1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,560
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm

2
00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:12,320
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener discretion advised. The year

3
00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,520
Speaker 1: was eighteen fifty one, and in Bologna, a little boy

4
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:21,000
Speaker 1: was sick. That's what his nurse said. Anyway. He was

5
00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:24,880
Speaker 1: a little Jewish boy, and she was a Catholic nurse

6
00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:28,800
Speaker 1: working for the family in violation of the law. But

7
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,239
Speaker 1: she genuinely cared about the children. She cared about this

8
00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:37,279
Speaker 1: littlest boy at Garo, she swore she did, and it

9
00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:41,000
Speaker 1: broke her heart that he was sick. The nurse was

10
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,880
Speaker 1: a young woman herself. The little boy's illness had gotten

11
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,960
Speaker 1: so bad that she believed he would die. She confided

12
00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,760
Speaker 1: in a friend, who said it was the merciful thing

13
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:56,280
Speaker 1: to baptize the little boy before he died. The parents

14
00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:00,640
Speaker 1: would never have to know. Yes, the Catholic Church technically

15
00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:05,240
Speaker 1: forbade baptizing Jews, but it also believed in the sacrament

16
00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,000
Speaker 1: that could save the innocent baby's soul when it went

17
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:13,080
Speaker 1: back to heaven. The nurse believed in that too. She

18
00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:16,400
Speaker 1: looked at the little child, so sickly in her arms,

19
00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:21,360
Speaker 1: so small, and she did a fateful thing. She filled

20
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:25,320
Speaker 1: a glass with water, reached inside, wet her fingers, and

21
00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:29,560
Speaker 1: sprinkled the water across the boy's head. She didn't know

22
00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,600
Speaker 1: then that her action, performed in the privacy of an

23
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:37,400
Speaker 1: empty room, would set off a chain reaction that would

24
00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,920
Speaker 1: lead to a scandal of international proportions. It would lead

25
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:45,959
Speaker 1: to a state kidnapping, the heartbreak of a family, the

26
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,920
Speaker 1: murder charge of a father, countless New York Times headlines,

27
00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 1: and Napoleon the Third himself turning against the papal states

28
00:01:55,320 --> 00:02:00,200
Speaker 1: in favor of the unification of Italy. Because this little boy,

29
00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:05,480
Speaker 1: Edgardo Mortara, did not die during infancy, he lived on

30
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:09,320
Speaker 1: happy with his Jewish family, who loved him until the

31
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:13,480
Speaker 1: age of six. That was when the carabinieri burst into

32
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,800
Speaker 1: his family's home, claiming that the child had been baptized

33
00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,639
Speaker 1: and therefore was a Catholic, that the boy was the

34
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:25,320
Speaker 1: rightful charge of the Catholic Church, and that he should

35
00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:29,160
Speaker 1: be protected not just by anyone in the church, but

36
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: by the Pope himself. The Mortara case is the story

37
00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:38,000
Speaker 1: of Jews under the Catholic papacy, of a long forgotten

38
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:43,520
Speaker 1: event in Italy before and after unification of the Pope's

39
00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:47,440
Speaker 1: fidelity to the letter versus the spirit of Catholic doctrine.

40
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:54,160
Speaker 1: Of an international scandal that supercharged liberal Europeans understanding of

41
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:59,040
Speaker 1: religious freedom. And it's the story of one little Jewish

42
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:03,120
Speaker 1: boy kidnapped by the papacy and a family that put

43
00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:07,520
Speaker 1: everything on the line to get him back. I'm Dana Schwartz,

44
00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:15,600
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood. In order to understand what

45
00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:20,040
Speaker 1: happened to edgaro Mortara, you need a quick crash course

46
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:23,920
Speaker 1: in the history of the Jews under papal rule. In

47
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,840
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one, when Edgara was born, Italy was not

48
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:32,519
Speaker 1: a unified nation. Bologna was part of the Papal States,

49
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:36,080
Speaker 1: which meant that Vatican law was the law of the land.

50
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:40,160
Speaker 1: Edgarda was born during the papacy of Pope Pious the

51
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:44,040
Speaker 1: Ninth when the total population of the Papal States was

52
00:03:44,120 --> 00:03:49,800
Speaker 1: around three million, including fifteen thousand Jews, which made Jews

53
00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:53,880
Speaker 1: a tiny minority at zero point five percent of the population.

54
00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,240
Speaker 1: As you might imagine, the role of Jews under papal

55
00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:02,360
Speaker 1: rule had been contested for centuries. By the time Edgardo

56
00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:07,160
Speaker 1: came along in Bologna, the nine hundred person Jewish population

57
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,920
Speaker 1: had been expelled in the sixteenth century. By the time

58
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,920
Speaker 1: Edgaro's family lived there, there were only about two hundred

59
00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:19,680
Speaker 1: Jews in all of Bologna. In Rome, the Papacy had

60
00:04:19,760 --> 00:04:24,239
Speaker 1: confined Jews to the Roman Ghetto since fifteen fifty five.

61
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,359
Speaker 1: Shortly after Pope Pious the Ninth was elected in eighteen

62
00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,120
Speaker 1: forty six, he actually tore down the ghetto's gates, but

63
00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:35,400
Speaker 1: he restored them shortly after, and they would remain up

64
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 1: until Italian unification in eighteen seventy. If it sounds like

65
00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:44,040
Speaker 1: Pope Pious was pretty uncertain where he stood when it

66
00:04:44,080 --> 00:04:49,200
Speaker 1: came to Jews, well he was. Although Catholic doctrine held

67
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:53,679
Speaker 1: that baptism could save a person's soul, Catholics were barred

68
00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:58,039
Speaker 1: from baptizing Jews. Then again, things got a little dicey

69
00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:00,720
Speaker 1: with the law if the Jewish person would a child,

70
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 1: much less a baby, and if that innocent was about

71
00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:07,640
Speaker 1: to die, And then dicey again if a Catholic did

72
00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 1: baptize a Jew, that was a holy and irrevocable sacrament.

73
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:17,400
Speaker 1: So the Jewish person illegally baptized was holy Catholic, and

74
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,360
Speaker 1: it was illegal for a Catholic child to be raised

75
00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:26,920
Speaker 1: by a Jewish household. You might be able to see

76
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:30,440
Speaker 1: where this is going for poor Edgaro and his family,

77
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:33,640
Speaker 1: but there's one more thing you need to know before

78
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,560
Speaker 1: we can return to Edgaro's story. At the time when

79
00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:41,919
Speaker 1: Edgara was born, Catholics were legally prohibited from working for

80
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,240
Speaker 1: Jewish families, but many young Catholic girls in need of

81
00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:51,440
Speaker 1: money took jobs as maids anyway, and many claiming that

82
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:54,600
Speaker 1: their young charges were on the brink of death, which

83
00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:56,760
Speaker 1: may have been true in at least some of the

84
00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:02,719
Speaker 1: cases wound up baptizing the family children. Anywhere from months

85
00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:06,159
Speaker 1: to years later, the Carabinieri would show up at a

86
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:09,840
Speaker 1: family's door with news that their child was a Catholic

87
00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:13,280
Speaker 1: and they would take the child away. It got so

88
00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:17,720
Speaker 1: bad that before a Catholic maid left the job, Jewish

89
00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:21,800
Speaker 1: families took to getting her sign an affidavit attesting that

90
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:25,960
Speaker 1: she had never baptized their child, Which brings us to

91
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 1: Anna Maurici. She was fourteen years old by some accounts,

92
00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 1: eighteen by others when she took a job caring for

93
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:38,320
Speaker 1: the Mortara household. The heads of the household, Momelo and

94
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:44,120
Speaker 1: Marianna Mortara, were devoted parents to their nine children, including

95
00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,960
Speaker 1: twin girls, one boy who died in infancy, and of

96
00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,320
Speaker 1: course their middle little child, at Garo, and they were

97
00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:57,080
Speaker 1: also unusually devoted to Anna Maurici. The girl had been

98
00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:00,520
Speaker 1: with the family for three years when she fell pregnant.

99
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:04,600
Speaker 1: It was eighteen fifty five and Edgaro was about four

100
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:09,200
Speaker 1: years old. Papal law was no kinder to unwed Catholic

101
00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:12,760
Speaker 1: mothers than it was to Jews. In Anna Maurici's situation,

102
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:15,840
Speaker 1: she would be required to give the baby up to

103
00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:20,680
Speaker 1: a foundling house. Many families in the Mortars situation would

104
00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:24,520
Speaker 1: have cast Anna Maurici out. She had shamed herself and

105
00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:28,040
Speaker 1: the family. Getting rid of her would have been the accepted,

106
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:32,560
Speaker 1: even the expected thing to do. But Momolo and Marianna

107
00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:36,680
Speaker 1: were unusually compassionate. They paid for her to stay with

108
00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 1: a midwife during her last trimester, covered the cost of

109
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:45,280
Speaker 1: the supervised delivery of her child, and then they brought

110
00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:48,640
Speaker 1: her back to their home. They had no idea what

111
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:52,800
Speaker 1: she had already done to their family, what was in

112
00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 1: the works behind the scenes. They didn't see the irony

113
00:07:56,800 --> 00:08:01,400
Speaker 1: that history now sees. Anna Maurice forced to give up

114
00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,880
Speaker 1: her baby by the unforgiving laws of the papal state

115
00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:09,160
Speaker 1: had already set in motion the loss of someone else's

116
00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:16,920
Speaker 1: baby to those same laws. The knock on the door

117
00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:20,960
Speaker 1: came on June twenty third, eighteen fifty eight. The light

118
00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:25,480
Speaker 1: was dispersing, the air was warm, the smells of dinner

119
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:29,960
Speaker 1: were wafting through the homes on the Martara's street. Edgara

120
00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:34,079
Speaker 1: was sleeping soundly. His two older brothers, one younger brother,

121
00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:38,120
Speaker 1: and infant's sister were sleeping too. His older two twin

122
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:42,360
Speaker 1: sisters were chatting idly with their mother, Marianna, sewing at

123
00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:45,800
Speaker 1: the table. Edgardo's oldest brother was out on a walk

124
00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:50,400
Speaker 1: with their father. Momolo, and Marianna opened the door. The

125
00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 1: carabinieri were standing outside. They were firm in their orders

126
00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,960
Speaker 1: that they were to come in. Perhaps in the edges

127
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:02,600
Speaker 1: of their gaze there was some sense of shame of

128
00:09:02,679 --> 00:09:05,480
Speaker 1: what they were about to do, but they were firm

129
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:10,760
Speaker 1: when they asked to see her children. Marianna panicked. Momolo

130
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:14,800
Speaker 1: came home, and the policeman addressed him directly. They were

131
00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 1: here to take Edgaro. He had been baptized and therefore

132
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,120
Speaker 1: did not belong to his Jewish parents any more. He

133
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:27,800
Speaker 1: was in the legal custody of the state. Marianna screamed.

134
00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,880
Speaker 1: She ran to six year old Edgaro, threw herself on

135
00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,679
Speaker 1: top of him. She held him to her chest, fingers

136
00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:38,920
Speaker 1: digging into her skin. If you want him, she said,

137
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:43,680
Speaker 1: you'll have to kill me first. The scene was disastrous,

138
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:49,200
Speaker 1: according to historian David Kurtzer, a Mortara neighbor reported, I

139
00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:53,439
Speaker 1: saw a distraught mother bathed in tears and a father

140
00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:56,360
Speaker 1: who was tearing out his hair, while the children were

141
00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:00,640
Speaker 1: down on their knees begging the policeman for mercy. It

142
00:10:00,679 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 1: was a scene so moving I can't begin to describe it. Indeed,

143
00:10:05,280 --> 00:10:07,920
Speaker 1: I even heard the police marshal by the name of

144
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 1: Lucidi say that he would rather have been ordered to

145
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,240
Speaker 1: arrest a hundred criminals than to take the boy away

146
00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:20,320
Speaker 1: one more day. The family begged the inquisitor, father Pieto

147
00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,640
Speaker 1: Gaetano Filetti, just twenty four more hours with our precious boy, please.

148
00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:30,200
Speaker 1: Father Filetti granted the twenty four hours, but no more.

149
00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:35,320
Speaker 1: He was just following orders after all. In the meantime, Momolo,

150
00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:39,480
Speaker 1: their Jewish neighbors, and Marianna's family set off to find

151
00:10:39,520 --> 00:10:42,720
Speaker 1: a way to keep at Garo. They went to the cardinal,

152
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:46,120
Speaker 1: the archbishop, the inquisitor, trying to get an audience with

153
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,600
Speaker 1: anyone in government who might intercede. But twenty four hours

154
00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:54,440
Speaker 1: was too few. They were trapped. They were Jews in

155
00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:57,000
Speaker 1: a place where there was no safe place to be

156
00:10:57,160 --> 00:11:01,200
Speaker 1: a Jew. Jews had lived in Italy for thousands of years,

157
00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:05,040
Speaker 1: back to the Roman period, before Christians lived there. It

158
00:11:05,120 --> 00:11:10,000
Speaker 1: didn't matter to the Mortara case now. When the twenty

159
00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,119
Speaker 1: four hour grace period was up, Marianna's sister took Edgardo's

160
00:11:14,200 --> 00:11:18,240
Speaker 1: brother and sisters to her house. Marianna would not let

161
00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:21,480
Speaker 1: go of her son, kissing him and clutching him, and

162
00:11:21,559 --> 00:11:24,280
Speaker 1: everyone feared what would happen if the police had to

163
00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:28,360
Speaker 1: forcibly rip her son away from him. Would she attack them?

164
00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:31,160
Speaker 1: Would she have a heart attack and die right there?

165
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,439
Speaker 1: She hadn't fed her infant daughter in too long, as

166
00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:37,800
Speaker 1: it stood, what would happen to her? So the men

167
00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:42,040
Speaker 1: of the family forcibly separated Marianna from the boy and

168
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:46,320
Speaker 1: carried her outside into a waiting carriage. Even through the

169
00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:50,400
Speaker 1: covered carriage, her wails were so loud and terrible that

170
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:54,839
Speaker 1: neighbors came running to see what was happening. Momola stayed home,

171
00:11:55,240 --> 00:11:58,400
Speaker 1: packed a few clothes for his son, and then held

172
00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,600
Speaker 1: at Gardo on his lap until his little boy was

173
00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:05,320
Speaker 1: taken away. The two policemen cried when they took the

174
00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:09,240
Speaker 1: boy away, but they didn't stop. They were just following orders.

175
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:13,440
Speaker 1: Momolo followed the police outside as they carried his son

176
00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:16,840
Speaker 1: to the carriage, watching his boy so small in the

177
00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:20,080
Speaker 1: arms of these strangers. He couldn't stay on his feet.

178
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:24,080
Speaker 1: He swayed for a moment, and then he fainted. There

179
00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:26,640
Speaker 1: was one light at the end of the tunnel. He

180
00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:30,320
Speaker 1: was told the boy's new surrogate father was not going

181
00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:34,559
Speaker 1: to be just anyone. He would be the pope himself.

182
00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:40,840
Speaker 1: After that, Marianna fell apart, but Momolo fought. The first

183
00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:43,840
Speaker 1: thing to do was to find out if the Carabinieria's

184
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:48,480
Speaker 1: justification for kidnapping Edgardo was even true in the first place.

185
00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:51,480
Speaker 1: Who would have baptized the boy and how had that

186
00:12:51,640 --> 00:12:55,719
Speaker 1: news come out? The only reasonable culprit would have been

187
00:12:55,840 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: the family's old servant, Anna Maurici, with mo Lmolo's blessing.

188
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:04,520
Speaker 1: Marianna's brother and brother in law found her when she

189
00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 1: saw them she collapsed in tears. Yes, she said, when

190
00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:12,560
Speaker 1: Edgardo was very sick as a child, she had done

191
00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:16,160
Speaker 1: the fateful thing. She had baptized him, but she had

192
00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:19,360
Speaker 1: regretted it soon after he recovered and told no one.

193
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,640
Speaker 1: When later another Mortara's son did get so sick that

194
00:13:23,720 --> 00:13:26,960
Speaker 1: he died in infancy, she had refused to do the

195
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:30,600
Speaker 1: same thing again. She had learned her lesson, she told

196
00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:34,079
Speaker 1: her friend, so when asked if she had baptized that

197
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:38,520
Speaker 1: boy before he died, all the Mortara representatives could hear

198
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:42,840
Speaker 1: was that last part she had told her friend. But

199
00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:46,040
Speaker 1: there was reason for hope in her story. It wasn't

200
00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:49,760
Speaker 1: clear that she knew how to properly perform a baptism.

201
00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 1: She had been so young at the time fourteen by

202
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,040
Speaker 1: her own account, that her judgment was faulty. They asked

203
00:13:57,080 --> 00:13:59,800
Speaker 1: if she would be willing to record her testimony with

204
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:04,720
Speaker 1: a notary. She agreed. She seemed genuinely distressed to have

205
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:08,720
Speaker 1: caused the separation of another mother from her child, But

206
00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:11,920
Speaker 1: by the time the group came back with a notary,

207
00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:17,600
Speaker 1: Anna Maurici had disappeared. Momolo did not give up. Anna

208
00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:21,000
Speaker 1: Maurici had done what turned out to be a terrible thing.

209
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,640
Speaker 1: But she was only a young girl who couldn't read,

210
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:27,720
Speaker 1: who was just following what seemed like good advice. She

211
00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 1: hadn't meant to hurt the Mortaro family. Surely some justice

212
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: would be served. Momolo learned that Edgaro had been taken

213
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,400
Speaker 1: all the way to Rome. He wrote to the inquisitor,

214
00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 1: the secretary of State, to the Pope himself. He traveled

215
00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:46,239
Speaker 1: all the way to Rome, where he was allowed visitation

216
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:50,000
Speaker 1: with Edgaro, but at the end of his visits he

217
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:56,280
Speaker 1: was not allowed to take his son back home. The

218
00:14:56,360 --> 00:15:00,240
Speaker 1: sympathies of the world were not with the pope. While

219
00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:04,080
Speaker 1: a handful of Catholic publications supported the removal of a

220
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:07,560
Speaker 1: baptized child from a Jewish home, this was the mid

221
00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:12,400
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, not the sixteenth century anymore. The ideals of

222
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:17,040
Speaker 1: civil liberties and religious freedom were spreading all over the globe.

223
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:21,880
Speaker 1: Already in eighteen forty eight, ten years before Edgaro's kidnapping,

224
00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia, had given its minority Jewish

225
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:32,360
Speaker 1: and Protestant populations their religious freedoms. Massimo Dzeglio, prime Minister

226
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:36,200
Speaker 1: of Piedmont, had written a pamphlet called Quote on the

227
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:41,720
Speaker 1: civil Emancipation of the Israelites. So the European and American

228
00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:46,520
Speaker 1: presses both covered the Mortara kidnapping as a scandal. The

229
00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:50,280
Speaker 1: New York Times ran twenty articles about it in December

230
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:55,680
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight alone, nearly one per day. Outraged, popular

231
00:15:55,760 --> 00:16:00,000
Speaker 1: demonstrations broke out on both sides of the Atlantic advocated

232
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:02,960
Speaker 1: for the Pope to give Edgaro back to his family.

233
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:07,320
Speaker 1: Even in Catholic France, the Ambassador to the Holy See

234
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: met with the Vatican Secretary of State and the Pope

235
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:17,040
Speaker 1: himself on Edgaro's behalf celebrated. French playwright Victor Sejour wrote

236
00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:22,240
Speaker 1: a play based on the kidnapping called The Fortune Teller. Licique,

237
00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: France's most read newspaper, described the play as documenting Quote,

238
00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:31,440
Speaker 1: the hideous attack committed by the Holy See toward the

239
00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:35,800
Speaker 1: Mortara boy. The play drew one hundred thousand people to

240
00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:40,120
Speaker 1: the theater on opening night December twenty second, eighteen fifty nine.

241
00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:45,080
Speaker 1: Emperor Napoleon the Third and Empress Eugenie were prominently present

242
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:50,360
Speaker 1: in the audience. Rumors swirled that Napoleon's private secretary had

243
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,560
Speaker 1: actually worked with the playwright on the play. None of

244
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,480
Speaker 1: it mattered. At the end of the day, Edgaro and

245
00:16:56,520 --> 00:17:01,040
Speaker 1: the Mortaras were under papal authority, and the Hope wanted

246
00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: the boy. Indeed, Pope Pious the Ninth spent substantial time

247
00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:09,560
Speaker 1: with Edgaro. With no son of his own, the Pope

248
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:13,920
Speaker 1: viewed Edgaro as a kind of son. In eighteen sixty seven,

249
00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:18,480
Speaker 1: the Pope sent a shockingly self pitying note to Edgaro,

250
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:21,480
Speaker 1: which said, quote, you are very dear to me, my

251
00:17:21,600 --> 00:17:25,040
Speaker 1: little son, for I acquired you for Jesus Christ at

252
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 1: a high price. Your case set a worldwide storm against me.

253
00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:32,840
Speaker 1: The rulers of the world, as well as the journalists,

254
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:36,840
Speaker 1: who are the truly powerful people of our times, declared

255
00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:41,040
Speaker 1: war on me. Monarchs themselves entered the battle against me,

256
00:17:41,520 --> 00:17:45,160
Speaker 1: and all this because of you. People lamented the harm

257
00:17:45,359 --> 00:17:48,280
Speaker 1: done to your parents, because you were regenerated by the

258
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:52,360
Speaker 1: grace of Holy Baptism. And in the meantime, no one

259
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:56,400
Speaker 1: showed any concern for me, father of all the faithful,

260
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:00,679
Speaker 1: and in a true tragedy for the mortal Para family,

261
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:05,400
Speaker 1: Edgaro came to regard the Pope as a father. He

262
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 1: was only six years old when he was taken from

263
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:11,960
Speaker 1: his Jewish family and re educated to believe that his

264
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,679
Speaker 1: was a story of Catholic salvation and redemption for a

265
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:19,920
Speaker 1: life that might otherwise have been lived in a kind

266
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:27,520
Speaker 1: of spiritual darkness without the light of Catholic teachings. At thirteen,

267
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 1: the age of Barmitzvah, had he been allowed to remain

268
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:35,120
Speaker 1: under the care of his parents, Edgardo re christened himself

269
00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 1: with the name Pio, in honor of Pious the Ninth. Finally,

270
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:44,480
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, when Edgardo was nineteen years old, his parents'

271
00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:50,879
Speaker 1: most ardent wish came true. Italian unification succeeded Rome was

272
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,960
Speaker 1: captured for the new Kingdom of Italy. Their son, Edgaro

273
00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 1: was no longer under the legal authority of the Pope.

274
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:03,040
Speaker 1: He could come home now. Momolo had not seen his

275
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,800
Speaker 1: son in twelve years, but he had never given up

276
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,800
Speaker 1: on his love for him. Momolo made his way to

277
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:13,840
Speaker 1: Rome to bring his son home. At last, his mother

278
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,119
Speaker 1: would once again hold her son in her arms. But

279
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:23,320
Speaker 1: Edgaro was Pio now. He only feared his father's return

280
00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 1: to Rome. Pio refused to return for the rest of

281
00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:33,040
Speaker 1: Edgaro's life, he devoted himself to Catholicism, the religion of

282
00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:37,600
Speaker 1: his captors. At twenty one, too young for ordination, he

283
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:42,080
Speaker 1: received a special dispensation to become a priest. The Pope

284
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:47,000
Speaker 1: sent him a letter of congratulations. Edgardo read nine languages,

285
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:51,959
Speaker 1: including Hebrew, and traveled all over Europe preaching the Catholic faith.

286
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:55,760
Speaker 1: It would be another one hundred years before the term

287
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,720
Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome was coined to describe the bond between a

288
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:04,879
Speaker 1: king captive and their captor. As for the Mortara's, yet

289
00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:10,119
Speaker 1: more tragedy befell them in eighteen seventy one, their new servant,

290
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:14,360
Speaker 1: Rosa Tugnazi, tragically died after a fall that was almost

291
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:19,280
Speaker 1: certainly a suicide. Nonetheless, suspicion fell on the man, who

292
00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 1: was called the Jew Mortara throughout his trial. Even the

293
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,840
Speaker 1: prosecutors called the fifty five year old Momolo by that

294
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:33,080
Speaker 1: anti Semitic epithet, rather than the customary term the defendant Mortara.

295
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 1: The trial was almost certainly motivated by anti Jewish hostility.

296
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:43,720
Speaker 1: Momolo was ultimately found not guilty, but he had spent

297
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:48,120
Speaker 1: seven months in prison in ill health, and one month

298
00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:53,160
Speaker 1: after his release. He died seven years later. In eighteen

299
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:57,800
Speaker 1: seventy eight, Marianna, widowed, now found out that Edgaro was

300
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 1: scheduled to preach in France. She went to where he

301
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:05,680
Speaker 1: would be for the first time in twenty years. Mother

302
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:11,440
Speaker 1: and son embraced from then until her death twelve years later.

303
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,560
Speaker 1: Edgaro remained close with his mother, but neither ever warmed

304
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 1: to the other's desire that they change religions. Edgardo's that

305
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:25,160
Speaker 1: his mother converted to Catholicism, Mariana's that her son return

306
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 1: to Judaism. Edgaro lived a long life, preaching the whole time.

307
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 1: On March eleventh, nineteen forty, he died at the age

308
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,399
Speaker 1: of eighty eight in Belgium. His story has been forgotten

309
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:42,280
Speaker 1: compared to the more famous nineteenth century European case of

310
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, the Dreyfus affair, but he prefigured it. Some

311
00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 1: historians actually believe that the Edgardo Mortara kidnapping played a

312
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 1: major role in turning Napoleon the Third towards the side

313
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: of Italian unification. Indeed, nap Jolian was secretly party to

314
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 1: the agreement in support of unifying much of the papal

315
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: states under the authority of Sardinia. Only one month after

316
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 1: Atgaro's kidnapping. Two months after Edgaro died in Belgium, the

317
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:19,440
Speaker 1: Nazis invaded the country. If he had lived, he might

318
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 1: have been among those stolen once again, this time by

319
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: different policemen working for a different state, for the crime

320
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 1: of being born under a hostile regime into a Jewish home.

321
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:39,440
Speaker 1: That's the story of Edgaro Mortara, the Jewish child kidnapped

322
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: by the papal state, but stick around after a brief

323
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,640
Speaker 1: sponsor break to hear about Edgaro's legacy in the Mortara

324
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 1: family today. As for the Mortara family, the story of

325
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:03,160
Speaker 1: Edgaro still had a long life. One of Agaro's twin sisters,

326
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: on her deathbed seventy years after the abduction, cried out

327
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: not to take her children. The great granddaughter of that sister,

328
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: a scholar named Elena Mortara, is now a scholar who

329
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:20,919
Speaker 1: published a twenty fifteen book with Dartmouth University Press about

330
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: the affair. She spoke out on her family's behalf against

331
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: the benification of Pope Pious. The ninth quote, a man

332
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:34,159
Speaker 1: who has so unjustly violated family rights, an enemy of

333
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: freedom of religion, the last pope to keep the Jews

334
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 1: of Rome by law in the ghetto. Pope Pious the

335
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: Ninth was betified in the year two thousand. The Mortara

336
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: family of the twenty first century opposed it. What would

337
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: Edgardo himself have thought? We can't know. What we do

338
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: know is that he remained a devout Catholic priest until

339
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: the end of his life. Countless times Edgara more Tara

340
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: must have wetted his hands as his nursemate did decades before,

341
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: and sprinkled holy water over a young infant's head. Noble

342
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and

343
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me

344
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 1: Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,

345
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is

346
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima

347
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 1: il Kaali and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and

348
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

349
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,