Depends on how you define a “big population,” no? Prior to 1492 a lot of Jews had been driven out of Italy, and the remaining communities were quite small. Ita

Depends on how you define a “big population,” no? Prior to 1492 a lot of Jews had been driven out of Italy, and the remaining communities were quite small. Italian city states took in a lot of Jewish refugees from Spain after the 1492 expulsion. The first ghetto was in 1516. But that doesn’t line up with Columbus’ chronology.