Aula del Simonino
In a Trento palace built over the city’s lost synagogue, a former chapel now tells, in the dark, the story of a 1475 blood libel — the false accusation that destroyed Trento’s Jewish community.
At a glance
The Aula del Simonino occupies a former chapel inside Palazzo Salvadori, in the old centre of Trento, on a site once held by the city’s synagogue. The chapel was built around the cult of “Simonino”, a two-year-old child found dead in 1475 whose death was falsely blamed on Trento’s small Jewish community. The accusation — a blood libel, the antisemitic myth of ritual murder — led to torture, execution and the expulsion of the city’s Jews. The Catholic Church abolished the cult in 1965 and recognised the charge as false. Left to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano in 2018, the chapel is now a room of memory, where visitors sit in the dark and hear the history told in full.
Key facts
- Location: Palazzo Salvadori, Via del Simonino, historic centre of Trento, Trentino
- Site: built where Trento’s medieval synagogue once stood
- Origin: a chapel of the cult of “Simonino”, suppressed by the Church in 1965
- The 1475 case: a child’s death falsely blamed on the Jewish community — a blood libel
- Today: a place of memory and education, run by the FAI
- Given to the FAI: 2018, by Marina Larcher Fogazzaro
History
On 24 March 1475 a child of about two, named Simon, was found dead in Trento, by the river Adige. The prince-bishop of Trento, Johannes Hinderbach, blamed the small Jewish community, invoking the “blood libel” — the false and antisemitic belief, spread across Europe since the twelfth century, that Jews killed Christian children for ritual purposes. There was no truth in it.
What followed was a judicial atrocity. Members of the Jewish community were arrested, tortured and executed; the community was destroyed and then expelled, and Jews would not live in Trento again for some five hundred years. The dead child, meanwhile, was made an object of veneration as “Simonino”, and a cult grew around him, with a chapel in the palace raised on the site of the former synagogue.
The cult lasted nearly five centuries. Only in 1965 did the Catholic Church abolish it, striking Simon from the calendar of saints and acknowledging that the accusation had been false. Jews returned officially to Trento in 1992. In 2018 Marina Larcher Fogazzaro left the chapel to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano, which has turned it into a place to confront the history rather than hide it.
What you see
The room is no longer a shrine. The FAI presents it as a darkened hall: visitors sit on plain wooden benches, like a choir, and listen through headphones to a narration of about twenty minutes that recounts the events of 1475 and their long aftermath. The voice is that of the Trentino actress Daria Deflorian.
The setting carries its own weight. Palazzo Salvadori, a Renaissance building, stands on the ground where Trento’s synagogue once was, and the former chapel was raised to honour the very accusation that emptied it. To sit there now is to be handed the history straight — the injustice named, the victims remembered.
Practical information
- Presented as a guided, narrated experience of about 20 minutes; check the FAI for opening times and booking
- A place of memory and education on antisemitic persecution
- Well suited to reflective and school visits
- Allow about 30 minutes
Getting there
Palazzo Salvadori is in the historic centre of Trento, near Via del Simonino and the cathedral quarter. Trento sits on the main rail line between Verona and the Brenner pass; the old town is compact and a few minutes’ walk from the station.
Nearby
- The Cathedral of San Vigilio and Piazza Duomo
- The Castello del Buonconsiglio
- The MUSE science museum
Sources
- Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI) — property page
- Comune di Trento
- Trentino Cultura — Provincia autonoma di Trento
- Wikipedia — Simonino di Trento
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