The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

The kidnapping of Edgardo Montara captured the world's attention during 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure from a Jewish family in Bologna of one of their children, six-year-old Edgardo Mortara, on the basis of a former servant's testimony saying that she had given an emergency baptism to the boy when he fell ill. This would cause a tremendous controversy as the government would intervene and take away the child from the parents.