Of Average Height: From the Representation to the Normalcy of the Jews of Early Modern Florence

This paper compares recent studies of the image of the Jew in Renaissance Italian and northern European art with representations of Jews found in Italian archival documentary sources. The sources I use exhibit a way of “seeing” that I relate to the secular, bureaucratic culture of late sixteenth century Florence, one that exists side by side with the perspective taken by church activists for Catholic Reform. Early modern interest in physiognomy and racial characteristics of ethnic groups does not appear to extend itself to the Jews of Tuscany. This paper contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion that examines the quotidian relationship of Jews and Christians in the late medieval and early modern world. I take the position that in the very era of the enforcement of the badge, of ghettoization, and of an intensified focus on their conversion, Italian Jews could also be seen by Christians as ordinary, average, and indeed “normal” people. In teaching and in scholarship, the idea of the "Image of the Jews" in the pre-modern world must be attenuated, differentiated to reflect the various perspectives of Christians who inhabited different social roles and saw with correspondingly different eyes.