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Judaism and Catholicism in Italy During the Belle Époque: a Comparative Approach

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Judaism and Catholicism in Italy During the Belle Époque: a Comparative Approach Judaism and Catholicism in Italy during the Belle Époque: A Comparative Approach By Giuseppe Prigiotti Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Roberto M. Dainotto, Supervisor ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner ___________________________ Massimo Faggioli ___________________________ Shalom Goldman ___________________________ Malachi H. Hacohen ___________________________ Anne-Gaëlle C. Saliot Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 ABSTRACT Judaism and Catholicism in Italy during the Belle Époque: A Comparative Approach by Giuseppe Prigiotti Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Roberto M. Dainotto, Supervisor ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner ___________________________ Massimo Faggioli ___________________________ Shalom Goldman ___________________________ Malachi H. Hacohen ___________________________ Anne-Gaëlle C. Saliot An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 Copyright by Giuseppe Prigiotti 2015 Abstract This dissertation compares the responses of Italian Jewish and Catholic intellectuals to the process of secularization and modernization triggered by Italian national unification (1861-1870). Arguing that, in the case of Italy, the borders separating Jewish and Catholic communities have been more porous than generally thought, my research intends to destabilize simplistic historiographical oppositions based on a dichotomous anti-/philo-Semitic approach. In comparing Judaism and Catholicism vis à vis the new, modern, and secular nation-state, I offer a more complex picture of the relation between these two religions. In order to avoid presenting a one-sided account, my comparative approach brings together studies and perspectives from different fields. The first three chapters analyze a wide variety of sources, ranging from official speeches to journal articles, archival documents, and literature. I analyze the Commemoration of the Capture of Rome (1870) given by Roman mayor Ernesto Nathan in 1910 and Salvatore De Benedetti’s 1884 Opening Address at the University of Pisa on The Hebrew Bible as a source for Italian literature, as well as articles published in the Jewish journals Il Vessillo Israelitico and Il Corriere Israelitico, the Catholic journal La Civiltà Cattolica, and the anticlerical journal L’Asino. The last chapter focuses on the Jewish historical novel The Moncalvos, written by Enrico Castelnuovo in 1908, investigating the problematic appeal of secularism and Catholicism for a Jewish family settled in Rome. By drawing on this variety of sources, my dissertation both scrutinizes the interrelated role of Jewish, Catholic, and secular culture in Italian national identity and calls for a reconsideration of iv the starting point of modern Jewish-Catholic dialogue, well before the events following the Shoah, the rise of the State of Israel, and the Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate. v Dedication For Anna. iv Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. iv Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Historiography ................................................................................................................ 3 Narrative Chapter Outline ............................................................................................... 6 1. Ernesto Nathan’s Speech: New Challenges Forty Years after the Breach of Porta Pia 10 1.1 The Historical Premises of Nathan’s Speech: National Union, Jewish Emancipation, and the End of the Temporal Power of the Church .............................. 11 1.2 Nathan’s Speech: An Appeal to Live as Citizens, Reframing Biblical and Ecclesial Language ....................................................................................................................... 22 1.3 Nathan’s Attack on the Dogma of Infallibility ....................................................... 33 1.4 Reactions to Nathan’s Speech and Nathan Reply ................................................... 43 1.5 Nathan’s Reply ........................................................................................................ 51 2. Bible and Citizenship: De Benedetti and Scaramuzza .................................................. 55 2.1 The Hebrew Bible as Source for Italian Literature: Salvatore De Benedetti’s 1884 Opening Address at the University of Pisa ................................................................... 56 2.2 Sebastiano Scaramuzza: Pro Fratribus Judaeis (1885) ........................................... 93 2.3 Scaramuzza: Beyond the Temporal Power of the Church .................................... 106 3. Mutual References in the Jewish, Secular, and Catholic Press ................................... 116 3.1 Catholic neighbors in Jewish Journals .................................................................. 119 3.2 Catholics and Jews in the Satirical and Anticlerical Journal L’Asino .................. 139 3.3 Jewish Neighbors in Catholic Journals ................................................................. 158 4. A Fictional Jewish Family in Secular and Catholic Rome: The Moncalvos ............... 168 iv 4.1 Critical Reception of the Novel ............................................................................ 173 4.2 International Context & Foreign Languages ......................................................... 179 4.3 Jerusalem, Palestine, Zionism, and the Holy Land ............................................... 191 4.4 Religion, Judaism, and Catholicism ...................................................................... 200 4.5 Secularism and political alliances after National Unification ............................... 210 Conclusion: Reshaping a Common Memory .................................................................. 224 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 230 Biography ........................................................................................................................ 237 v Acknowledgments I would like to first thank my advisor and the members of my dissertation committee. This work would have not been possible without the encouragement and guidance of Roberto Dainotto. Martin Eisner, Massimo Faggioli, Shalom Goldman, Malachi Hacohen, and Anne-Gaëlle Saliot, who generously shared their time and expertise and offered me valuable feedback for this interdisciplinary project. I would also like to thank the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University for granting me the fellowships to conduct my research at the Secret Vatican Archives and at the National Library of Jerusalem: I hope that this dissertation will honor the memory of Rabbi Nathan Perilman and contribute to enhancing Jewish-Christian understanding and reciprocal appreciation. iv Introduction Jewish, Catholic, and secular intellectuals had a significant role in defining italianità during the Belle Époque, and their roles were more interrelated than has previously been recognized. Using a comparative approach, this dissertation identifies and analyzes exemplary speeches, articles, and a novel in which these connections appear quite clearly. My aim is to offer a reconstruction not only of a significant moment for Italian national history, but also of the beginning of modern dialogue between Jews and Catholics. While several scholars have explored these relationships in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, this study examines the implications of this interaction for the modern Italian state. In 1870, the Breach of Porta Pia in Rome symbolically inaugurated a new epoch marked, on one hand, by the necessity to build a new national identity, and, on the other, by the end of the temporal power of the Papacy. While the situation presented the Jewish communities of Italy with an unprecedented opportunity for emancipation and integration, it also posed the problem, for both Jews and Catholics, of having to rethink their identity as being a fundamentally secular one: to understand themselves as Italian, too, instead of (predominately) Jewish or Catholic. Secularization acted to the detriment of ancient privileges1 that protected, in different ways and to different degrees, Jewish and Catholic groups as religious communities. Secular rights and institutions provided values, careers, and socialization opportunities to Italian citizens that were alternatives to 1 I use the term ‘privilege’ in its etymologic sense: a private law, from the Latin privatus and lex, designed for a particular person or group of people. 1 those provided by religious institutions. In this context, the idea of a religious identity became problematic. Yet it was precisely in this context that the leaders of both Jewish and Catholic communities had to conceive of new and original ways to contribute
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