Ashkenaz in Italy: German-Jewish Families in Cremona (first Half of the Fifteenth Century)

In this paper, I will discuss the presence of Ashkenazi Jews in the territories of the Duchy of Milan, focusing on the Jewish settlement of Cremona during the first half of the fifteenth century. When I began looking for information on the Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated towards the northern regions of Italy in the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, I found a number of documents concerning the Jews settled in Cremona in Shlomo Simonsohn’s wonderful work, The Jews in the Duchy of Milan. My own research in the State Archive of that city brought to light further notarial deeds unknown to Simonsohn, which help towards a more in-depth study of the local Jewish group.