(ITALY)

Napoleon Bonaparte was viewed as something of a savior by Italian Jewry. Under the French, the Jews enjoyed rights they had never known in their long and lugubrious history. With Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, came the inevitable backlash, or what historian Cecil Roth has termed the “Recoil.” In the Kingdom of Sardinia, heavily influenced by the Jesuits, the old anti-Jewish code was once again enforced - with a vengeance. In 1816, Jewish property-owners, who had prospered under Napoleon, were given five years to liquidate their holdings. Seeing that the process did not progress as planned, the government served notice in 1822 that properties remaining in Jewish possession by January 1, 1824 would be publicly sold by the Magistrate. The one concession to the Jews made in 1816 was that the regulations regarding the wearing of the Jewish badge were relaxed. See C. Roth, The History of the Jews of Italy (1946), pp. 448-49