Flora Cassen’s book “Marking the Jews in Renaissance Italy: Politics, Religion, and the Power of Symbols,” (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) is a study of discriminatory marks that the Jews were compelled to wear in 15- and 16-century Italy, which probes the roots and consequences of anti-Judaism. Her second project studies Italian Jews who were spies for the king of Spain. It examines how early modern intelligence networks functioned and probes questions of Jewish identity in a time of uprootedness and competing loyalties.
