. by
Peter Schenk the Elder It is the area where De la Vega grew up. Joseph Penso Felix was born about 1650 into a family of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews; it is unknown where, but scholars believe either in Cordoba or Amsterdam. He was the son of Isaac Penso Félix (1608-1683) a merchant, and of Esther de la Vega (-1679). His father was a
converso from Espejo, a small town in
Córdoba province (
Andalusia), who had made a solemn vow in the dungeon of the
Inquisition that within a year after regaining his liberty he would openly profess
Judaism. His father fulfilled his oath in
Middelburg after his escape to
Antwerp. He moved to Hamburg, where he married Esther de la Vega; Sara, their first child, was born there in 1645. In 1655 he was appointed
parnas, not long after the family settled in Amsterdam. According to the marriage certificates in the
Amsterdam City Archives, Joseph had three younger brothers and four younger sisters: Abraham Penso Felix (ca 1656-1710) was a schoolmaster, a diamond seller and traded in slaves; David (1654-) and Raphael Penso (ca 1659-) were merchants, who moved to London; Jochebet Pensa (1655-1718), Ribca Penso (1662-1720), Abigail Penso (ca 1663-1708) and Lea Pensa (1664-1710) lived in Amsterdam. Joseph was taught by
Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and
Moses Raphael de Aguilar, members of the
Talmud Torah community. He completed his first Hebrew drama, "
Asire ha-Tiḳwah" ("The prisoner of hope"), in three acts, which appeared in Amsterdam in 1673 at
Joseph Athias and in which he allegorically depicted the victory of the will over the passions. He unusually signed this Hebrew drama as José Penso, not Josseph de la Vega which was his standard signature for his works written in 16th century literary style Spanish. According to José Amador de los Ríos he had a unique poetic style with great originality, although he was clearly influenced by famous Spanish "16th century Golden Era" writers like Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. He married Raquel Alvares Vega from Antwerp, unknown is when. His commercial life began in Amsterdam in 1679 with a bill protest on Portugal; it is the only record on his name. Joseph or José resided in Livorno, Italy, at the age of 26, in 1676. He participated in the Academy of the Sitibundi in Amsterdam (where he was secretary of the Academy of the Flori, founded by Manuel de Belmonte in 1685) and in Hamburg. Manuel de Belmonte (-1705), was a court jew from 1674 resident of the Spanish king, who organized slave trades between 1679 and 1691. He printed most of his books in Amsterdam, at the clandestine printing press of David de Castro Tartaz, to circumvent the censorship imposed by the Sephardic rabbis. In August 1688 Joseph de la Vega lived through the collapse of the
Dutch East India Company and
Dutch West India Company, which financially ruined him. The funding of the
armed invasion of
William III in England caused a financial crisis in the Dutch Republic. Consequently, the financiers following William III to Britain possessed a full range of financial techniques, and for which they found a ready market indeed. This transfer of know-how formed the basis of
derivatives trading in London, firmly linking Amsterdam's pioneering work to the emergence of modern markets. He was buried at
Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. ==
Confusion of Confusions (1688) ==