Pope Paul IV ordered Roman Jews segregated behind a single gate in 1555.

Evidence

Although the word “ghetto” is Venetian, not all the ghettos that were instituted in its wake shared its redeeming features. In 1555 Pope Paul IV ordered that all Jews in Rome should live on a single street and that if that did not suffice they should be given a larger area on condition that it had only one gate. He also sought to impose a similar arrangement on Jews throughout the papal states. Soon Pope Sixtus V obliged the Jewish men of Rome to attend Christian sermons at least six times a year. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2378

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the long history of sumptuary and residential restrictions on Jews across Europe, relevant background for understanding how institutionalized segregation predates the modern ghetto concept.