page_title: History of the Jews in Italy
section_title: Worsening conditions under Innocent III
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Italy / Middle Ages / Worsening conditions under Innocent III
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Martyrium des Simon von Trent, Darstellung aus der Nürnberger Weltchronik von Hartmann Schedel.English: Martyrdom of Simon von Trent, depiction from the Nuremberg World Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Italy spans more than two thousand years to the present. The Jewish presence in Italy dates to the pre-Christian Roman period and has continued, despite periods of extreme persecution and expulsions, until the present. As of 2019, the estimated core Jewish population in Italy numbers around 45,000.
context_section_description: The position of Jews in Italy worsened considerably under Pope Innocent III (1198–1216). This pope threatened with excommunication those who placed or maintained Jews in public positions, and he insisted that every Jew holding office should be dismissed. The deepest insult was the order that every Jew must always wear, conspicuously displayed, a special yellow badge.
  In 1235 Pope Gregory IX published the first bull against the ritual murder accusation. Other popes followed his example, particularly Innocent IV in 1247, Gregory X in 1272, Clement VI in 1348, Gregory XI in 1371, Martin V in 1422, Nicholas V in 1447, Sixtus V in 1475, Paul III in 1540, and later Alexander VII, Clement XIII, and Clement XIV.
caption: Simon of Trent blood libel. Illustration in Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik, 1493
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