Venice placed great stress on the value of quarantine. The etymology of the word “quarantine” has its origins in fourteenth-century Venice and denotes a period of forty days in which authorities ordered the isolation of ships during outbreaks of the plague. Venetians attempted to protect city boundaries through the strict isolation of infection on small remote islands. In this talk, Dana E. Katz will explore the concept of quarantine as it relates to another form of enforced residential restriction, that of the Venetian Jewish ghetto. Whereas plague-spreading conspiracies in medieval Europe resulted in the burning of Jews at the stake for accusations of poisoning wells, early modern Venice instead offered Jews residence in the newly constructed ghetto. The ghetto offered Jews a home; however, it did so by disenfranchising them from privilege and power. This afternoon Professor Katz will discuss how Venetian authorities used the isolation of Jews in the ghetto to quiet concerns between state and faith.