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Jews who stayed in Venice for more than two weeks were supposed to wear a yellow "O" on their backs or a yellow hat |
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And they were confined to a special area which became known as the Ghetto Nuovo |
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This is the entrance to the Jewish ghetto in Venice where Jews were obliged to live and indeed confined at night |
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Jews were tolerated in Venice, but for a reason |
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The key was that Jews could provide a service that Christian merchants were forbidden to do |
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They could charge interest on their loans |
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Fibonacci might have figured out the mathematics of lending |
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but it took Shylock to do the deal |
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This is where the Venetian Jews used to do business |
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This building here was the old Banco Rosso |
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and it was outside here that they used to sit behind their tables - their tavole |
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on their benches - their banchi, the root of the Italian word for banks |
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Now, there was good reason why merchants came here to the Jewish Ghetto to borrow money |
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For Christians, what the Jews were doing, lending money at interest, was a sin |
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