Spanish Jews in Rome after the expulsion: Delicado and La Lozana Andaluza

Abstract

Spanish Jews in Rome after the expulsion: Delicado and La Lozana Andaluza. La Lozana Andaluza (c. 1530), a playful work by the Spanish presbyter Francisco Delicado, written and set in Rome in the years preceding the imperial sack of 1527, portrays, together with the protagonist, a Spanish woman from Córdoba, also the city itself, seen through the eyes of those who immigrated, like almost all the 125 characters who animate this curious dialogued novel. The protagonist, like the author himself, is of Jewish origin and her frequentations, especially at the beginning, were confined to the Roman quarters inhabited mainly by Spanish Jews and conversos. For this reason, the work is a source of information on the daily life of these two communities and their relationships both with Christians and with Jews of other nationalities.