Economics of conversion

About: Isabelle Poutrin, Les convertis du pape. Une famille de banquiers juifs à Rome au XVIe siècle, Seuil

Through her examination of the lives of baptized Sephardic bankers Salamone and Lazzaro Corcos—who became Ugo and Gregorio Boncompagni—and their extended family of sons, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren, Isabelle Poutrin offers an original and fresh perspective on voluntary and forced conversions, exploring their economic dimensions between the pursuit of advantages and family drawbacks.

Poutrin’s book richly reconstructs Baroque Rome’s society, painting a vivid, nuanced picture of its complex social fabric. She skillfully brings a diverse array of characters to life, capturing not only their personal journeys but also the broader socio-political and religious forces that influenced their everyday experiences.

The Historian’s Craft

As the author writes in the book, archival research takes time. Sometimes years. Even decades. Either in Latin or Italian, the legal sources analyzed by the author are anything but easy to read, interpret and select, especially given the lengthy trials that often stretched across years or even generations, during which popes, judges, notaries, and litigants came and went (or disappeared from the records).

The rich and intricate documentation from the Tribunal of the Roman Rota and the Roman notaries—alongside many other sources consulted by Poutrin over five years—captures the complicated and often contentious relationships between converts, their Jewish relatives, former community members, and the broader Roman Catholic society. This documentation reflects ongoing disputes over property and finances and reveals the complex web of relations among these groups. Using a micro-historical approach, Poutrin situates the stories of one family within the vivid landscape of papal Rome. She brings to life a richly detailed setting: solemn churches, St. Peter’s Basilica, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Oratory of the Vallicella, the House of Catechumens where converts were instructed, as well as the lively streets, bustling squares, Tiber riverside, and noble residences of the Parione district, all near the shadowed yet permeable borders of the Jewish ghetto.

The Church of St. Maria ai Monti and the College of Neophytes and Catechumens from Giuseppe Vasi, Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna. Libro nono che contiene i collegj, spedali, e luoghi pii, Rome, Niccolò e Marco Pagliarini, 1759.

[from Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/dr_collegio-di-neofiti-g-vasi-dis-ed-inc-169-to-accompany-delle-magnif-13008588]

The Many Paths to Conversion

The book is structured into eleven chapters, each chronicling successive waves of conversions within the Corcos family. It opens in medias res with a dispute over a wager between Elia di Salomone Corcos and the Genoese Cesare Zattera, setting the stage for the volume. As the author emphasizes, and as other studies on early modern Roman gambling traditions confirm, Romans were enthusiastic about betting on nearly everything—especially on papal elections and the creation of new cardinals. Despite the severe restrictions of the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum (1555)—which barred Jews from conversing or interacting with Christians and enforced strict spatial segregation in the ghetto—Jews could still place wagers in the Banchi district, located between the ghetto and St. Peter’s Basilica.

Elia Corcos was no ordinary figure; a wealthy Sephardic banker with powerful connections among inquisitors and cardinals, he had a taste for high-stakes betting—even going so far as to stake his potential conversion. His conversion in 1566 stemmed from a daring bet with Cardinal Michele Ghislieri: Corcos vowed he would convert to Christianity if Ghislieri ever became pope, saying, “I’ll become a Christian when I see you as pope.” When Ghislieri unexpectedly ascended to the papacy as Pius V in January 1566, Corcos honored his wager and was baptized under the name Michele Ghislieri in June of that year.

After a grand baptismal ceremony officiated by the pope himself, Elia—the Corcos family’s first “trophy convert”—was welcomed into the papal family, granted Roman citizenship, and showered with privileges, including a knighthood for himself and his children, alongside the many benefits previously established by the bull Cupientes Judaeos (1542). Through the story of the Corcos family, Poutrin dispels a “persistent prejudice” that “poor people change religions for material reasons, while wealthier or more educated individuals are drawn by spiritual, moral, or even political motives, which are, of course, considered more noble” (p. 55). Moving beyond idealized portrayals of converts as pious souls enlightened by Catholic faith, the author instead highlights the concrete privileges baptism brought to converts, examining their attempts to balance their connections with their families of origin while distancing themselves from the “Jewish stain” on their identity.

Hebrew and Latin inscription on the façade of the Church of St. Gregorio della Divina Pietà in the Jewish neighborhood, featured the verses of Isaiah 65:2-3 referring to the Jews: “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, that walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; A people that provoke me to my face continually.”

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gregorio_della_Divina_Piet%C3%A0#/media/File:Inschrift_San_Gregorio_della_Divina_Piet%C3%A0.JPG ]

The tireless efforts of Filippo Neri and of the Congregation of the Oratorians he founded in 1551, who employed gentle, persuasive methods, and later the introduction of stricter, mandatory sermons directed at the Jewish community under Gregory XIII, created an environment of persistent influence. Further adding to this atmosphere, recent converts served papal propaganda by encouraging others to follow their path, intensifying the persuasive environment. This blend of dedicated missionary work, compulsory preaching, and pressure from new converts ultimately led to the conversion of additional members of the Corcos family, who found themselves gradually drawn in by both social and spiritual forces.

External events such as the typhus outbreak in 1591 further accelerated the abduction and conversion of children through coercion and violence. Left fatherless, Ugo Boncompagni’s four nephews were taken from their home in 1592 and baptized against both their own will and that of their mother, Gemma, who herself was later baptized. Another prominent case of the kidnapping and forced baptism of children invitus parentibus (“against the will of parents”) is that of Devorà Corcos, which serves as a powerful example of one of the significant contributions of Poutrin’s book.

Mothers and Daughters, Sisters and Nieces

Although the book is not intended to be “a study of the subjective experience of religious conversion” (p. 53) due to the limited detail on personal perspectives in these archival records, Poutrin nevertheless captures the emotional landscape of those pressured to convert as well as that of the mothers who saw their children taken away to be baptized: fear, inner conflict, anxiety, despair, and sorrow, but also resistance.

All these sentiments must have been in the heart of Devorà, daughter of Ugo and sister of Gregorio Boncompagni, when, in 1604, she and her four children were taken to the House of Catechumens. After a desperate yet futile attempt to save at least her youngest son from baptism, she ultimately chose not to convert herself to follow her children. Through meticulous archival research, Isabelle Poutrin identified this woman as the renowned poet Deborah Ascarelli, likely the first Jewish woman to have her own work published.

Title page of Me’on ha-Shoalim (“Abode of the Supplicants”), a liturgical poem by Moshe da Rieti, translated from Hebrew into Italian by Devorà Ascarelli (with the title L’abitacolo degli oranti), printed by Daniel Zanetti in Venice in 1601-02.

[Source: Central Jewish Library (Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyczna) website: https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/88804/1/]

Unlike Devorà, many other women in the family lacked the means or support to resist; some surrendered out of despair or due to financial hardship. Lacking comparable social or economic leverage to men, women were often subject to the decisions and control of male relatives and authorities, rendering them particularly vulnerable to coercion and manipulation. The book highlights how women, caught in the crossfire of family disputes between neophytes and their Jewish relatives, were frequently at the center of conflicts over dowries, inheritance, and guardianship rights. These disputes often placed immense pressure on women, as they represented crucial links between family assets and lineage continuity. Consequently, women became focal points in these struggles, their fates intertwined with the shifting loyalties and complex legal battles that marked the era.

Even after conversion, however, their position did not always improve. While conversion carried a heavy cost for men—requiring them to sever family and social ties, leave behind their homes and familiar belongings, and often lose their professional skills or status as they sought to establish themselves in a new environment—the Corcos women frequently paid an even higher price. For these women, conversion not only shattered their personal and social networks but also left them especially vulnerable, often dependent on the charity of wealthy relatives or church institutions to secure a modest dowry or simply survive outside the ghetto. In contrast, the assets and connections held by the first banker-neophytes enabled them to negotiate more favorable terms, gain a high level of autonomy, and navigate the challenges of their new identities with relatively greater security and agency.

In sum, Poutrin’s analysis illuminates the complex interplay of political, religious, and cultural forces that shaped conversions in papal Rome, revealing the ambitions, conflicts, and power dynamics underlying these transformative acts. Les Convertis du pape stands out as a remarkable work of historical scholarship, combining painstaking archival research with empathetic, nuanced storytelling. Rich in detail, this study is further enriched by extensive genealogical trees of the Corcos family, which assist readers in identifying converts by both their Jewish and Christian names, while exploring the intricate relationships among family members. Poutrin’s work is not only an essential contribution to the study of Jewish conversions to Catholicism but also a vital exploration of papacy and the sixteenth-century Catholic Church propaganda, providing a layered understanding of identity, power, and faith in this complex era.