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The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

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David I. Kertzer has written a wonderful account of a pivotal event in Italian, Jewish and Catholic history. The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara tells the story of the 1858 kidnapping of a six year old Jewish boy secretly baptized while a baby by a Catholic servant in the home. From this horrifying personal incident for this Jewish family the panorama of the story grows very large indeed, taking into account the Pope, the governments of Europe, and the forces for the unification of Italy. The author does a superb job of making all of this understandable to the reader. He also never allows the epic scope of the book to overwhelm the family as the centre of all of this controversy. The Mortaras hold a special place in this tragedy as they deserve and the lives lived by Jewish families, such as theirs, in Italy is vividly presented. It is a shocking book, yet very illuminating and well written. Highly recommended.

This is non-fiction at its best! David Kertzer deserves our applause for such professional and academic research. Using his background in anthropology and history, the author revives the all-forgotten story of the abduction by Catholic Church authorities of a 6 years old Jewish boy, in 1858, under the pretense that the child had been secretly baptized. Church authorities acted with utter contempt for Edgardo's parents, trusted on the belief that the boy would receive eternal damnation where he to remain a Jew. He was adopted by then Pope PiousIX who nurtured for the boy the affection of a father. This rather insignificant event (not unusual at that time in the Papal States) is given a pivoted historial role in the soon to come unification of the Italian states, flaming the forces behind the Risorgimento. The fact received great publicity at the time mainly due to the influence of the Rothschilds and Mr. Moses Montefiore. It's one more tale of prejudice, of abuse of power, reaching the unconceivable.

Prof. Kertzer has written an exemplary microhistory illuminating Italian Christian/Jewish relations on the eve of the Risorgimento. Kertzer's scholarship is excellent and even-handed and uses the Mortara abduction as a prism through which the geopolitics of Italian church/state relations, Christian-Jewish relations, and Italian Jewish identity come into sharp focus during the critical decade during which the Italian state was created. As a former professor of Italian history trained in History and in Anthropology (now Silicon Valley executive), I can say with a fair degree of confidence that this book should appeal equally to the specialist and the general reader. Upon finishing this lively, well-written monograph, my strongest reaction was, "this is a book that I wish I had written." Ronald F.E. Weissman Menlo Park, California

I can't help but think that millions who do not know that they are interested in the history of the Italian Risorgimento would suddenly find themselves incapable of putting this book down. David Kertzer kept my attention while helping to answer my questions regarding how a country that is predominately Roman Catholic can name streets, buildings, and piazzas after the heroes of the Risorgimento who took by force most of the lands ruled by the Pope while Pope Pius IX called upon all the faithful to oppose them. I am now closer to seeing how statues and monuments honoring Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour, and King Victor Emmanuel can share the beautiful Italian landscape with cathedrals and the Vatican.
Historical events are impossible to understand without learning of the human issues of the times in which they transpired. Such a study should not be a dry recounting of the facts when it can be, as Kertzer demonstrates, a living, breathing, gut-wrenching encounter with those who created that compelling history.
I know it's almost cliché to say that this reads like a good novel, but it's true.
The trial of Momolo Mortara rivals any of the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and it is all the more riveting in the context of the amazing events that led to it. Sherlock Holmes could not have used his powers of deduction more skillfully than Momolo's attorney used his unbiased mind to separate facts from prejudiced and selective interpretations.
I give this book my highest recommendation. I hope that THE KIDNAPPING OF EDGARDO MORTARA has been or will be translated into Italian. Perhaps a greater awareness of the past can positively influence current challenges in Italy involving the assimilation of other cultures and religious beliefs - brought on by mass immigrations in recent years.

Kertzer treats us to a very readable and lively story that includes passages rising even to the level of situation comedy and detective thriller. As an experienced author of anthropological history, the author knows his audience and craft well, and includes fascinating details of life in Italy during the 19th century.

The controversy of the Mortara child was created when Pope Pius IX steadfastly refused to return a boy that had been taken by local police from his family at the direction of the church. While the Pope held fast to ecclesiastical doctrine, diplomatic support for the Papal States collapsed worldwide and the Italian lands governed directly by the Vatican were soon swept into the unified nation of Italy.

An important theme throughout the work is the role of the newspapers in their coverage of the episode. Numerous, conflicting accounts of events appeared worldwide and precipitated the spread of the controversy into lands far removed from Italy. The temptation to exploit the controversy continued well after the unification of Italy and the death of Pius IX.

In a closing chapter we learn of an erroneous report that the child's mother had, upon her deathbed, converted from Judaism to Christianity. To see someone's life exploited for religious, monetary, or political gain should certainly raise readers' ire today even more than it did then. The report of Marianna Mortara's conversion was quickly corrected in the newspapers by a person who understood what it was to play the pawn, and about whom we still know almost nothing: Father Pio Mortara.

Rarely have i read a book that moved me as much as this one. Kertzer's account of the kidnapping of a jewish child from his family by the church is told with an eloquence and sensitivity that is truly extraordinary. This is a sad story. What could be worse than having your child stolen from you and there being absolutely nothing you can do about it. I felt a real anger that only progressed as the book went on. Kertzer brings forth the pain of Edgardo's father as he tries in vain to save his son. There is no excuse for what happened to Edgardo, but his was not a solitary or isolated story. It is important for people to know that this happened, jews, catholics, everyone. I highly reccomend this book.

Few books, fiction or non-fiction, are the satisfying read that "The Kidnapping ..." is. This book succeeds on every on level. First of all, it is an interesting story, well told with first rate writing. Secondly if you didn't know much about mid 19th century Italy (I didn't, which is why I picked up the book.) you will learn a lot. (Even if you do know a lot about that period I suspect you will learn even more.) Finally, I can't imagine reading this book without it having an effect upon your views about the Catholic Church. Lots of food for thought.

Wowie Zowie. I wish I could say as much about most books I read.

But it is even scarier because it's true.

The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortora tells the story of the taking of a Jewish child who had (maybe) been baptized by a Jewish family's Caholic servant. With intrigue that includes Church officials from the inquisition to the Pope, a famous French Emperor, and a famous Jewish philanthropist, the history reads like a work of fiction. Would that it were! This book is all the more horrifying for its truth.

Think that this horrifying story took place in the 1400's? Wrong. Only 150 years ago, Edgardo Mortora was stolen from his parents, and the rest of the story...

Can be found in this fantastic book...

For history lovers and fiction lovers... An absolute must!

A Jewish family's illiterate Catholic housekeeper sprinkles well-water over an infant child and furtively mumbles the baptismal sacrament. When the Inquisitor learns of the deed, he orders the kidnapping of the then six-year-old Jewish boy. This foul deed is almost certainly sanctioned by the highest levels of the Catholic hierarchy. The police forcibly remove the child from his family's Bologna home and swiftly transport him to the Church's House of Catechumens in Rome for reeducation. Despite all protests from the boy's family and the Jewish community and in the face of a destabilizing international uproar, the Holy Father refuses to yield. By holy grace, the boy has been miraculously saved and the Church keeps him, inculcates him in the Catholic Christian religion, and assiduously converts the boy.

The boy kidnapped in the name of religion? Edgardo Mortara. The Holy Father in question? Pope Pius IX. The year? 1858. That's right 1858, not 1458, not 1658, but smack dab in the middle of 19th century Europe.

Historian David Kertzer tells the complete tale in his excellent work, `The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.' As Kertzer relates in the epilogue he learned to his surprise that there was no reliable work on this topic. Kertzer sets out to remedy this gap and succeeds by examining the episode in fine detail. Using detailed court and police investigation records, Kertzer explores numerous evidentiary questions such as whether the baptism took place at all, whether the proper conditions for a valid lay baptism existed, who put the girl up to it, and how did the Inquisition find out about it?

The story is told against the background of the movement to unify Italy under secular rule. And here is yet another surprise for the uninitiated reader, including this one: until 1861 the Pope was still the temporal ruler of a wide swath of the Italian peninsula (this rule continued on a lesser scale to 1870). The treatment of young Edgardo was one of the factors that helped build support across Italy and internationally for the Risorgimento or Italian reunification.

The episode also hastened Pius IX's evolution, shall we say, to reactionary beliefs. Pius IX not only made papal infallibility part of Church dogma, but he also issued his infamous Syllabus of Errors in 1864, a broad attack on rationalism, science, and religious freedom - really a frontal assault on the Enlightenment and most other signs of progress in the previous three centuries. If Kertzer's book does nothing more than direct his reader's attention to this astonishing document, he has succeeded in the historian's task.

Kertzer examines the trial of the Inquisitor in detail and the formidable difficulties facing the prosecution. For example, what crime did the Inquisitor commit when his acts were legal at the time he committed them? Would the new government prove willing to violate the fundamental principle that the accused must have had notice of the illegality of his acts?

As for Edgardo, he remained with the Church fathers until he reached his majority and by then his conversion had firmly taken hold. He went on to become a famed proselytizer for Catholicism especially among the Jewish peoples. This role may help explain why this story has remained untold: it embarrassed Jews and Catholics alike.

Some readers may find the detail devoted to the investigations and trials to be excessive, but bear in mind that Kertzer is writing the seminal history of Edgardo's kidnapping. A fascinating tale full of surprises, very highly recommended.

If you want to understand the attitudes behind the Elian Gonzalez case, you can do no better than to read this book. Today as I'm reading the newspaper, I feel like I'm reading this book all over again. It is uncanny how similar are the attitudes of many American authorities toward Cuba (especially the Republicans in Congress) to the attitudes of the Catholic Church and the public toward the Jews. One reason the Church was able to get away with kidnapping Edgardo Mortara was that many people could not understand why a family would want to remain Jewish--just as people today cannot understand or accept as legitimate that Elian's family wants to remain in Cuba.