The following documents are drawn from the Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVI, which covers the full pontificate of Alexander VII (1655–1662). After a comprehensive search of all 101,000 lines for terms associated with Jews — including Iudaei, Hebraei, synagoga, ghetto, neophyti, cathecumeni, gazagà, usura, and related vocabulary — three passages bear on the Jews.
One is incidental: Constitution XCVI (April 24, 1656), confirming the establishment of a Monte di Pietà in the city of Alessandria in the Duchy of Milan, notes in passing that the institution was founded so that the poor might be freed from “the intolerable usuries with which they were vexed by the Hebrews living there” — a formulaic anti-Jewish usury trope that appears in dozens of such foundations across this series, without making the Jews the subject of the document.
The two substantive documents — Constitutions CLXXXII (1657) and CCXV (1658) — are among the most legally intricate Jewish-related texts in this entire series. Both concern the same underlying dispute: the property rights of converts from Judaism to Christianity over their former apartments within the Roman ghetto. Together they form a coherent diptych, with CLXXXII addressing the rights of individual converts and CCXV addressing the broader vacancy problem those rights created. Both are exclusively concerned with Roman domestic law as it applied to the city’s Jewish community — no theology, no conversion pressure, no restriction on practice — just property law, and the papacy’s insistence on enforcing it against the corporate Jewish community.
I. Pope Alexander VII — Statuit Universitatem Iudaeorum in Urbe Commorantium Iudaeis ad Fidem Christianam Conversis Ius Gazagà Eis Competens Super Domibus Intra Septa Ghetti Solvere Teneri: The Community of Jews Residing in the City Is Obligated to Pay to Jews Converted to the Christian Faith the Ius Gazagà Belonging to Them Over Houses Within the Enclosure of the Jews’ Ghetto, So Long as Those Houses Shall Not Be Leased (December 1, 1657)
Constitution CLXXXII. Alexander VII, year III. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, December 1, 1657, pontificate year III. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVI, pp. 319–320.
Preamble: The Pope’s pastoral duty toward converts from Judaism
Alexander VII, to perpetual memory of the matter.
§1. Acting as — though unworthy — the vicar on earth of the eternal Word, which was made flesh and dwelt among us that it might enlighten every man coming into this world, we consider it our duty to provide with paternal care for the advantage and welfare of the neophytes and catechumens of this our beloved City, who, by the mercy of God, have emerged from the darkness of Jewish blindness (iudaicae coecitatis) and acknowledged the light of the true faith; and to remove, as far as is granted to us from on high, the obstacles that might stand in the way of the conversion of other Jews.
The problem: the Jewish community is conspiring to leave ghetto apartments vacant to defraud converts of their gazagà rights
§2. Since therefore, as we have been informed, upon certain houses situated within the enclosure of the ghetto of the Jews residing in the same City — which cannot be leased to persons other than Jews — the neophytes and catechumens aforesaid are found to hold a certain right of tenancy called de gazagà among them, which private Jews may hold, and which, when they are converted to the Christian faith, they may retain, and the usefulness of which consists in the leasing of those houses, or in those houses being leased:
the said Jews, or some of them, out of their perverse hatred toward those neophytes and catechumens, not only refuse to rent the said houses so as to defraud those neophytes and catechumens of the benefit and usefulness of the said ius de gazagà, but also through tacit collusion with the others arrange that those same houses remain without a tenant — pursuing through this fraud as well the goal of deterring others from embracing the Christian faith.
Alexander VII’s remedy: the corporate Jewish community must pay the rent equivalent
Therefore, wishing to provide for the indemnity of the neophytes and catechumens and to repress the malice of the aforesaid Jews — acting by our own motion, and from our certain knowledge, and from the fullness of apostolic power — we by the tenor of the present letters perpetually establish, will, and command that the community (universitas) of Jews residing in the City is obligated and held to pay to Jews converted to the Christian faith, now and at any time whatsoever hereafter — both neophytes and catechumens — the said right of tenancy or de gazagà which those neophytes or catechumens hold, or shall for the time being have held, over houses situated within the enclosure of the aforesaid ghetto; as often as, and for as long as, those houses shall not be leased — and to be compellable and compelled thereto by appropriate remedies of law and of fact, summarily, simply and plainly, without the form and din of a trial, and the sole truth of the fact being inspected, with every appeal removed.
§3. Decreeing the present letters — even from the fact that the aforesaid Jews were not cited, called, and heard on the foregoing, and did not consent to them — to be incapable at any time of ever being noted, impugned, rescinded, retracted, or revoked to the path and terms of law; or of any remedy of law or of fact being obtained against them; but to exist and to be always firm, valid, and effective.
§4. Notwithstanding our rule and that of the Apostolic Chancery of not taking away acquired rights, and other apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and whatsoever statutes and customs and privileges and indults and apostolic letters to the contrary — from all of which we specially and expressly derogate.
Given at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, December 1, 1657, in the third year of our pontificate.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVI, pp. 319–320. Alexander VII, Constitution CLXXXII, Statuit universitatem iudaeorum in Urbe commorantium iudaeis ad fidem christianam conversis ius gazagà eis competens super domibus intra septa ghetti eorumdem Iudaeorum constituis solvere teneri, quamdiu domus huiusmodi non erunt locatae, December 1, 1657. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note. The ius gazagà (also spelled chazakah in Hebrew) was a right of quasi-ownership over a rented dwelling recognized in Jewish law (halakha) and, by the seventeenth century, incorporated into the specific legal customs governing the Roman ghetto. Under this right, a Jew who rented an apartment within the ghetto acquired a form of perpetual occupancy — a kind of protected tenancy — that could not be revoked by the Christian landlord so long as the tenant paid the fixed rent. Crucially, this right could be sold, inherited, or transferred: it had real economic value independent of actual occupation. When a ghetto resident converted to Christianity and became a neophyte, they departed the ghetto (converts were not permitted to continue living there), but they could retain ownership of their ius gazagà over their former apartment — and could collect the economic benefit if that apartment was then leased to another Jew.
The problem Alexander VII addresses is an alleged coordinated response by the Roman Jewish community to this arrangement. The converts claimed — and the Pope accepted — that the community was deliberately leaving apartments that came free through conversion vacant rather than renting them to new tenants, in order to deny the converts any rental income from their retained gazagà rights. The Pope characterizes this as both a financial fraud against the converts and a deliberate deterrent to further conversions: if a Jew knew that converting would deprive them of their gazagà income through communal collusion, they would be less likely to convert.
Alexander VII’s solution is legally creative and administratively aggressive. Rather than ordering the community to rent the specific apartments — which might be difficult to enforce apartment by apartment — he makes the corporate universitas iudaeorum directly liable for the lost rental income: the community must pay the neophytes and catechumens whatever the equivalent rent would have been, for as long as the apartments remain vacant. This converts an in-kind obligation (occupying and paying rent on the apartment) into a cash obligation borne by the community as a whole. The enforcement mechanism strips away all procedural protections: no trial, no appeal, summary execution only.
The theological framing — converts emerging from “the darkness of Jewish blindness” — is standard Counter-Reformation language. More interesting is the implication that the Jewish community’s resistance to conversions was active and organized. The Pope presents this not as individual recalcitrance but as institutional strategy, coordinated through “tacit collusion” (per tacilas conventiones) across the community. Whether this accurately characterizes what was happening in the ghetto or is a piece of prosecutorial framing is impossible to determine from the document alone.
II. Pope Alexander VII — Quod Iudaei Solvere Teneantur Pensiones Domorum Illocatarum Ghetti Pro Tempore, Quo Illae Non Erunt Locatae: That Jews Are Obligated to Pay the Rents of Unleased Ghetto Houses for the Period During Which Those Houses Shall Not Be Leased (November 15, 1658)
Constitution CCXV. Alexander VII, year IV. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, November 15, 1658, pontificate year IV. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVI, pp. 407–409.
The Taurinensis editors’ footnote to this constitution cross-references both Urban VIII’s 1635 constitution on feeding imprisoned Jews (Vol. XIV) and Alexander VII’s own preceding constitution CLXXXII. The editors note another Alexander VII constitution on the same topic at p. 319 of the same volume — confirming these two documents form a deliberate legislative pair.
Background: Clement VIII’s indult and its abuse
Alexander VII, to perpetual memory of the matter.
We gladly attend to those things by which the conveniences and utilities of any of the faithful — and especially the inhabitants of this our beloved City — are opportunely provided for, and we favourably interpose the authority of our office in their regard, as we perceive to be consonant with reason and equity.
§1. Since therefore the happy-memory Clement VIII, our predecessor, had granted to the community (universitas) of Jews of the same City, among other things, that they could not be expelled from the houses within the enclosure of the ghetto of those same Jews which they for the time being inhabited, on any pretext whatsoever, nor could the rents of those houses, which they were then paying, be increased:
as we have been informed, the said Jews, by virtue of this privilege or indult, sell those houses among themselves without the consent of their owners, often with confusion of their interior divisions, and make dowry contracts and other contracts and mortgages upon them of which one cannot be informed — whereby the rents of those houses are rendered more difficult of exaction for their owners — and moreover they sublet the said houses to other Jews and introduce into them many more tenants, so that they draw from them a much greater rent than they themselves pay; and they inhabit those houses so badly that the owners are frequently forced to their restoration; and conversely they claim to be able to vacate those houses at their own pleasure, and in fact very many of them have remained unleased for many years, a prohibition having gone forth among themselves that none of them shall rent a house vacated by another Jew:
and since no other means can stand in the way of these frauds than by way of law and litigation, which for that reason must be sustained day by day with great inconvenience and expense by the owners of those houses, among whom many pious places are to be found:
Alexander VII’s remedy: the Jewish community is liable for rent on all vacant ghetto houses
§2. Hence it is that we, wishing to repress the malice of the aforesaid Jews in this matter by an appropriate remedy — acting by our own motion, and from our certain knowledge, and from the fullness of apostolic power — by the tenor of the present letters we perpetually establish, will, and ordain that the community (universitas) of Jews residing in the aforesaid City is obligated and held to pay to whatsoever Christian owners of houses situated in the same ghetto — now and at any time hereafter when those houses shall be unleased — the customary rents for the period during which those houses shall not be leased, just as if those houses were leased to individual Jews; and to be compellable and compelled thereto by appropriate remedies of law and of fact, summarily, simply and plainly, without the form and din of a trial, and the sole truth of the fact being inspected, with every appeal removed.
§3. Decreeing the present letters — even from the fact that the aforesaid Jews were not cited and heard on the foregoing and did not consent to them — to be incapable at any time of ever being noted, impugned, rescinded, retracted, or revoked; or of any remedy of law or of fact being obtained against them; but to exist and to be always firm, valid, and effective, and to be of fullest benefit to those to whom they pertain and shall pertain for the time being.
§4. Notwithstanding our rule and that of the Apostolic Chancery of not taking away acquired rights, and other constitutions and ordinances, and whatsoever statutes and customs and privileges and indults and apostolic letters to the contrary — from all of which we specially and expressly derogate.
Given at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, November 15, 1658, in the fourth year of our pontificate.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XVI, pp. 407–409. Alexander VII, Constitution CCXV, Quod Iudaei solvere teneantur pensiones domorum illocatarum ghetti pro tempore, quo illae non erunt locatae, November 15, 1658. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note. This constitution is the broader legislative sequel to CLXXXII. Where CLXXXII addressed the specific problem of ghetto apartments becoming vacant through the conversion of their tenants, CCXV addresses the general problem of ghetto apartments becoming vacant for any reason — whether through conversion, voluntary abandonment, or coordinated collusion.
The central legal grievance narrated in §1 is a striking picture of ghetto property relations in mid-seventeenth century Rome. Clement VIII’s earlier indult — which had protected Jews from eviction and rent increases — was, the Pope now claims, being systematically exploited. The Jewish community was allegedly: (1) buying and selling tenancy rights among themselves without the knowledge of the Christian landlords; (2) subletting to other Jews at higher rents than they themselves paid, capturing the arbitrage; (3) maintaining apartments poorly so that landlords bore the costs of upkeep; and (4) — the key allegation — organizing a collective agreement not to rent apartments vacated by other community members, leaving many apartments chronically vacant while the landlords received no income.
This last point is the heart of the document. The allegation of a communal ban on renting vacant apartments (emanata inter ipsos prohibitione, ne eorum ullus domum ab alio iudaeo dimissam conducat) represents the Jewish community as having turned its own internal solidarity against the property rights of Christian landlords — a form of collective action that Alexander VII treats as a form of “malice” to be repressed.
Alexander VII’s solution mirrors CLXXXII exactly in structure: he makes the corporate universitas iudaeorum — the community as a legal entity — directly liable for unpaid rents on any vacant ghetto apartment, payable to the Christian owners at the standard rate as if the apartment were occupied. This effectively creates a guarantee mechanism: whatever tactics individual Jews might use to avoid paying rent, or whatever internal coordination reduced demand, the community as a whole remained responsible. For the landlords — who, as the Pope notes, included many pious establishments (loca pia) — this was a substantial benefit, converting uncertain individual rents into a guaranteed corporate obligation.
The legal formulation — “even from the fact that the aforesaid Jews were not cited and heard” — is notable. It means the affected community had no voice in the proceeding, no opportunity to contest the factual allegations, and no avenue of appeal against the decree. The Pope acknowledges this procedural anomaly explicitly, and the decree’s validity is made expressly independent of it. This was standard practice for camerial and motu proprio legislation, but its application to a decree imposing collective financial liability on an entire community — one that had no standing before the court that ruled against it — is worth marking.
Together, CLXXXII and CCXV represent Alexander VII’s only legislative interventions concerning the Roman Jewish community during his twelve-year pontificate. Both arise from the same underlying property dispute and both use the same legal instrument — collective corporate liability imposed on the universitas iudaeorum without hearing. Neither document touches on theology, conversion pressure, Talmud, synagogues, or any of the substantive religious concerns that dominated earlier volumes of this series. They are, from beginning to end, property law — the papacy acting as the sovereign government of a city, adjudicating a landlord-tenant dispute in which the corporate body of its Jewish subjects happened to stand on the tenant side.