The days of barbarous and cruel violence had indeed passed away, and happily for ever. It is perhaps a fortunate circumstance,—grave as were the injuries resulting to both parties from it,—that the Jews were absent from England for so long a period. The tradition of persecution had, in consequence, long been broken off. In Spain, in Portugal, in Germany, even in Holland and Italy, people still living had themselves witnessed,—or had heard from their fathers,—the imprisonments, the expulsions, and the massacres of the Jews on the occasion of some religious excitement. But the fires of persecution had been cold for centuries in England, and no one was inclined to rekindle them now, even had it been possible to do so.[195] In Italy, throughout the seventeenth century, the condition of the Jews seems to have been fairly prosperous. Little is related of them, and that is the best evidence that they were exempt from injustice and persecution. Of the ten occupants of the papal chair during this century, the only one who seems to have interfered much in their affairs was Innocent XI., and his dealings with them, as we shall presently see, were lenient and friendly. It is said that at the outset of the century there were more than a hundred synagogues of the Jews in the Italian cities. In those situated on the sea-coast the commerce was, to a great extent, in the hands of the Hebrews, and their wealth was continually on the increase. Jews also continued to be employed in diplomatic missions by the Italian governments—by the Republic of Venice, the Dukes of Ferrara, and even by the Emperor. The same, indeed, was the case all over Europe. The kings of Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia,—nay, even of Spain and Portugal, notwithstanding their implacable persecution of the Jewish nation,—were in the habit of employing Jews as their emissaries. Sir William Temple, who was English ambassador at the Hague in 1668, expresses his astonishment at this fact. The Baron de Belmont was the Spanish minister in Holland during the whole of the latter half of the seventeenth century, and Nunez da Costa held a similar office under the crown of Portugal, though both these were notoriously Jews. In literary eminence the Italian Jews of this century are said to be inferior both to the generations which preceded and those which followed them. This is attributed to the severe censorship of the press, which is always unfavourable to literature. The famous Leo of Modena, head of the synagogue of Venice, and author of many works, both in Italian and Hebrew, on antiquities and theology, is an instance of this. He was on the point, we are told, of making a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Italian, which would have been beyond doubt a valuable work, but the Inquisition commanded him to desist.