| [00:00.30] | |
| [00:00.40] | Jews who stayed in Venice for more than two weeks were supposed to wear a yellow "O" on their backs or a yellow hat |
| [00:08.29] | And they were confined to a special area which became known as the Ghetto Nuovo |
| [00:16.05] | This is the entrance to the Jewish ghetto in Venice where Jews were obliged to live and indeed confined at night |
| [00:22.96] | Jews were tolerated in Venice, but for a reason |
| [00:28.82] | The key was that Jews could provide a service that Christian merchants were forbidden to do |
| [00:34.77] | They could charge interest on their loans |
| [00:37.85] | Fibonacci might have figured out the mathematics of lending |
| [00:41.42] | but it took Shylock to do the deal |
| [00:47.33] | This is where the Venetian Jews used to do business |
| [00:50.37] | This building here was the old Banco Rosso |
| [00:52.55] | and it was outside here that they used to sit behind their tables - their tavole |
| [00:58.19] | on their benches - their banchi, the root of the Italian word for banks |
| [01:02.95] | Now, there was good reason why merchants came here to the Jewish Ghetto to borrow money |
| [01:08.21] | For Christians, what the Jews were doing, lending money at interest, was a sin |
| [01:14.30] |