Nell’avere la Maesta Suà…degli Ebrei di questa Università [Proclamation abolishing autonomous Jewish jurisdiction for the Jews of the towns of Bozzolo and Sabbioneta]

In the outlying region of the Montavano, there were several petite Jewish communities that were legally and materially dependent upon the larger Jewish community of Mantua. Numerically small, it was simply not within their means to maintain independent communal organizations. In the 18th-century, the Duchy of Bozzolo-Sabbioneta was temporarily annexed by the central government in Mantua. The communities in these two towns were larger than other settlements in the Mantovano, and their administrative machinery must have been more developed. Therefore, on the surface of things, there was nothing suspect about this Austrian order abolishing the Jewish jurisdiction in Bozzolo and Sabbioneta. The reason given was that the number of Jews residing there was simply “troppo scarso” (too scarce) to maintain a separate legal system. However, Simonsohn sees this particular edict against the backdrop of a much larger concerted attempt by Joseph II to end Jewish legal autonomy within the territory of the Austrian empire. In 1779, a first attempt was made to abolish the Jews of Mantua’s legal autonomy by giving the right of appeal against verdicts of the Jewish courts to the Consigilo di Giustizia in Mantua. In addition, orphans, minors, and widows were given the right to choose between the state and Jewish courts. Attempts by the Jewish community to have the orders rescinded were singularly unsuccessful. See S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977), pp. 370, 408-9