Il ghetto nuovo di Venezia. 5,000 Jews of different "nations" lived crowded on a small island. The German nation (Ashkenazim), which also included Italians, was confined to the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo, and was joined by the Levantine (Turkish) nation, which occupied the neighbouring streets of the Ghetto Vecchio in 1541. Later, the Jews from the west, mostly Sephardic Jews, took up residence in the same streets. Other Sephardic Jews were granted houses close to the Ghetto Nuovo, forming the Ghetto Nuovissimo in 1633. The French Revolution liberated and dissolved the ghetto. Cecil Roth's book describes some exotic figures of the ghetto.
In retrospect, Venice allowed a safe and stable, if marginal, existence for the Jews. All the while, Jews were forbidden to live in Spain, France, Scandinavia, and most of the German states.
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