Trento's Infamy: A Blood Curdling Blood Libel

A startling news report appeared in the regional paper last week about Trento (near where we are staying). A 16th century building had been sprayed with paint overnight. The building was on the site of an ancient synagogue and the writer suggested a possible anti-zionist connection, especially since a national strike blocking ports and roadways occurred a few days earlier to protest Italy’s collaboration with Israel in the Gaza war.

Simon - Vandalism article.jpg


Further investigation produced an even greater shocker. That building - a former synagogue - showcased two 18th century bas relief carvings depicting a catastrophic blood libel pogrom against Trento’s Jewish population in 1475. One was about the martyrdom of Simonino and the other, the glory of Simonino. Neither carving was defaced and in fact few know the site is that of a former synagogue, so the act was probably not targeted at Jews. But a public memorialization of the “martyrdom” and “glory” of Simon of Trent?

Trento medallion.jpg

The Latin inscription under the medallion reads: "In the inner rooms of these buildings, where once stood a synagogue and now a little chapel has been raised, the Blessed Martyr Simon of Trent — having reached the 29th month of his age — was killed by the Jews with the utmost torture on the night before the tenth day before the Kalends of April [i.e. the night of 23 March] in the year of the common era 1475."

Simonino as he came to be known (‘little Simon’) was a local child who disappeared around Easter, with his body found near the home of a prominent Jew. As has happened many times since the 12th century (Even in New York in 1928!!) townspeople decided it was a “ritual murder” of Simon committed by local Jews. Arrests, torture, executions and the decimation of the entire Jewish community and its ancient synagogue followed. From then, hundreds of miracles were ascribed to Simon of Trent, and a religious cult spread across Italy, Germany, and Austria in his name. It was not until 1965 that the Vatican formally repudiated the blood libel myth as groundless, ending celebrations and closing several chapels associated with the cult.

In the 1990s, the city itself explicitly acknowledged this historic injustice and called for tolerance. 

Simon-Trento apology plaque.jpeg

Translation: "In this place where intolerance wrote a dark page in the history of mankind, marking with the cult of Little Simon a long discord between Jews and Christians, the City of Trento wished to make amends by placing this stele for future memory and as testimony of active commitment to the construction of peace and tolerance."


Learning the story of Simon and its depiction still today on a busy public street in Trento is a painful reminder of the tragic history of anti-Judaism in the world. It's only a small solace that the City has sought to repair its relationship with Jews. But the carving is still there in plain sight at the Palazzo Salvadori.

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