Salvare le anime dalla "perfidia" ebraica. Conversioni nelle legazioni pontificie di Bologna, Ferrara e Ravenna, partendo da alcuni casi di battesimo avvenuti a Cento.

The thesis focuses on cases of conversions from Judaism to Christianity which occurred from the second half of the eighteenth century to the unity of Italy in the legations pontificals of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna. The first chapter will present the beginning of the research work and the reconstruction of the events of the Jewish community of Cento. Subsequently I will introduce some spontaneous and forced conversions that took place in the Cento area. With the second chapter we will enter more specifically of the theme relating to spontaneous conversions. This will be done by analyzing some cases of Jewish women converted during the Napoleonic period in the city of Ferrara. Closing a case of spontaneous conversion that took place after the Restoration. In the third chapter we will analyze the forced conversions doing particular reference to some cases which aroused lively reflection inside the church. It is permissible to coerce an adult Jew, secretly baptized unbeknownst to him as a child, to embrace the Christian religion after having lived for so many years in the faith of their fathers? To this about to propose an interesting reflection by the Master of the Palace Apostolic Thomas Maria Mamachi stretched out in 1785.