The jury is still out over the origin of the word “ghetto”. It is spelled in various different ways in old documents – ghèto, getto, ghetto, geto – but often indicates the place in which the Jews were enclosed, first in the Ghetto Nuovo and then in the Ghetto Vecchio. The “tract of land called the getto or the ghetto was the seat of the public foundries where bombards were cast (gettate in Italian)” and so “the place was called el getto because it contained over 12 foundries and bronze was cast there”. The word Ghetto thus appears to come from the name of the island on which the old foundries were situated. That, at any rate, is the explanation most popular with scholars today, other etymologies appearing to be more difficult to accept, so Venice is responsible for giving the world the word commonly used around the globe to indicate segregation and social discrimination.