We turned from these horrors, and walked down by the side of the Duomo
toward the Ghetto, which is not so foul as one could wish a Ghetto
to be. The Jews were admitted to Ferrara in 1275, and, throughout the
government of the Dukes, were free to live where they chose in
the city; but the Pope's Legate assigned them afterward a separate
quarter, which was closed with gates. Large numbers of Spanish Jews
fled hither during the persecutions, and there are four synagogues
for the four languages,--Spanish, German, French, and Italian. Avventi
mentions, among other interesting facts concerning the Ferrarese Jews,
that one of their Rabbins, Isaaco degli Abranelli, a man of excellent
learning in the Scriptures, claimed to be descended from David. His
children still abide in Ferrara; and it may have been one of his
kingly line that kept the tempting antiquarian's shop on the corner
from which you turn up toward the Library. I should think such a man
would find a sort of melancholy solace in such a place: filled with
broken and fragmentary glories of every kind, it would serve him for
that chamber of desolation, set apart in the houses of the Oriental
Hebrews as a place to bewail themselves in; and, indeed, this idea may
go far to explain the universal Israelitish fondness for dealing in
relics and ruins.


V.

The Ghetto was in itself indifferent to us; it was merely our way to
the Library, whither the great memory of Ariosto invited us to see his
famous relics treasured there.

We found that the dead _literati_ of Ferrara had the place wholly to