sentences:  Jewish presence dates to the pre-Christian Roman period and has continued uninterrupted up to the present, despite periods of extreme persecution and occasional expulsions from parts of the country.Native Italian Jews, who form the core of the community in Rome, practice the minhag Italkim, or “Italian Jews”, but there are also Ashkenazi Jews who have settled in the North, especially in the lands of the former Republic of Venice (Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and eastern Lombardy) and Piedmont, since the late Middle Ages, and Sephardi Jews, who have established themselves mostly in Livorno, Florence, Venice and several cities of Emilia, after their expulsion from the Kingdom of Naples.The Jewish community of Milan, the country's second largest after Rome's, is the most international in character and composition, notably including a substantial number of Mizrahi Jews originating from Libya and the Middle East.