User:Yasi126/sandbox

Subheading Test
Hello, this is my efforts to test the sandbox. Here is my link to another Wikipedia page to one of my current favorite actors. The following will be a footnote to a Wikipedia-generated footnote & reference list, specifically to the Oxford Bible we are reading in class.

Conversos by Country
=== Conversos in Italy === Specific groups of conversos left Spain and Portugal after the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, in search for better life. They left to different parts of Europe, specifically Italy, where they were inevitably looked at with suspicion and harassment, both in their old and new communities. Subsequently, many conversos who arrived in Italian cities did not openly embrace their Judaism, since they were tempted by the advantages they could seek in the Christian world.

The first three cities to accept the conversos who openly converted back to Judaism, were in Florence, Ferrara and Ancona. Most of these conversos appeared after 1536 from Portugal, and most lived in Florence. In 1549, Duke Cosimo de Medici allowed the Portuguese conversos to trade and reside within Florence. Most of the re-converted Jews lived in the ghetto of Florence, and by 1705 there were 453 Jews in the city.

Conversos arrived to Ferrara in 1535, and were able to assimilate with their neighbors, perform circumcisions, and return openly to Judaism, due to the Lettres Patentes issued by Duke Ercole II. After the plague in 1505 and the eventual fall of Ferrara in 1551, many of these Jews relocated North towards the economically stable ports in Venice. Venice slowly became a center for conversos who either stopped temporarily on their way to Turkey, or stayed permanently as residents in the ghetto Jewish community port. Venetian leaders were convinced to openly accept conversos to practice Judaism, because they recognized that if conversos were not welcome in Venice, they would take their successful trades to the country’s economic rival of Turkey. A Portuguese converso in Venice, named Abraham de Almeda, connected strongly with Christianity, however, turned to the Jewish members of his family when in need for financial for moral support. As a result, many of the conversos during this period struggled with their Christian and Jewish identities.

Conversos in the city of Ancona faced difficult lives living under the pope, and eventually fled to Ferrara in 1555. Portuguese conversos in Ancona were falsely misled that they were welcome to Ancona and that they could openly convert back to Judaism. Their fate was overturned by the succeeding pope, Pope Paul IV. The conversos in Ancona faced traumatic emotional damage after the pope imprisoned 102 conversos who refused to reside in the ghetto and wear badges to distinguish themselves. In 1588, when the duke granted a charter of residence in return for the conversos building up the city’s economy, they refused, due to accumulated skepticism.