Venetian Ghetto
Coordinates: 45°26′43″N 12°19′35″E / 45.44528°N 12.32639°E
The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were compelled to live under the Venetian Republic. The English word "ghetto" is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice, originating from the Venetian ghèto and Italian ghetto. The Venetian Ghetto (incidentally, the first ghetto) was instituted on 29 March 1516, though political restrictions on Jewish rights and residences existed before that date. In 1797 the French army of Italy, commanded by the 28-year-old General Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered Venice, dissolved the Venetian republic, and ended the ghetto's separation from the city. In the 19th century, the ghetto was renamed the Contrada dell'unione.
The origins of the name ghetto are disputed. The Oxford University Press etymologist Anatoly Liberman considers that all the proposed etymologies are wrong, and suggests a possible connection with German Gasse, Swedish Gata, Gothic Gatwo, meaning street. Among the theories that Liberman rejects are the following: getto (foundry), as ge- and ghe- have very different pronunciations in Italy, and the area would logically have been called "getti", foundries, in the plural; borghetto, diminutive of borgo, meaning little town, a nonspecific term; and the Hebrew word get, a divorce document, with no connection to "a place of forced separation".
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