reformation.”

The event will take place online via Zoom on July 19 at 7:00 PM CEST/10 am Pacific Time/1 pm Eastern Time.

In this lecture, Martina Mampieri explores the dramatic events surrounding the execution of a group of Portuguese conversos in the Adriatic port city of Ancona in 1556. Once regarded as a promising refuge for merchants fleeing persecution across the Iberian world, Ancona became the site of one of the most significant episodes of anti-Jewish repression in sixteenth-century Italy when Pope Paul IV ordered the arrest and trial of New Christians who had returned to observe the Torah.

Drawing on inquisitorial records, Jewish chronicles and elegies for Tisha’ be-Av, the lecture reconstructs the experiences of the victims and Paul IV’s pontificate (1555-59). By situating the Ancona affair within the wider history of the Counter-Reformation, migration, commerce, and Jewish-Christian relations, the lecture sheds light on the precarious position of Jews and conversos in early modern Italy and highlights the resilience of Jewish networks in the face of persecution.

Martina Mampieri is Associate Professor of Early Modern Jewish History at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (since September 2025). Prior to this appointment, she was a Marie Curie Global Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Modena. She holds a double Ph.D. from the University of Roma Tre and the University of Hamburg (2017) and has held postdoctoral and visiting positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Göttingen. Her first book Living under the Evil Pope (Brill, 2020) examines a key sixteenth-century Hebrew chronicle.

If you want to attend the event, click here and fill out the form. The Zoom link will be sent to the subscribers on the same day of the live event. If you don’t receive it, please also check your spam folder. If you still don’t receive it, please contact ufficio.stampa@meisweb.it.