See L. A. Warnkönig, Flandrische Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte bis 1305 (3 vols., Tübingen, 1835-1842), and Gueldorf, Hist. de Gand, translated from Warnkönig, with corrections and additions (Brussels, 1846); F. de Potter, Gent van den oudsten tijd tot heden (6 vols., Ghent, 1883-1891); Van Duyse, Gand monumental et pittoresque (Brussels, 1886); de Vlaminck, Les Origines de la ville de Gand (Brussels, 1891); Annales Gandenses, ed. G. Funck-Brentano (Paris, 1895); Vuylsteke, Oorkondenboek der stad Gent (Ghent, 1900, &c.); Karl Hegel, Städte und Gilden (Leipzig, 1891), vol. ii. p. 175, where further authorities are cited. For a comprehensive bibliography, including monographs and published documents, see Ulysse Chevalier, Répertoire des sources hist. Topo-bibliogr., s.v. “Gand.”
[1] Bavo, or Allowin (c. 589-c. 653), patron saint of Ghent, was a nobleman converted by St Amandus, the apostle of Flanders. He lived first as an anchorite in the forest of Mendonk, and afterwards in the monastery founded with his assistance by Amandus at Ghent.
GHETTO, formerly the street or quarter of a city in which Jews were compelled to live, enclosed by walls and gates which were locked each night. The term is now used loosely of any locality in a city or country where Jews congregate. The derivation of the word is doubtful. In documents of the 11th century the Jew-quarters in Venice and Salerno are styled “Judaca” or “Judacaria.” At Capua in 1375 there was a place called San Nicolo ad Judaicam, and later elsewhere a quarter San Martino ad Judaicam. Hence it has been suggested Judaicam became Italian Giudeica and thence became corrupted into ghetto. Another theory traces it to “gietto,” the common foundry at Venice near which was the first Jews’ quarters of that city. More probably the word is an abbreviation of Italian borghetto diminutive of borgo a “borough.”
The earliest regular ghettos were established in Italy in the 11th century, though Prague is said to have had one in the previous century. The ghetto at Rome was instituted by Paul IV. in 1556. It lay between the Via del Pianto and Ponte del Quattro Capi, and comprised a few narrow and filthy streets. It lay so low that it was yearly flooded by the Tiber. The Jews had to sue annually for permission to live there, and paid a yearly tax for the privilege. This formality and tax survived till 1850. During three centuries there were constant changes in the oppressive regulations imposed upon the Jews by the popes. In 1814 Pius VII. allowed a few Jews to live outside the ghetto, and in 1847 Pius IX. decided to destroy the gates and walls, but public opinion hindered him from carrying out his plans. In 1870 the Jews petitioned Pius IX. to abolish the ghetto; but it was to Victor Emmanuel that this reform was finally due. The walls remained until 1885.
During the middle ages the Jews were forbidden to leave the ghetto after sunset when the gates were locked, and they were also imprisoned on Sundays and all Christian holy days. Where the ghetto was too small for the carrying on of their trades, a site beyond its wall was granted them as a market, e.g. the Jewish Tandelmarkt at Prague. Within their ghettos the Jews were left much to their own devices, and the more important ghettos, such as that at Prague, formed cities within cities, having their own town halls and civic officials, hospitals, schools and rabbinical courts. Fires were common in ghettos and, owing to the narrowness of the streets, generally very destructive, especially as from fear of plunder the Jews themselves closed their gates on such occasions and refused assistance. On the 14th of June 1711 a fire, the largest ever known in Germany, destroyed within twenty-four hours the ghetto at Frankfort-on-Main. Other notable ghetto fires are that of Bari in 1030 and Nikolsburg in 1719. The Jews were frequently expelled from their ghettos, the most notable expulsions being those of Vienna (1670) and Prague (1744-1745). This latter exile was during the war of the Austrian Succession, when Maria Theresa, on the ground that “they were fallen into disgrace,” ordered Jews to leave Bohemia. The empress was, however, induced by the protests of the powers, especially of England and Holland, to revoke the decree. Meantime the Jews, ignorant of the revocation, petitioned to be allowed to return in payment of a yearly tax. This tax the Bohemian Jews paid until 1846. The most important ghettos were those at Venice, Frankfort, Prague and Trieste. By the middle of the 19th century the ghetto system was moribund, and with the disappearance of the ghetto at Rome in 1870 it became obsolete.
See D. Philipson, Old European Jewries (Philadelphia, 1894); Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1896); S. Kahn, article “Ghetto” in Jewish Encyclopedia, v. 652.
GHIBERTI, LORENZO (1378-1455), Italian sculptor, was born at Florence in 1378. He learned the trade of a goldsmith under his father Ugoccione, commonly called Cione, and his stepfather Bartoluccio; but the goldsmith’s art at that time included all varieties of plastic arts, and required from those who devoted themselves to its higher branches a general and profound knowledge of design and colouring. In the early stage of his artistic career Ghiberti was best known as a painter in fresco, and when Florence was visited by the plague he repaired to Rimini, where he executed a highly prized fresco in the palace of the sovereign Pandolfo Malatesta. He was recalled from Rimini to his native city by the urgent entreaties of his stepfather Bartoluccio, who informed him that a competition was to be opened for designs of a second bronze gate in the baptistery, and that he would do wisely to return to Florence and take part in this great artistic contest. The subject for the artists was the sacrifice of Isaac; and the competitors were required to observe in their work a certain conformity to the first bronze gate of the baptistery, executed by Andrea Pisano about 100 years previously. Of the six designs presented by different Italian artists, those of Donatello, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti were pronounced the best, and of the three Brunelleschi’s and Ghiberti’s superior to the third, and of such equal merit that the thirty-four judges with whom the decision was left entrusted the execution of the work to the joint labour of the two friends. Brunelleschi, however, withdrew from the contest. The first of his two bronze gates for the baptistery occupied Ghiberti twenty years.