Seder Haha’arachah Vehanhagah [communal tax regulations and obligations]

(ITALY)

Mantua

1723

Title within architectural arch. An Unopened, Uncut, Wide-Margined Copy

Vinograd, Mantua 319

The Mantuan Community began to organize its financial obligations through the levying of taxes from the beginning of the 16th century. Tax regulations were published, until the end of the 18th century. These chart the economic changes of Mantuan Jewry and the kinds of property and income that were taxable. “It was a special characteristic of the Mantuan community that it never went bankrupt, despite the great financial burden it was required to bear... The decline of the economic position of Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the increasing burden of taxes borne by the Jews, and the growth in the number of Jewish poor, all affected the Duchy of Mantua..but [they] succeeded in..balancing their budgets because they were able to manage their affairs more wisely than their brethren in neighbouring states.” See S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977) pp.375-90