The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were forced to live by the government of the Venetian Republic. The English word ghetto is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice. The Venetian Ghetto was instituted on 29 March 1516 by decree of Doge Leonardo Loredan and the Venetian Senate. It was not the first time that Jews in Venice were compelled to live in a segregated area of the city. In 1555, Venice had 160,208 inhabitants, including 923 Jews, who were mainly merchants.

Between 1541 and 1633, the Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto Nuovo were made to accommodate the increase in Jewish immigration, but the total number of Jews in Italy did not exceed 25,000. The Jewish community in Venice didn't exceed 5,000 until the early seventeenth century.

In 1797, the French Army of Italy, commanded by the 28-year-old General Napoleon Bonaparte, occupied Venice, forced the Venetian Republic to dissolve itself on 12 May 1797, and ended the ghetto's separation from the city on the 11th of July of the same year. In the 19th century, the ghetto was renamed the Contrada dell'unione.