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name of the Pope, soon marched on the city. After an eight-day siege in mid-May 1849, the Austrians entered Bologna, restored the papal insignias, prohibited all public gatherings, required all residents to be off the streets by midnight, reinstated censorship of the press, and banned all displays of the national tricolor. Bologna was once again part of the Papal States. Two weeks later, Francesco V reentered Modena to take back his duchy. A month after that, French troops marched into Rome, destroying the last remnants of the republic and sending Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini into exile. 16
    Too weak to stand on its own, papal rule in Bologna would now be ensured by the presence of a large, permanent force of Austrian troops and a reign of repression. In 1850, with order returning, the Mortaras made their move from Reggio to a home in the center of Bologna. Although they followed political developments with interest, they were preoccupied with the tasks of caring for their five small children and getting a new business started. They avoided the attention of the Austrian troops and the papal police as much as they could.

CHAPTER 4
Days of Desperation
    F RIDAY , June 25, 1858, the day after 6-year-old Edgardo rode down Bologna’s cobblestone streets in the arms of the police, Momolo was still bewildered. He did not know who was supposed to have baptized his son, when they had done it, or how the Inquisitor had come to hear of it. The one thing he did know—he thought—was that his son was still somewhere in the city, most likely in the convent of San Domenico itself. Just before Marshal Lucidi took Edgardo away, Momolo’s friend Vitta demanded a receipt for the boy. The note Lucidi scrawled read: “I have received and been consigned by Sig. Momolo Mortara his son Edgardo, aged 7 [sic], who by order of the Holy Father Inquisitor General is to be deposited in that Convent.” 1
    At the moment, Momolo’s only hope of contacting his son was through Father Feletti. Momolo recalled the Father’s suggestion that he prepare some clothes for the boy, and although the Inquisitor had said that he would send someone to pick up the package, Momolo decided to take it to the convent himself to see if he could learn where his son was.
    After lunch, he prepared a little bundle—the boy had left with only what he was wearing—and asked his brother-in-law, Angelo Moscato, to return with him to San Domenico. When they arrived at the splendid church courtyard, a lay Dominican brother informed them that Father Feletti was away and suggested they come back the next day. On their return the next morning, Edgardo’s clothes again in hand, they were ushered into the Inquisitor’s quarters.
    Father Feletti received them graciously, but told Momolo that his son would have no need of the clothes after all. Edgardo was doing just fine,although just where the boy was, the Inquisitor would not say. I have entrusted your son, he reassured Momolo, to someone who is a good family man himself, a man who can be counted on to treat Edgardo with a father’s care. What Momolo was not told was that the family man in question was a person he had recently met—Brigadier Agostini.
    Momolo and his brother-in-law could get nothing more from the Inquisitor and returned dejectedly home, where friends and neighbors soon brought the news that the carriage that had made off with Edgardo had been spotted as it sped out of the city. It had not gone to San Domenico at all.
    Momolo was in shock. His wife, Marianna, was, according to some reports, going out of her mind. They knew only too well the fate that had befallen them, for it was one that they, their relatives, and their Jewish friends had feared all their lives.
    Once a Jewish child had been baptized, the child was in the eyes of the Church no longer a Jew and could not remain with his or her parents. In Catholic theology, baptism is viewed as a practice instituted by Jesus himself; its effects are