Neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi, Italian Jews have a distinctive history, and even their own liturgy—although by modern times most of the country’s congregations had adopted the Sephardi rite. Italian Jewry in fact predates the other Jewish communities of Europe, although from the Middle Ages on it was shaped by waves of immigration from elsewhere. Alexander Beider examines what can be learned about Italian Jews from their surnames:
The ancestors of Italian Jews lived on the Apennine peninsula for many centuries, where at least some of them have lived since Roman times. . . . Legend has it that the ancestors of four Jewish families in Rome were brought by the Roman emperor Titus as Jewish prisoners after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. In Hebrew sources, these families appear as: min ha-tappuḥim (of the apples), min ha-adumim (of the red[-haired]), min ha-anavim (of the humble), and min ha-n’arim (of the youths). . . .
In Hebrew sources, the earliest [contemporary] references to these families correspond to the following centuries: 11th for Anau [from anav], 13th for both de Pomis and de Rossi (meaning “of the apples” and “of the red,” respectively), and 14th for the name meaning “of the youths.” But the bulk of Italian Jews received hereditary surnames only during the 16th century.
The largest category of surnames is based on the names of places—usually the names of nearby towns from which these families came to Rome. . . . Jewish migrants also came to Italy from the territories of modern France. They primarily arrived in two independent waves. The first wave came with the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1394. . . . The second large group came from Marseille and other towns of Provence, a region annexed by the kingdom of France at the end of the 15th century. The general expulsion of Jews from Provence occurred in 1501. The surname Provenzale (“one from Provence” in Italian) comes from these events, as do Passapaire and Sestieri.
Ashkenazi Jews represent the third major source of Italian Jewry. They came during the 13th through 17th centuries from German-speaking provinces (mainly the southern territories that today correspond to Bavaria and Austria) as they escaped pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation. Ashkenazi migrants were particularly common in the northeastern and northern parts of the peninsula: the republic of Venice (especially in the cities of Venice, Padua, and Verona), the duchies of Milan and Mantua (today both in Lombardy), and the area of Trieste. They also settled in Piedmont, as well as central and even southern Italy.
Read more on Forward: https://forward.com/opinion/407472/neither-ashkenazi-nor-sephardi-italian-jews-are-a-mystery/