Gracia Mendes Nasi - Widowhood

Widowhood

In 1538 Francisco died, leaving Dona Gracia, his young wife, with an infant daughter, Ana, (future wife of Don Joseph Nasi). A few years earlier, Francisco's brother, Diogo, had opened a branch office of their banking house in the Habsburg Netherlands city of Antwerp together with his relative Abraham Benveniste. Soon afterwards, the Mendes|Benveniste moved to Antwerp and joined Diogo. While there, she developed an escape network that helped hundreds of fellow Conversos flee Spain and Portugal, where there had been constantly under threat of arrest as heretics by the Inquisition. These fleeing Conversos were first directly secretly to spice ships, owned or operated by the House of Mendes|Benveniste, that were regularly sailing from Lisbon to Antwerp. Once in Antwerp, Dona Gracia 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.

Five years after Dona Gracia settled in Antwerp, Diogo also died. It was now 1542, and in his will he left his niece and sister-in-law control of the Mendes|Benveniste commercial empire, making her into an important businesswoman. Her enormous wealth put her into a position to influence kings and popes, which she used to protect her fellow Conversos and spend on her escape network. It is believed she was the driving force behind the publication of the Ferrara Bible from Sephardic source texts; the second, public printing of this document was dedicated to her. All the while she had to fend off attempts by various monarchs to confiscate her fortune by trying to arrange a marriage of her only daughter to their relatives. Had this happened a large portion of the family wealth would have been lost, as it would have come under the control of her daughter's husband. Dona Gracia resisted all these attempts, which often put her in personal peril.

Under Gracia, the House of Mendes dealt with King Henry II of France, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, his sister Mary, Governess of the Low Countries, Popes Paul III and Paul IV, and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. These dealings involved commercial activities, loans, and bribes. Earlier payments to the Pope by the House of Mendes and their associates had delayed the establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal (see History of the Jews in Portugal).