The Jewish community in Rome is the oldest in Europe, the only one to have existed continuously for over 2,000 years. This detailed study of the Jewish banking community in Italy is therefore of special value and interest. Poliakov’s classic account of the rise and fall of the Jewish bankers is at the same time the story of medieval finance in general, its decline, and the birth of ‘modern’ finance. The author traces the economic and theological implication of each stage in the ambiguous relationship that developed between the Jewish money trade and the Holy See. He shows that the protection enjoyed by the Jews from the Holy See had not only theological, but also economic roots. The study ends with an account of the introduction of modern, ‘capitalist’ techniques and of the consequent inevitable decline of the Jewish money trade.

The Jewish community in Rome is the oldest in Europe, the only one to have existed continuously for over 2,000 years. This detailed study of the Jewish banking community in Italy is therefore of special value and interest. Poliakov’s classic account of the rise and fall of the Jewish bankers is at the same time the story of medieval finance in general, its decline, and the birth of ‘modern’ finance. The author traces the economic and theological implication of each stage in the ambiguous relationship that developed between the Jewish money trade and the Holy See. He shows that the protection enjoyed by the Jews from the Holy See had not only theological, but also economic roots. The study ends with an account of the introduction of modern, ‘capitalist’ techniques and of the consequent inevitable decline of the Jewish money trade.

A deeply reported, New York Times bestselling exposé of the money and the clerics-turned-financiers at the heart of the Vatican—the world’s biggest, most powerful religious institution—from an acclaimed journalist with “exhaustive research techniques” (The New York Times). From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, God’s Bankers traces the political intrigue of the Catholic Church in “a meticulous work that cracks wide open the Vatican’s legendary, enabling secrecy” (Kirkus Reviews). Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church’s accumulation of wealth and its byzantine financial entanglements across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in one of the world’s most influential organizations. God’s Bankers has it all: a revelatory and astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, and mysterious deaths written off as suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that clarify not only the church’s aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger tensions of more recent history. And Posner even looks to the future to surmise if Pope Francis can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican’s Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. “As exciting as a mystery thriller” (Providence Journal), this book reveals with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power.

This work is based mainly on documentation preserved in the archives of Umbria. It illustrates the political and socio-economic history of the Jewish community from the second half of the thirteenth century, when Jewish settlement in the region became permanent and continuous, to the expulsion of the Jews in 1569 decreed by Pope Pius V. Umbria was an important geographical and political entity in central Italy during the late Middle Ages and was always linked to the Papal State. The documents provide us with important information that enables us to appreciate correctly the Jews' economic role in the region and their relationships with the political powers (the communes and the popes) and the Mendicant orders. Furthermore, they enlighten us on aspects of the Jews' daily life, and on their relationship with Christian society.

In 1965 the Second Vatican Council declared that God loves the Jews. Yet the Church had taught for centuries that Jews were cursed by God, and had mostly kept silent as Jews were slaughtered by Nazis. How did an institution whose wisdom is said to be unchanging undertake one of the largest, yet most undiscussed, ideological swings in modern history?