A sizable Jewish community has been present in the port city of Leghorn in Tuscany since the 17th century, but at one point it represented 10% of the population. At a time when in most areas of Europe Jews were being harshly persecuted, Leghorn (Livorno) was a safe haven. Jews here were free to worship, build a synagogue, buy property and, most unusually, live unconfined: Leghorn was known as
“the city with no ghetto”.
In fact, the Gran Duke of Leghorn Ferdinando I de’ Medici had realized that the presence of Jews could be beneficial to the economy of his new town, and in 1593 he had actively invited them to come and settle under very attractive conditions. Therefore, the Jewish population grew from barely over 100 to about 3000 between the beginning and the end of the 1600s.
Skilled Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs settled in Livorno, while maintaining relationships with their communities of origins and other communities that they traded with. Leghorn also occupied a prominent role in Jewish publishing with the printing house of Belforte.A synagogue was built in the 17th century, one of the finest in Europe (unfortunately destroyed during WWII and replaced by a new one in the 1960s. If you plan on visiting Jewish Leghorn, check their official site