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This article examines the context of the institution of the ghetto of Modena, the first to be established in the Duchy of Este in 1638. The study focuses on the decades that preceded the foundation of the ghetto. From the beginning of the seventeenth century in Modena, there were cycles of preaching by Franciscan friars, especially Capuchins, who fomented the population’s anti-Jewish feeling. The creation of the ghetto was also at the center of a political dispute between the municipal magistrature and the ducal power which, after 1598, was forced to move to Modena after the loss of the former capital Ferrara. While the City Council, which intended to reaffirm its power over the urban area, initially wanted the ghetto, it was the Duke in the 1630s who insisted on its creation as part of a process to reestablish the city space as state capital.