The Senigaglia family (sometimes spelt Sinigaglia) is an Italian Jewish family, whose origins can be traced back nearly 800 years, the period between the High Middle Age and the Renaissance.
One theory claims a Spanish origin, forming the hypothesis that they fled Spain because of the Inquisition. However, 22 years before 1492 (year of the Spanish expulsion), they were already settled in Italy, probably at Senigallia. Apart from the date problem, it seems difficult to believe that families running away from the Holy Inquisition and the Vatican, end up in a town run practically by the pope himself; whether it was Pope Alexander VI from the Borgia family, of Spanish origins, or Julius II from the Della Rovere family.
Another theory claims a Roman origin. If the family came from Rome, they probably fled the city after 1215, when a Roman Catholic Church council, convened by Pope Innocent III, passed a law that authorized and encouraged princes to forbid all commerce between Jews and the Christian majority, and to favor Christians while being “zealous in restraining Jews.” The law also demanded that Jews who had ever acquired property from Christians must pay heavy fines to the church.[1] The pope was both the head of the church and the direct ruler of Rome and the surrounding Papal States.
During the subsequent centuries a number of Roman Jewish families left Rome on their own, or were encouraged by the Church to go to different towns or villages to establish small usury banks (with the purpose to substitute Christians in that line of business). They traveled choosing the Via Salaria or the Via Flaminia, taking along with them their tradesman abilities (with the corresponding family names, respectively): Orefice, Tessitori, Tintori, Della Seta (Goldsmith, Weaver, Dyer, Silk).
Other possible origins are mixed in the melting pot of those troubled years:
As a consequence of the marginalization of the Jewish community, many Jewish families left Rome in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries to reach villages and towns in the Marche. A non exhaustive list includes: Ancona, Ascoli, Barchi, Belforte, Cagli, Camerino, Cingoli, Corinaldo, Fano, Jesi, Macerata, Mondolfo, Mombaroccio, Montefiore, Osimo, Pergola, Perugia, Pesaro, Recanati, Rimini, Tolentino and Urbino.
Among those families, Leucius brought his group to Senigallia and settled down there. Leucius was probably born around 1380 CE and it is unclear when he moved from Rome to his new town.At the end of the fifteenth century, the family moved out of Senigallia looking for places where their life could be considered less dangerous.
One group moved to Mantua (Daniel and Isac da Senigallia, bankers at la Volta Mantovana)[3] and another led by a H'anna'el Graziadio[4] moved firstly to Modena and later to Scandiano, a small village at that time, not far from Modena, under the ownership of the Duke of Ferrara.
They restarted their banking activities and slowly built themselves a favourable situation, including a house, a school and a Synagogue. In 1656 they sold everything to the Almansi family,[5] who came to Scandiano from Spain and the Senigaglia left Scandiano.
From this moment the family divides in three branches:
Two family crests are known:
