THE GHETTO,
or Jews' Quarter. The word "Ghetto" comes from the Hebrew word chat, broken or dispersed. The Jews first settled here in the time of Pompey the Great; but it was not till 1556 that the Ghetto was enclosed by Pope Paul IV. putting gates across the streets. The Jews were not allowed to be out after sunset or before sunrise, and he compelled the men to wear yellow hats and the women yellow veils. The old inhabitants, who were not Jews, were turned out, and obliged to give up their houses to the Jews on perpetual copy-hold leases, which are handed down in the families to the present day. Pius IX. abolished the gates, but it was not till the Italian troops entered Rome that the Jews obtained full liberty like their fellow-citizens. The lower part of the houses in the Ghetto are of Roman construction, and there is very little accumulation of soil there. There are about four thousand Jews in Rome, and notwithstanding the closeness with which they are packed and the dirt in which they live, the district is entirely free from fever.
Proceeding along the Via Rua, we enter the Piazza di S. Maria del Pianto, the Square of Tears. On the right are several old Roman houses, with the upper part rebuilt, and the following medieval inscription, put up in the two thousand two hundred and twenty-first year of Rome, recording that here was the Forum Judæorum:—
VRBE . ROMA . INPRISTINAM . FORMA ENASCENTE . LAVR . MANLIVS . RARITAE . ERC . A . PATRI EDIS SV . NOMNE . MAN II AN . AS . PRO PORT AR . MEDIOCRITAE . AD . FOR . IVDEOR SIBI . POSTERISQ . AB . VRB . CON . M. M. CCXXI . L. AN . M. III . D. PRI . CAL. AVG.
A short alley on the left leads to the Piazza Scuole. On the right is