The Anussim of Portugal
DR ELIAHU DA LUNA MONTALTO
DR ELIAHU DA LUNA MONTALTO
(16-17th century)
was another
New Christian who returned to Judaism. He fled Portugal at the end of the
16th century. Owing to his reputation as a distinguished doctor and
scientist, he was invited to serve as the personal physician of Marie de
Medici, the wife of Henry IV, king of France. He later accepted a post at
the University of Pisa, teaching medicine. He then, spent some time in
Venice, where he published several medical treatises and eventually
returned to France and remained at the service of the Queen until his
death, in 1616.
While in Venice, he formally declared himself a Jew and
became a zealous defender of the Jewish faith, endeavouring to convince
other conversos to renounce their Christian faith and return to Judaism.
He wrote a number of letters to Pedro Rodrigues and Isabella da Fonseca, a
sister of his wife, who had escaped from Portugal and settled in Southern
France, entreating them to follow his example and affirm their Jewishness.
Here are some excerpts from the letters Montalto sent to
Rodrigues from Venice, in the year 1612:
"The present captivity and the violent tyranny with which
the kings of France, Castille, Portugal, England and other kingdoms,
force the Jews to adore their false gods and their idols of wood and
stone? Of what other sect does Scripture speak, if not of the erroneous
one which you follow? and which you entered, not out of conviction, nor
by Divine inspiration, but through the compulsory force of kings Dom
Manuel and Dom Juan. Indeed, you are not a true Christian, because your
father - who lived and died as a secret Jew - acted only out of fear. He
did not reveal to you this family secret, when you were a child, and
because of that, you have become used to these errors?
The Lord has led you to a free country in order that
you may recognize the truth and free yourself from the abominable
blindness and the torpid idolatry in which you have lived up till now,
in order that you may come to know and to follow the true God: Creator
and not creature, spiritual and not corporeal, most sublime and not
subject to human miseries and weaknesses? My soul is extremely pained
about your misfortune and your losses. Everything I can do or that the
Lord gives me, shall always be yours, because I love you like my soul.
Do not get discouraged, because the Lord will remedy everything. May He
keep you and comfort you?"
THE MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT
http://www.medici.org/news/dom/dom042002.html
DR.
MONTALTO, I PRESUME?
Why did a distinguished
Portuguese physician suddenly disappear from the
Florentine Court, then reappear as a Jew in the
Venetian Ghetto?
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Jacob van Ruisdael, THE
JEWISH CEMETERY, 1655-60, oil on canvas, 141 x
182.9 cm,
© The
Detroit Institute of Art, gift of Julius H.
Haass, in memory of his brother Dr. Ernest W.
Haass
Scan by
Mark Harden |
PRESENTED BY: |
The
Staff of The Medici Archive Project (with
thanks to Nick Wilding who discovered the
document.) |
DATE: |
29th
December 1607 |
FROM: |
Medici Envoy Asdrubale Barbolani di Montauto |
PLACE: |
Venice |
TO: |
Granducal Secretary
Belisario Vinta |
PLACE: |
Florence |
DOCUMENT CITATION:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato
3000, ff.254-5
(Entry 14561 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)
TRANSLATION:
Montalto, the Portuguese medical doctor, is in the
Ghetto here in Venice, with his yellow hat and a
determination to remain there and practice the
profession of medicine. I carried out Your Lordship’s
order and spoke with him all by himself, letting him
choose the time and place. He professes and manifests
himself to be the Grand Duke’s [Ferdinando I de’ Medici]
most humble, obligated and devoted servant and he says
that he went off on his own for the sake of his personal
interests and out of religious zeal. For this reason, he
felt compelled to leave the way of life, the comforts,
the material advantages and the hopes that he enjoyed
while living under the title of a Christian and he has
resigned himself to a life under his own law that is
poor and abject, without comforts and with few hopes.
Nonetheless, he hopes that the Grand Duke will be
inclined to pardon and excuse him and continue to number
him among his servants, albeit in the last place. He
asserts that he was not motivated by anyone’s
persecution or urging and that such things were not even
a factor. He also promises that he has no intention of
persuading anyone to leave Tuscany, as he has done, to
come live here in Venice. He asserts that he has never
done this nor even thought of it and he will give any
pledge or undertaking that we might wish. I frankly
admit that he presented his motives, his feelings and
his reasoning so effectively, humbly and modestly that I
found myself highly edified, in so far as one can be
edified by a matter of this sort.
He then described how a great number of families were
preparing to leave Portugal, some for Flanders, some for
France, a few for Venice and many for Livorno and Pisa.
Some of these will come as Jews at the outset and some
with the title of Christians. If things work out for
them in Livorno and Pisa, they will be followed by as
many others as we might wish, if not indeed more. It
thus seems advisable to leave everyone free to come and
go, in order not to discourage them while they still
entertain doubts. As to why so many are ready to leave
Portugal, he said that the Office of the Inquisition had
previously withheld its full rigor from the Jews because
they paid such large sums of money to the King. They are
now beginning to imprison and act more harshly because
those officials who had previously made a fortune with
their prisons full, have seen what it is like when they
are empty and want to fill them up again. They cannot
accomplish this, however, without mass suppression and a
long, continuous process of destruction. Therefore,
those who are able to flee want to do so as soon as they
safely can.
He thinks that one of his fellow Portuguese there in
Florence might have planted this idea in order to put
him [Montalto] in low esteem with the Grand Duke and
that of the world at large and to keep himself in favor
so that we will not discover that he is in fact tarred
with the same brush and is entertaining the same ideas.
Perhaps they wish in this way to determine His
Highness’s inclination and his view of the situation. In
conclusion, he [Montalto] admitted that he would be
undeserving of his reputation for skill and
accomplishment had he not recognized and considered the
circumstances, the danger that he faced in diminishing
others and the danger of eliciting the just indignation
of so great a prince to whom he is so highly obligated.
In the course of this long discussion, my impression was
that he might have wished for or nurtured some hope of
obtaining [Girolamo] Mercuriale’s chair, due to a direct
or implied promise from some quarter. His disgust at not
obtaining it might well have hastened his decision if
not persuaded him outright. I hear that all of his
possessions together are not worth 300 scudi and he has
children to support. However, the fact of the matter is
that he won’t lack earnings and material advantages in
this ghetto. In addition to other possible ways of
making a living, there must be 6 or 7 thousand people
there and apparently no one now really skilled in the
medical profession. |
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