The first Jewish cemetery in Bologna, located between the Baraccano church and the church of San Pietro Martire, was closed in 1569 after the expulsion of the Jews from the town. In order to leave no trace, their cemetery was ceded to San Pietro nuns, then completely destroyed. The four gravestones at the Medieval Museum come from this ancient site.

Particularly noteworthy is the gravestone of Shabatài Elkanàn from Rieti which is a rare example of Jewish figurative art since the rule forbidding the making of graven images has not been observed. The front, on a rusticated base, features a bust of a young man holding a scroll with an epigraph in Jewish characters. The back features a bas-relief winged head holding a poetic text in Hebrew and two sculpted winged putti decorate the sides. These stones are  important testimonies not only to the funerary art but also to the Jewish writing style of the time.
The present Jewish graveyard, established in 1869, is located at the Certosa monumental cemetery of Bologna.