An Italian holiday, but Jewish: Tracing the footsteps of ancient Jews in Rome, Florence and Tuscany

Marco Misano brings tour groups to Rome's Great Synagogue[Missing Credit]

It is a rare Art Deco jewel, completed in 1904 – shortly after Jews were granted citizenship in the wake of Italian unification – and resplendent with Roman, Egyptian and Greek influences. Towering columns bear the weight of a high ceiling, painted with rainbows and palms, a monument to Jewish endurance and liberation. 

But bullet holes still pepper the building’s walls. Marco, whose bar mitzvah was here, remembers the day in 1982 when Palestinian gunmen opened fire outside the synagogue, killing a two-year-old boy, and he says that trauma continues to linger in the community.

Four years later, Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit a synagogue after centuries of church-imposed restrictions, and nowadays the shul’s adjoining Jewish Museum gives testimony to this painful past; paintings show forced baptisms and other exhibits recount the Holocaust, when more than 1,000 Jews were deported from the Roman ghetto. Only 15 men and one woman survived.

Work to built Rome's Great Synagogue began in 1901[Missing Credit]

Today, the city is home to some 16 synagogues. If you’re in town on Shabbat and want to attend a service, be sure to contact the community in advance as security here is tight.

After his tour Marco led us to Casalino Osteria Kosher, a family-run restaurant just a stone’s throw from the synagogue. On the shaded terrace, we devoured carciofi alla giudia – whole artichokes double-fried until crisp and golden – an unctuous dish cooked in Roman Jewish kitchens since the 16th century, and which Marco says is completely original to the Roman community. 

All around us on a Friday afternoon, the ghetto thrummed with life: Chabad offered to lay tefillin as schoolchildren spilled out of the Jewish high school and their parents grabbed fresh challot from the local bakery, Boccione, where we nipped in for a slice of the community’s signature ricotta and cherry cheesecake. Legend has it that the burnt crust concealing the cake’s creamy filling is a clever workaround to historical papal bans on Jews selling dairy. A sweet silver lining to discriminatory laws, if you like.

From there, we wandered along the bank of the Tiber River to the Roseto Comunale, Rome’s municipal rose garden, where lines of flowering beds overlook the city in a geometric pattern between bright green lawns.

There is a thorny history to the city's rose garden[Missing Credit]

But the ground beneath them carries a troubling story: before Mussolini’s regime appropriated the land and transformed it into a competition garden, it had been a Jewish cemetery site for centuries. Thousands of bodies were exhumed in the transition, but others remain buried beneath the manicured grass.  

Today, the paths and flowerbeds are designed to form the shape of a menorah, supposedly in homage to the site’s Jewish origins, and there’s a plaque inscribed with the Ten Commandments where Jewish visitors place stones in remembrance of those still interred below.

From the park, we walked uphill until we reached the Giardino degli Aranci, a breezy orange grove with sweeping views onto the domes, ruins and rooftops of Rome. A busker played softly beneath the trees as we strolled into the nearby Church of Santa Sabina, marvelling at its sixth-century wooden doors and austere mosaics.

That night, we dined at Trattoria Pennestri, a lively local spot in the Testaccio district recommended by a friend. Locals pack the place, and we gobbled down bowls of cacio e pepe at marvellously low prices. In London, we’d have paid triple for pasta half as good.

By nightfall we’d clocked 30,000 steps and opted to take the metro back to our temporary homestead, the four-star Grand Hotel Palatino, in the heart of the ancient centre of Rome. We were lucky enough to be in the suite, which offers plush beds, a private balcony with a view over the city, the most enormous bathtub I’ve ever seen and glorious silence from the hustle and bustle on the cobbled streets below. Breakfast was an all-you-can-eat buffet, and I tucked into fruit, cheese, local honeycomb and a smoothie from the fresh juice bar.

The Grand Hotel Palatino is in the centre of Rome, perfectly situated for the main historical sites (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

After eating like emperors, we headed for more history. We had pre-booked the Colosseum (a necessity in peak season) and I can safely say it took our breath away. Yes, the crowds are vast, but the building can easily hold everyone – that is, after all, what it was built for. In the shade of the Colosseum’s arches, I felt like an extra in Gladiator, imagining the roar of 50,000 spectators.

Marco had prepped us for the Jewish history of the site, so we knew that many Roman Jews who arrived after the destruction of the Second Temple – the first came as traders in 161 BCE – were slaves who helped to build the Colosseum.

The famous menorah on the Arch of Titus[Missing Credit]

At the Roman Forum, we paused at the Arch of Titus to see the carved menorah looted from the Temple, a striking symbol of Jewish exile that modern Israel has since reclaimed as one of perseverance. Standing beneath it, I felt dwarfed by the enduring history of the Jewish people.

Satiated to epic proportions by Rome, we left the city in a hire car and headed north.

In the evening we arrived at Pitigliano, a town perched high on a cliff. Known as La Piccola Gerusalemme, or Little Jerusalem, in the 1800s, roughly 10 per cent of the town was Jewish. Although the community consists of just one family today, Pitigliano still has its mikveh, bakery and wine cellar – but only the bakery remains in operation. The synagogue, built in 1598, now houses a small but moving museum. The captions are basic (“This hole was for a mezuzah”), but the spirit of the place remains.

Windows from Pitigliano's Jewish quarter looked onto the Tuscan hills below[Missing Credit]

Outside, armed soldiers stand watch as tourists enter the Jewish quarter, and Palestinian flags hang from some balconies in a stark reminder that, for all Pitigliano’s postcard-perfect beauty, Jewish life in Europe is still far from straightforward.

Pitilgiano's synagogue has periodic services, but there is no weekly minyan[Missing Credit]

On the terrace overlooking the Tuscan hills, I turned to my partner and joked: “We should revive the community.” He looked at me, horrified, as though I’d proposed starting a Jewish commune and having 12 babies. We won’t, but someone should. Pitigliano’s shul is too beautiful to stand empty.

We carried on through Tuscany by car, rolling through the medieval towers of San Gimignano, the vineyards of Montepulciano and the sloping streets of Siena. At Terra di Seta, we stopped for a sip of kosher Chianti before ending our journey in Florence.

Ah, Florence. Every stone whispers of Dante and Michelangelo, but in peak summer it groans under the weight of tourists.

To escape the crowds, we stayed just outside of the city at Villa Fiesole – a leafy hilltop hotel with a garden pool, birdsong at breakfast and sweeping views down to the Duomo. This renovated historic house, parts of which date back to medieval times, offers boutique-style bedrooms and a very welcome retreat.

The pool at Hotel Villa Fiesole offered a welcome chance to relax after all the sightseeing in Florence (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

We stayed in the newer part of the house, where the rooms are sublimely comfortable; we had to tear ourselves away from the plush furnishings to venture into the scenic town of Fiesole, though the suburb is well worth a potter around, with its antiques market and lovely cafes. We didn't try the hotel’s Michelin star restaurant – it needs to be booked in advance – but the menu looked incredible.

Next to the hotel is the Unesco-listed Villa Medici, and as we tucked into a feast of local produce for breakfast on the hotel’s terrace, we half expected Machiavelli to stroll by sipping espresso.

True luxury at Hotel Villa Fiesole (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

Well-fed and rested, we ventured into the city by bus, heading straight to the Uffizi to gawp at the Botticellis and Caravaggios. Rembrandt’s seventeenth-century masterpiece, A Rabbi, caught my eye in the semi-darkness, a welcome break from the scenes of Christianity.

We stopped off at the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s David but, as tickets were sold out, we booked a last-minute Airbnb tour instead. Our guide, unfortunately, was more interested in David’s anatomy than Michelangelo’s artistry. “He isn’t circumcised,” the guide mused, “because he’s true to nature.”

Rembrandt's 'The Rabbi' hangs in the Uffizi[Missing Credit]

An American tourist noticed my Magen David necklace and whispered, “It feels like this gallery is erasing Jewish history,” so I told her about Marco’s tour and how he explained the influence of Jewish teachings on Michelangelo. She smiled and wrote down Marco's name.

Next time, she’ll go on a Jewish holiday in Italy.

Book a tour with Marco: https://romanjews.com/

Grand Hotel Palatino in Rome: https://www.fhhotelgroup.it/en/grand-hotel-palatino-roma/index

Hotel Villa Fiesole: https://www.fhhotelgroup.it/en/hotel-villa-fiesole/index