Cum nimis absurdum

Cum nimis absurdum was a papal bull issued by Pope Paul IV dated 14 July 1555. It takes its name from its first words: "Since it is absurd and utterly inconvenient that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal slavery..."

The bull revoked all the rights of the Jewish community and placed religious and economic restrictions on Jews in the Papal States, renewed anti-Jewish legislation and subjected Jews to various degradations and restrictions on their personal freedom.

The bull established the Roman Ghetto and required the Jews of Rome, which had existed as a community since before Christian times and numbered about 2,000 at the time, to live in it. The Ghetto was a walled quarter with three gates that were locked at night. Jews were also restricted to one synagogue per city. Under the bull, Jewish males were required to wear a pointed yellow hat, and Jewish females a yellow kerchief (see yellow badge). Jews were required to attend compulsory Catholic sermons on the Jewish shabbat.

Nimis

Nimis (Slovene: Neme) is a town and comune of 2,817 located in the Italian province of Udine, about near to the border with Slovenia. It is situated at the foot of Mount Bernadia, home to a World War I Italian fort and a sweet white wine, Ramandolo.

The town is bordered by the comuni of Attimis, Lusevera, Povoletto, Reana del Rojale, Taipana and Tarcento.

According to the 1971 census, 25.4% of the population are Slovenes, but these are located mainly on some villages on the surrounding hills and not in the main town and the rest of the plain. Due to the ethnic, linguistic and cultural features of their population, the mountainous parts of the municipality are considered part of the traditional region known as the Friulian Slavia. In the remaining part of the municipality, the Friulian language is still widely spoken.

Nimis was founded by the ancient Romans, its name deriving from the Latin word "Nemus". After the fall of the Western Roman Empire it housed a castrum, mentioned by Paul the Deacon in his Historia Langobardorum. In World War II, the town was burned by the SS, due to the presence of both Italian and Yugoslav partisan brigades in the area.

Ladonia (micronation)

Ladonia (Swedish: Ladonien) is a micronation, proclaimed in 1996 as the result of a years-long court battle between artist Lars Vilks and local authorities over two sculptures. The claimed territory is part of the natural reserve of Kullaberg in southern Sweden.

History

In 1980, artist Lars Vilks began construction of two sculptures, Nimis (Latin for "too much", a structure made of 75 tonnes of driftwood) and Arx (Latin for "fortress", a structure made of stone), in the Kullaberg nature reserve in north-west Skåne, Sweden. The location of the sculptures is difficult to reach, and as a consequence they were not discovered for two years, at which point the local council declared the sculptures to be buildings, the construction of which was forbidden on the nature reserve, and demanded that they should be dismantled and removed.

Vilks appealed the decision of the council, but lost. He appealed repeatedly, and finally the case was settled, in the council's favour, by the Swedish government. However, in the meantime Nimis had been bought from Vilks by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude after the death of Joseph Beuys, who bought it in 1984. On June 2, 1996 Vilks declared the microstate of Ladonia in protest of the local council.