Rome followed the example of Venice. The Catholic reaction against the Reformation brought about a radical change in the attitude of the Popes towards their Jewish subjects. Humanism was banished from the Vatican, and with it the broad spirit of toleration which had secured to the Jews of Rome an exceptional prosperity. The ancient canonical decrees which had wrought desolation in the distant dependencies of the Papacy, but had hitherto been allowed to lie dormant in its capital, are now enforced. The old outcry against the Talmud, as the source of all the sins and obstinacy of the Jews, was once more raised by Jewish renegades, and the Court of the Inquisition condemned it to the flames. ♦1553♦ Julius III. signed the decree for the destruction of a book which Leo X. had helped to disseminate. The houses of the Roman Jews were invaded by the myrmidons of the Holy Office, and all copies of that and other Hebrew works found therein were confiscated and publicly burnt, by a refinement of malice, on the Jewish New Year’s Day. Similar bonfires blazed in Ferrara, Mantua, Venice, Padua, and even in the island of Crete. ♦1555–1559♦ Matters grew worse under the bigoted Pope Paul IV. The very first month of his reign was signalised by a Bull ordering every synagogue throughout the States of the Church to contribute ten ducats for the maintenance of the House of Catechumens, in which Jews were to be educated in the Christian faith. A few weeks later, a second Bull forbade the Jews to employ Christian servants or nurses, to own real estate, to practice medicine, to trade in anything but old clothes, or to have any intercourse with Christians. The synagogues were destroyed, except one; and it was proclaimed that all the Jews who were not labouring for the public good should quit Rome by a fixed date. The meaning of this mysterious sentence became clear to the victims when shortly after they were forced to repair the walls of the city. The edict of banishment, it is true, was immediately repealed by the intervention of Cardinal Fernese; but the harshness of their treatment was in itself sufficient to drive the wretched people to exile. ♦1555♦ Many Jews left Rome, and those who remained were penned in the Ghetto.[79]