‘The Sympathies of All Good Men’: Philosemitism from the Mortara Affair of 1858–9 to Romanian Persecution in the 1870s

Abstract

As an infant Edgardo Mortara (born 1851), son of a Jewish lace merchant at Bologna in the Papal States, fell ill. His family’s teenaged Catholic servant girl, fearing that he would die and his soul be damned, secretly baptized him. Although she was a lay person her action was valid in canon law, but since the boy recovered she kept her deed to herself. However, in 1858 one of Edgardo’s young brothers died before the girl had a chance to repeat her action. Upset, she confided everything to a neighbour, who informed a priest. He, in turn, notified the Archbishop of Bologna who, without attempting to ascertain the veracity of the girl’s claim, had Edgardo removed from home by gendarmes on the evening of 24 June and taken to a hostel for converts in Rome.¹