Early life ,
Israel. Gracia Mendes Nasi was born Beatriz de Luna Miques in
Lisbon,
Portugal in 1510 to a family of converted Jews (also known as
anusim or
Marranos) originally from
Aragon,
Spain. Gracia's father was Álvaro de Luna (possibly related to Álvaro de Luna from Spain (1388/1390 – 1453), a colleague of Don Abraham Benveniste. Her mother was Felipa Mendes Benveniste, the sister of the Mendes brothers, Francisco and Diogo, and granddaughter of Don Abraham Benveniste of Castile. Gracia had a younger sister, Reyna, also known by her Christianized name, Brianda. The de Luna family had fled to Portugal to escape persecution in Spain after the
Catholic Monarchs of Spain expelled the Jews in 1492. Though their wealth shielded them from the harshest forms of Jewish persecution in Portugal, in 1497 the de Luna family was forcibly converted to
Catholicism, along with most Portuguese Jews, following
King Manuel I of Portugal decree of expulsion, which eventually led to the
Portuguese Inquisition in 1536.
Marriage and Ascent in the Mendes Banking Enterprise In 1528, at 18, Gracia married her maternal uncle, Francisco Mendes Benveniste (Hebrew name Tsemach Benveniste, צֶמַח בֶּנְוֵנִיסְטֵי) in a secret
Jewish wedding in Gracia's basement, and later in a public Catholic ceremony at the
Lisbon Cathedral. A crypto-Jew and wealthy
spice trader, Francisco was also a creditor and confidante of
John III of Portugal. In his will, he divided his fortune between Doña Gracia and Diogo. This gave Doña Gracia immense wealth, and crucially, significant control of the Mendes-Benveniste family fortune and enterprise. After some time had passed, she asked the Pope if his remains could be put to rest in a new burial place. With the Pope's approval, she had Francisco's body moved to the
Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem.
Beginnings in Antwerp In the years before Francisco's death in 1535, his brother, Diogo, opened a branch office of their house in
Antwerp,
Habsburg Netherlands, together with his relative Abraham Benveniste. Soon after Francisco's death, Doña Gracia joined Diogo in Antwerp with her infant daughter, Ana (future wife of
Joseph Nasi) and her younger sister, Brianda de Luna. The move from Lisbon was timely due to the worsening political landscape for Jews in Portugal -
Pope Paul III launched the
Portuguese Inquisition in 1536. Once in Antwerp, Gracia invested her family fortune in her brother-in-law's business, and started to gain reputation as his business partner and independent business woman. The relationship between the de Luna and Mendes households became even stronger with the marriage between Beatrice's sister, Brianda, and Diogo Mendes. Diogo died in 1542, just five years after Beatrice Mendes settled in Antwerp. In his will he left his niece and sister-in-law control of the Mendes commercial empire, making Gracia an important businesswoman. The second public printing of the book was dedicated to her. During this period, she had to fend off constant attempts by various monarchs to confiscate her fortune through an arranged marriage to her only daughter, Ana, meaning a large portion of the family wealth would have come under the control of her daughter's husband. Gracia resisted all these attempts, which often put her in personal peril. Starting in Antwerp, she began to develop an escape network that helped hundreds of fellow crypto-Jews flee
Habsburg Spain and Portugal, where they had been constantly under threat of arrest as
heretics by the Inquisition. These fleeing conversos were first sent secretly to spice ships, owned or operated by the House of Mendes-Benveniste, that sailed regularly between
Lisbon and Antwerp. In Antwerp, Beatrice Mendes and her staff gave them instructions and the money to travel by cart and foot over the
Alps to the great port city of
Venice, where arrangements were made to transport them by ship to the Ottoman Empire, Greece, and Turkey in the East. At that time the
Ottoman Empire, under the Muslim Turks, welcomed Jews to their lands. The escape route was carefully planned. Even so, many died on the way as they traversed the mountain paths of the high
Alps. The Jewish escape networks were known as "e
l camino dificil", "the difficult trail". Under Gracia Nasi, the House of Mendes-Benveniste dealt with King
Henry II of France,
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, his sister
Mary, Governor of the Low Countries, Popes
Paul III and
Paul IV, and
Suleiman the Magnificent, the
Ottoman Sultan. These dealings involved commercial activities, loans, and
bribes. Earlier payments to the Pope by the House of Mendes and their associates had delayed the
Inquisition in Portugal.
Life in Venice and Ferrara In 1544, Gracia Nasi fled once more to the
Republic of Venice, and took up residence on the
Grand Canal. The city-state offered Jews and conversos a safe base to live and conduct business, although Jews were still confined in the
Venetian Ghetto. Because of Jewish persecution, the Mendes family most likely still practiced Judaism in secret whilst presenting a façade of Catholicism. She continued trading pepper, grain, and
textiles. While in Venice, a dispute arose with her sister, Brianda, Diogo's wife, regarding his estate. Nasi left yet again to the nearby
Duchy of Ferrara to avoid the ruling the Venetian
Giudici al Forestier "Tribunal for the Affairs of Foreigners" decided would end the sisters' conflict over equal control of the fortune. The city of Ferrara was eager to accept the Mendes family; Duke
Ercole II d'Este (1508-1559) agreed to the terms of Diogo Mendes's will so that the wealthy family would move to his city, and received them in 1549. In Ferrara, Beatrice Mendes, for the first time in her life, could openly practice Judaism in a distinguished community and a city that recognized her rights. She adopted the Hebrew name Nasi (her daughter's name) instead of her Latin name Benveniste. Around this time is when she most likely became known as Doña Gracia Nasi. The genealogy of her family becomes confusing here; this is most likely when her sister Brianda adopted the name Reyna, when Beatrice's daughter Ana became known as Reyna as well, and also when Brianda's daughter, named after Beatrice, was given the name Gracia. The family's new proud Jewish identity brought Doña Gracia beyond commercial business, and she became a large benefactor and organizer for resettling Jews using her commercial network throughout the
Jewish diaspora. Doña Gracia became very involved with the Sephardi community in Ferrara, and actively supported the burst of literacy and printing among the Jews of Ferrara. Books printed during this time, most notably the
Ladino Ferrara Bible (1553) and
Samuel Usque's Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel (1553), were dedicated to Nasi. The move to Ferrara did not end the quarrel between Doña Gracia and her sister, Brianda (now Reyna de Luna), over control of the estate. To finally settle the dispute, Doña Gracia briefly went to Venice to settle with her sister in the
Venetian Senate.
Constantinople In 1553, after the settlement was made, Gracia, her daughter Ana (now Reyna Nasi), and her large entourage moved to
Constantinople (now
Istanbul) in the
Ottoman Empire. There she arranged for her daughter to marry her husband's nephew and business partner,
Joseph Nasi. This move in 1553, just as her others, proved to be just in time, as the political atmosphere of the
Counter-Reformation Italian peninsula became hostile. In Constantinople, Doña Gracia lived fashionably in the European quarter of
Galata. She had a very active Jewish life and assumed leadership in the Ottoman Sephardi world. In 1556, soon after Doña Gracia arrived in Constantinople,
Pope Paul IV sentenced a group of
conversos in Ancona to
auto-da-fé (burning at the stake), claiming they were still practicing Jewish rites. In response, Doña Gracia organized a
trade embargo on the port of
Ancona in the
Papal States. The boycott ultimately failed and the conversos were burnt to death. In Istanbul, she built
synagogues,
yeshivas and hospitals. One of the synagogues is named after her, "
La Señora" (Sinyora Sinagogu), which still stands today in Izmir, Turkey. == Jewish settlement in Tiberias ==