of its founding, the four-block area contained about 1,000 inhabitants. However, over time, the Jewish community grew, which caused severe overcrowding. Since the area could not expand horizontally (the ghetto was surrounded by high walls), the Jews built upwards, which blocked the sun from reaching the already dank and narrow streets. Life in the Roman Ghetto was one of crushing poverty, due to the severe restrictions placed upon the professions and occupations that Jews were allowed to perform. The Roman Ghetto was the last of the original ghettos to be abolished in Western Europe. In 1870, the Kingdom of Italy took Rome from the Pope and the ghetto was finally opened, with the walls themselves being torn down in 1888. Ghetto of Urbino, established in 1631. Venice Although there is evidence indicating the presence of Jews in the Venetian area dating back to the first few centuries AD, during the 15th and early 16th centuries (until 1516), no Jew was allowed to live anywhere in the city of Venice for more than 15 days per year; so most of them lived in Venice's possessions on the terrafirma. At its maximum, the population of the ghetto reached 3,000. In exchange for their loss of freedom, the Jews were granted the right to a Jew's coat (the colour yellow was considered humiliating, as it was associated with prostitutes). The gates were locked at night, and the Jewish community was forced to pay the salaries of the patrolmen who guarded the gates and patrolled the canals that surrounded the ghetto. The ghetto was abolished after the fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon. Sicily The Sicilian Jews lived in medieval neighborhoods. The Sicilian Jewish quarter giudecche were abandoned by their inhabitants at the end of the Medieval Era because the expulsion of the Jews from Sicily in 1493. Southern Italy While not exactly ghettos, the giudecche of southern Italy were medieval and Early Modern Jewish quarters. The Jews of the region often lived in these neighborhoods either for safety reasons or by the compulsion of Christian authorities. After the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Naples in 1541, these neighborhoods lost their distinctive Jewish character, and now only traces of evidence remain of the original inhabitants. There were Jewish quarters known as giudecche in Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Molise and Apulia. Lithuania Poland For centuries, Poland was home to one