The first permanent presence of Jewish people in the city is dated to the 12th century. It was not till the 13th century, by which time Jews were fully accepted at the University, that this community also took on the previous roles of the Florentines as money-lenders and dealers in used goods. The economic development of the city under the Carraresi made the city a gathering and meeting point for Jews from various locations and nations. The first settlement was in the Ponte San Leonardo zone and the Savonarola borgo, but by the first years of the 1400s the community moved to districts that were more central, closer to commercial activities and the University. After the War of the League of Cambria, the Italian, Spanish and German Jews concentrated at the present location of the Ghetto, behind Piazza delle Erbe. Their pawn stalls were spread throughout the city, from the Altinate Gate to Via Roma, Via dei Fabbri and Piaaza delle Legne (now Piazza Cavour). To the Carraresi, they were always welcome. The plague of 1382-83 the old Jewish cemetery with the corpses of the victims, and Francesco the Elder then awarded permission to 'Vitale, Abramo and Guglielmo', acting in the names of their fellow- Jews, to buy a piece of land in the San Leonardo quarter, to serve as a cemetery - abrogating the law that banned burials by non-citizens. The oldest of the seven Jewish cemeteries in Padua are the ones situated in the Borgese area. These contain the burials of numerous important personages in the history of the European Jewish community. The name of this area may derive from the development of the Jewish borgo at the foot of the city (burgense) walls.
To the south of the Piazza delle Erbe it winds a labytinth of narrow streets that creates the Jewish Ghetto, operating since 1603 and abolished in 1797, when under the influence of the French Revolution, Jews were declared free and equal.
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