Venice ונציה
The city that gave the world the word «ghetto» and the press that printed the Talmud in its present form.
In 5276 the Venetian Republic ruled that Jews might live in the city but only in one quarter, the site of an old foundry — getto in Venetian. The gates were locked at night and the community paid for the guards. From there the word spread across Europe.
Venice was also a capital of the Jewish book. The Christian printer Daniel Bomberg produced here, in the 5280s, the complete Babylonian Talmud — Rashi inside, Tosafot outside, with continuous folio numbering. That layout became the world standard: every citation of the Gemara still refers to the Venice edition. Bomberg also printed the Mikraot Gedolot.
The city knew the other side too: in 5313, by papal decree, thousands of copies of the Talmud were publicly burned here. The ghetto's five synagogues, built by the Italian, German, Levantine and Spanish communities, still stand.