Pitigliano

This article about traveling to Tuscany ends with some fascinating information on an Italian village that was a refuge for Jews as early as the 16th century:

Pitigliano, the small Maremma town called "Little Jerusalem," has a dramatic setting atop a sandstone outcrop at the edge of a gorge. A safe refuge for Jews who fled the Papal States and other parts of Tuscany in the 16th century after edicts confined them to ghettoes in Rome, Florence, Siena and Ancona, it was a feudal enclave in Tuscany's southeast corner ruled by the Counts Orsini, a wealthy Roman family.

In an 1841 census, Jews accounted for 12 percent of its population of 3,100. Italy's first Jewish newspaper was founded by the Servi brothers here.

Its mayor raised money in the 1990s to restore its synagogue, built in 1598 -- an inscription inside notes a visit from an 18th century duke who praised its beauty; a gilded wooden balustrade inlaid with leaf designs encloses the women's section.

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