The Woman Who Defied Kings: The Life and Times of Dona Gracia Nasi - a Jewish Leader during the Renaissance
The Woman Who Defied Kings is the first modern, comprehensive biography of Do±a Gracia Nasi, an outstanding Jewish international banker during the Renaissance. A courageous leader, she used her wealth and connections to operate an underground railroad that saved hundreds of her fellow Spanish and Portuguese conversos (Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism) from the horrors of the Inquisition. Born in Lisbon in 1510, she later moved onto Antwerp, Venice, and Ferrara where she was...
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The Woman Who Defied Kings is the first modern, comprehensive biography of Doña Gracia Nasi, an outstanding Jewish international banker during the Renaissance. A courageous leader, she used her wealth and connections to operate an "underground railroad" that saved hundreds of her fellow Spanish and Portuguese conversos (Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism) from the horrors of the Inquisition. Born in Lisbon in 1510, she later moved onto Antwerp, Venice and Ferrara where she was constantly negotiating with kings and emperors for better conditions for her people. Doña Gracia Nasi helped lead a boycott of the Italian port of Ancona in retaliation for the burning of 23 of her people by the Inquisition--an outrageous act in an era when Jews were more accustomed to appeasement. Finally settling in Constantinople, she persuaded Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to grant her a long-term lease on the Tiberias region of the Palestine where she spearheaded one of the earliest attempts to start an independent state for Jews in Israel. Doña Gracia Nasi is equally important to history because she shatters the stereotype of how women, especially Jewish women, conducted their lives during the Renaissance period. Some historians have called her the most important Jewish woman since Biblical times. About the Author Andrée Aelion Brooks is a journalist, author and lecturer specializing in Jewish history topics. For nearly two decades she was a contributing columnist and news writer for the New York Times. She wrote the award-winning book Children of Fast Track Parents. She founded the Women's Campaign School at Yale University, where she is an Associate Fellow, and served as the director/editor of an important teaching series for 5-7th graders in Sephardic Jewish history and culture called "Out of Spain." Over forty years of published work including: more than 2,000 articles in the New York Times during an eighteen year span; countless pieces in other newspapers and magazines including The New York Times Magazine, European Judaism (academic journal), Equity (Worth), McCalls, Glamour, Reform Judaism, Hadassah Magazine, Historic Preservation, among many others. Ms. Magazine - Erickson A role model for women today "An excellent read! The story of Doña Garcia is riveting. She would be a hero in any age and a role model for women today.
Prologue Glossary PART I. Portugal: 1510-1537 Chapter 1. A Time to be Born Chapter 2. Growing Up Chapter 3. Marriage Chapter 4. Widowhood Part II. Antwerp: 1537-1545 Chapter 5. Among the Money Merchants Chapter 6. A Time for Learning Chapter 7. Crisis Chapter 8. Flight Part III. Italy:1546-1552 Chapter 9. Merchants in Venice Chapter 10. The Enemy Within Chapter 11. Patron of the Arts Chapter 12. An Imminent Departure Part IV. Turkey: 1553-1569 Chapter 13. From an Ottoman Perch Chapter 14. Tragedy in Ancona Chapter 15. A Time of Trial Chapter 16. Unfinished Business Chapter 17. A Benevolent Lady Chapter 18. The Tiberias Project Chapter 19. Ebb Tide Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
\ EricksonA role model for women today "An excellent read! The story of Doña Garcia is riveting. She would be a hero in any age and a role model for women today. \ — Ms. Magazine\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyIn an assiduously researched biography of a 16th-century Jewish woman who managed a powerful business empire, Brooks, an associate fellow at Yale, has illuminated a mostly forgotten corner of history. Famed during her lifetime both in the Sephardic Jewish community for her unstinting philanthropy and in the wider world of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, where she fled to escape the Inquisition, Beatrice de Luna Mendes, better known as Do$a Gracia Nasi (1510-1569), was a woman of formidable business acumen, personal courage, outstanding altruism and devotion to the Jewish religion, which, as a Catholic converso, she practiced in secret. Widowed early, Do$a Gracia managed both the complex financial affairs of her late husband's merchant empire and its secret activities. The latter included huge bribes to the Church and (never repaid) loans to several monarchs, as well as an underground escape route that rescued thousands of conversos from the Inquisition's fury in Spain, Portugal and Italy. Despite their financial power, the Mendes family were forced by the Inquisition into quick moves and narrow escapes from Lisbon to Antwerp to Venice and Ferrara, back to Venice and then to Constantinople. Brooks's research, which involved previously unavailable documents in 13 languages and seven countries, effectively details 16th-century social, religious and economic conditions, especially as they affected the Jewish community. Her overeager attempt to lionize her subject, however, sometimes results in fulsome, even strident prose. Yet even if Do$a Gracia is not a feminist heroine, as Brooks suggests, this saga of her life and times is a significant contribution to Jewish history during the Renaissance. Photos. Agent, Carolyn French, Fifi Oscard Agency. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.\ \
