The rich region of Emilia-Romagna is definitely worth a two or three-day visit. Located on the south of the floodplain of the Po River, it includes cities like Bologna, home to a museum that is a model of modern installation techniques and location of the ruins of an ancient ghetto in the heart of the city, and above all Ferrara, once a very important center of Italian Judaism. A leisurely tour of the region will allow for a visit to its many monuments and evidence of a Jewish past that dates back to the Middle Ages. The history of the numerous small communities in the region varies considerably according to their location. In the Papal States, which includes Bologna and Ravenna, severe persecutions began as early as the fourteenth century. The forced ghettoisation of the Jews in the small towns of Romagna (Rimini, Forlì) erased the active communities of those towns. In Modena or Ferrera, possessions of the dukes of the d’Este family until 1598, the Jews fared much better, as the rich heritage they left behind attests today.