Dai privilegi all’uguaglianza, andata e ritorno. Le «Università israelitiche» toscane e l’effimera emancipazione quarantottesca (1847-1852)

This article tries to retrace and analyse the role played by the governing bodies of the Tuscan Jewish communities, called the Tuscan Università israelitiche, and by their leaders, in order to promote, obtain and later defend the cause of Jewish emancipation in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. After an overview of the scattered journalistic debate in favour of Jewish emancipation, which took place in Tuscany in the second half of 1847, the article studies the various initiatives and attitudes taken by the Università israelitiche of Livorno and Florence in the crucial 1847-48 period, exploiting mainly the quite completely unexplored documents of the Tuscan Jewish community archives. In this way, a lively picture is obtained of contrasts and rivalries within and among the Jewish communities, of generational criticism against Jewish governmental organs, of conflicting interests. From archivistic documents, a latent tension also emerges between the strongly desired emancipation and the privileged condition of the past, which offers us the image of a Tuscan Jewry not fully unanimous and compact on the difficult road to emancipation.