Synagogue Parma

While some 14^th century sources refer to it indirectly, the Jewish community in Parma was only able to develop in two distinct periods: that spanning the 15^th and 16^th centuries, and the years following the turn of the 19^th century.  Indeed, the Papal Bull of 1555, which established ghettoes and limitations for the Jews in the papal territories, had led to the expulsion of the Jewish populations of Parma and Piacenza, cities which a few years previously had become feuds of the Catholic church. Duke Ottavio Farnese had, however, permitted them to open loan banks in sixteen towns in the surrounding rural areas (later reduced to seven towns), where small Jewish communities had continued to live uninterrupted. It was only in the 1800s, when the duchy was annexed to Napoleonic France, that a Jewish community could once again settle in Parma.