Current exhibition: Silence in the classroom - Documents of Memory
For Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026, this exhibition aims to honour and trace the lives and careers of lecturers and scholars from the Royal Institute of Economic and Commercial Sciences of Venice (now Ca’ Foscari University) whose lives were disrupted by Fascist repression and by the racial laws enacted in 1938.
The exhibition follows two main narratives: one highlighting the ethical decision of individuals like Silvio Trentin, who chose exile over submission; the other exposing the harsh discrimination faced by talented figures such as Elsa Campos, Gustavo Sarfatti, Adolfo Ravà, Gino Luzzatto, and Olga Blumenthal, drawn from bibliographies, archival documents, personal records, and ministerial correspondence.
SHOWCASE 1
Silvio Trentin
Silvio Trentin (1885–1944) became Professor of Public Law at the Royal Institute of Economic and Commercial Sciences (now Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) in September 1923. As a jurist and Member of Parliament, he is remembered for his moral integrity, exemplified by his 1926 resignation from Ca’ Foscari rather than submitting to Fascism.
Photo: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Silvio Trentin personal file, letter of resignation written by Silvio Trentin to the Director of the Royal Institute of Economic and Commercial Sciences
The University’s Academic Council unanimously refused to accept his resignation, but the decision was finalised by the Ministry of National Economy.
Photo 1: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Silvio Trentin personal file, agenda of the Academic Council, 11 January 1926.
Photo 2: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Silvio Trentin personal file, covering letter from the Ministry of National Economy.
Photo 3: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Silvio Trentin personal file, copy of the decree accepting Trentin’s resignation, issued by the Ministry of National Economy.
Forced into exile in France, Trentin became a key figure in the liberal-socialist political movement Giustizia e Libertà, continuing his intellectual work in opposition to the regime. On display here is the book La pensée juridique française de 1804 à l’heure présente: ses variations et ses traits essentiels (Bordeaux: Delmas Éditeur, 1933), bearing a dedication by the jurist Julien Bonnecase, which shows that Trentin maintained lively connections within the international academic community:
J. Bonnecase (Bordeaux, 15 June 1933)”
“To my Italian colleague and dear friend, Professor Silvio Trentin. An affectionate tribute, and a token of all my sympathy for his intellectual endeavour.
In 1943, Trentin returned to Italy and actively participated in the Venetian Resistance until he was arrested by Fascists. He died in 1944.
Photo 1: Julien Bonnecase, La pensée juridique française de 1804 à l’heure présente: ses variations et ses traits essentiels, vol. I, Bordeaux, Delmas Éditeur, 1933. From Ca’ Foscari’s Library of Economics (BEC).
Photo 2: detail
Census of the Jewish race
On 24 August 1938, the Rector announced a census to identify all staff members belonging to the “Jewish race”. The list on display is the result of that census and bears the names of: Gino Luzzatto, Adolfo Ravà, Gustavo Sarfatti and Elsa Campos.
Photo: ASCF, Rectorate, Wooden Boxes, box 31/B, file 2, “Measures for the Defence of the Race”, sub-file 1.
Adolfo Ravà
Adolfo Ravà (1879-1957) was a distinguished legal philosopher and jurist. After graduating in Law and Philosophy in Rome, he spent much of his academic career at the University of Padua and at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where he taught from 1922 to 1938.
As a result of the Fascist racial laws, he was dismissed from teaching because he was Jewish, and his writings were censored by the regime. Reinstated at the University of Padua in 1944, he concluded his career at the Faculty of Economics in Rome. His relationship with Judaism was complex: he took an interest in Zionism while maintaining a critical stance. One of his works, Istituzioni di Diritto Privato, Padua 1938, is displayed here.
Photo: Adolfo Ravà, Istituzioni di Diritto Privato, 2nd revised edn., Padua, CEDAM, 1938. Preserved at Ca’ Foscari’s Library of Humanities (BAUM) as part of the Pietro Rigobon Historical Collection.
Gustavo Sarfatti
Gustavo Sarfatti (1886-1951?) was a professor of Maritime Law. The document from the Ministry of National Education presented here announces the termination of his teaching contract as a consequence of the racial laws of 1938-1939. Fourteen days later, Sarfatti’s dismissal was communicated to him by the Rector, Agostino Lanzillo. In 1943, Sarfatti fled to Switzerland with his family and, despite the hardships of exile, never abandoned his civic commitment.
Photo 1: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Gustavo Sarfatti personal file, notice of withdrawal of authorisation to teach as libero docente, issued by the Ministry of National Education.
Photo 2: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Gustavo Sarfatti personal file, notice of withdrawal of authorisation to teach as libero docente, issued by Rector Agostino Lanzillo.
SHOWCASE 2
Gino Luzzatto
Gino Luzzatto (1878-1964), a distinguished economic historian and lecturer at Ca’ Foscari from 1922, was a resolute opponent of Fascism and a signatory of Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. Expelled from the University in 1938 as a result of the racial laws, he endured the years of persecution while remaining faithful to his democratic ideals.
The archival documents on display show that as late as March 1938 the Venetian University was still promoting Luzzatto’s participation in the Eighth International Congress of Historical Sciences in Zurich, describing his conduct as “absolutely impeccable”, despite his refusal to join the Fascist Party.
Photo: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Gino Luzzatto personal file, poster for the Eighth International Congress of Historical Sciences, Zurich, 1938, with the University’s request for Luzzatto’s participation in the congress.
The materials exhibited, including the congress programme for Zurich (28 August-4 September 1938), provide evidence of his last official links with the international academic community before he was forced to leave his job. Reinstated in 1945 after the Liberation, Luzzatto served as Rector until 1953.
Photo 1 and 2: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Gino Luzzatto personal file, congress programme in Italian.
Photo 3: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Gino Luzzatto personal file, congress programme in German.
Elsa Campos
Elsa Campos (1912-1986) graduated in 1934 from the Royal Institute of Economic and Commercial Sciences of Venice. She was a candidate assistant in Commercial Law in the Law Department and, between 1934 and 1935, worked as a voluntary assistant to the Chair of Commercial Law. In 1937 she published I consorzi di bonifica nella Repubblica Veneta, which was awarded the prize of the Federal Institute of the Savings Banks of the Venezie for research on issues relating to agricultural activity in the Tre Venezie region. Despite her academic achievements, her career was suddenly cut short in 1938 due to the racial laws: she was dismissed from her position by the Ministry. A recent thesis on her life and work is also displayed.
Photo 1: ASCF, Student Series, Elsa Campos personal file (photograph).
Photo 2: Elsa Campos, I consorzi di bonifica nella Repubblica Veneta, Padua, CEDAM, 1937.
Photo 3: Prize awarded to the publication by Elsa Campos.
Photo 4: ASCF, Beatrice Scuotto, “La capacità rigenerativa di Elsa Campos: appartenenze e migrazioni (1912 - 1986) (The regenerative capacity of Elsa Campos: belonging and migrations), degree thesis.
Olga Blumenthal
Olga Blumenthal (1873-1945) was an assistant and German-language lecturer at the Royal Institute of Economics and Commerce. Her personal record in her file shows that she was no longer a practising Jew and had converted to Catholicism on 1 April 1929. Nevertheless, on 30 October 1944 she was arrested and deported to the Nazi concentration camp of Ravensbrück, where she died on 24 February 1945. The display also includes her portrait, taken from a group photograph published in the Bulletin of the Association of Former Students.
Photo 1: ASCF, Academic Staff Series, Olga Blumenthal personal file.
Photo 2: Portrait of Olga Blumenthal (enlarged photograph).
