MEIS—National Museum of Italian Jewry and the Shoah
Ferrara’s Jewish heritage dates to the Middle Ages—a Jewish community flourished here when the Este family controlled the city. The sad fate of Ferrara’s socially prominent 20th-century Jews is the subject of Giorgio Bassani’s novel The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, brought evocatively to the screen in director Vittorio de Sica’s 1970 film. Ferrara’s excellent Jewish Museum, encompassing two synagogues in an old palazzo at Via Mazzini 95, was severely damaged in the 2012 earthquakes and its reopening date is still to be determined. However, Ferrara is also the home of MEIS—National Museum of Italian Jewry and the Shoah, which is opening in stages and scheduled for completion in 2021. Already on view in the complex, a former prison, are manuscripts and other artifacts, as well as video and multimedia exhibits on the Jewish-Italian experience from the Roman era through the rise of Christianity; on Jews in the Renaissance; and on the holocaust experience in Italy. Among special exhibitions is “The Garden that Doesn’t Exist,” conceptual artist Dani Karavan’s model and schematics for a planned installation depicting the fictional garden of the novel and film Garden of the Finzi-Contini as an homage to the Jews of Ferrara murdered in World War II.
Ferrara’s Jewish heritage dates to the Middle Ages—a Jewish community flourished here when the Este family controlled the city. The sad fate of Ferrara’s socially prominent 20th-century Jews is the subject of Giorgio Bassani’s novel The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, brought evocatively to the screen in director Vittorio de Sica’s 1970 film. Ferrara’s excellent Jewish Museum, encompassing two synagogues in an old palazzo at Via Mazzini 95, was severely damaged in the 2012 earthquakes and its reopening date is still to be determined. However, Ferrara is also the home of MEIS—National Museum of Italian Jewry and the Shoah, which is opening in stages and scheduled for completion in 2021. Already on view in the complex, a former prison, are manuscripts and other artifacts, as well as video and multimedia exhibits on the Jewish-Italian experience from the Roman era through the rise of Christianity; on Jews in the Renaissance; and on the holocaust experience in Italy. Among special exhibitions is “The Garden that Doesn’t Exist,” conceptual artist Dani Karavan’s model and schematics for a planned installation depicting the fictional garden of the novel and film Garden of the Finzi-Contini as an homage to the Jews of Ferrara murdered in World War II.
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