Hidden secrets

IN 1516, when the Venetian authorities ordered the city’s Jews into an area near a foundry, they gave them just 48 hours to move. They also forced them to pay their new landlords 30% more rent than the outgoing Christian tenants. A Venetian word meaning “foundry” may have given rise to the term “ghetto”, which over the years has taken on wholly negative connotations. The 500th anniversary of that fateful event scarcely invites celebration. Yet it has inspired in Venice itself several intriguing, and controversial, initiatives of which the highlight is an exhibition opening at the Doge’s Palace on June 19th.