«Abramo ebreo da molti giorni in qua pernotta qui, e negotia». Mercanti ebrei e comunità locali nello Stato della Chiesa (XVII–XVIII secolo)

The accession of Paul IV to the papal throne in 1555 marked the beginning of a pe- riod of considerable intransigence toward Jewish communities, one that profoundly re- shaped the geography of Jewish settlements within the Papal States. Among the practices that allowed Jews to maintain a continuous connection with the territories from which they had been expelled, a prominent role was played by their participation in the fair activities that structured the economic and social calendar of nearly all urban centres in the Papal States. The article aims to investigate the ways in which, between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, local communities in the Papal States engaged with the numerous Jewish merchants, whose presence—particularly during fairs—was characterized by intense and recurrent mobility. Special attention is devoted to the tangible dynamics of this tempo- rary coexistence, which unfolded under the vigilant, yet pragmatic, oversight of the Roman Inquisition.