Document Highlights

April 2002

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

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 begining 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.

TRANSCRIPTION:
[...] Il medico Montalto portughese è in questo ghetto di Venetia con il suo capello giallo, et con risolutione di fermarvesi et attendere alla professione di medicina; Io ho eseguito l'ordine di V.S. di parlarli a solo a solo con commodo di tenpo, et di luogo. Si professa, et mostra servitore humilissimo obbligatissimo et devotissimo del Granduca; dice essersi messo pur solo per interesse, et zelo di religione, et per questa causa gli è parso essere obbligato a lassare gli indirizzi, le commodità, gli utili, et le speranze che haveva vivendo con nome di cristiano, et contentarsi di viver povero, abbietto, et senza commodità et con poche speranze nella sua legge, et spero che il Granduca sia per perdonarli et [cancellation] scusarlo, et ritenerlo anco nel numero de suoi servitori se bene in ultimo luogo. Asserisce di non si esser mosso di persecutione, o instantia fattali da nessuno, ne meno haver trattato di tale cose. Promette di non esser mai per persuader nessuno a levarsi di costì per venire a star quà, come ha fatto lui, asserisce non haverlo fatto mai nè pensato et ne darà che promessa, o cautione si può desiderare e haver di lui, et io confesso che egli mi ha rapresentato, i suoi sensi, le sue passioni, et le sue ragioni con tale efficacia, humiltà et modestia, che so[n] rimasto edificatissimo per quella che si può restare in caso tale. Mi ha poi discorso che di Portogallo se preparerà gran quantità di famiglie per la partenza, parte per Fiandria, parte per Francia, qualcuno per Venetia, et molti per Livorno, et Pisa de quali parte verranno alla prima come hebrei, parte con nome di cristiani, et se incaminano le cose a via che a Livorno ^e Pisa^ sene haveranno di continuo quanti sene vorra e forse più, et per questo mostra esser bene lassar ognuno in libertà di andare, et stare come le piace, et quanto vole per non levarli l'animo di venire, mentre sono in ambiguo. La causa dice essere della partenza di tanti da Portugallo perchè l'uffitio della Inquisitione che non ha esercitato il suo rigore con gli hebrei di che pagorono al Ré così gran somma di denari comincia ora a ritengere, et a incrudelire più che prima, et quei ministri che prima havevano le prigioni piene ne cavavano tesori, havendo provato la differentia mentre non vi hanno hauto nessuno, vogliono riempirle, et non può succedere senza esterminio et senza una lunga, et continua strage la quale quelli che possono vogliono fuggire, et quanto più presto le venga fatto senza pericolo. Crede che qualche suo portughese costì possa haver fatto officio di metterlo in male consideratione del Granduca et del mondo per mantener se stesso in buon concetto, sichè non si venga a scoprire che anco egli è macchiato della medesima pece, et può havere i medesimi pensieri, et forse con questo mezzo vogliono scoprir la voluntà di S.A. et il senso che ha in questo fatto. Et in fine confessa che sarebbe indegno di quel nome che ha di haver qualche talento di vertù, et di ingegno, se non havessi conosciuto, et considerato il fatto, et il pericolo del essere di debassare altri et dello sdegno giusto di così gran principe, al quale professa tanto obbligo. Nel proposito del lungo ragionamento, mi par bene haver scoperto che egli potessi haver qualche desiderio, et forse concepitare speranza per promessa o altre espressa delle catedra del Mercuriale, et che il disgusto di non ottenerla lo possa havere accelerata la resolutione che ha fatto, se non persuaseselo et sento che non ha quel che voglia 300 scudi intutto il suo havere con carica di figli alle spalle vero è che non le mancarà guadagno, è utili in questo ghetto dove devono essere 6 o 7 mile anime, et non si sente esservi homo di valore in professione de medicina adesso oltre ad altre vie che haverà di portarsi inanzi [...]

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

Asdrubale Barbolani di Montauto, the Medici agent in Venice, reports on a secret meeting with Doctor Montalto, a Portuguese medical practitioner. He had disappeared from the Tuscan court and then reappeared in Venice, professing himself a Jew. Who in fact was this Doctor Montalto? And why was his crisis of conscience a pressing issue for the Granducal administration in Florence?

In terms of historical fact, we know a good deal about a few aspects of Montalto’s life and almost nothing about others. He was evidently born in 1567 to a distinguished family of "New Christians" in Castelo Branco in Portugal (that is to say, Jews forcibly or semi-voluntarily baptized after the expulsion edicts of 1492 and 1497.) At the University of Salamanca in Spain, he studied medicine with the rather grand Christian name of Felipe Rodrigues de Castelo Branco. Montalto and his family left Portugal around 1602, shortly after King Felipe III agreed to allow the emigration of conversos (including many crypto-Jews), thereby extorting vast sums of money while pursuing his political goal of religious, cultural and ethnic purification. Montalto seems to have spent time in Antwerp, Bordeaux and Paris, before moving on to Livorno, Pisa and Florence. While in France, he evidently practiced medicine at the court of Queen Maria de’ Medici and might in this way have attracted the attention of her uncle Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany.

Ferdinando I de’ Medici (reigned 1587-1609), actively encouraged Jewish settlement in the new Medici free port of Livorno and by extention in the nearby city of Pisa, codifying this policy of enlightened economic development in the Livornina Decree of 1593. Though Grand Duke Ferdinando did not favor religious heterodoxy, he was not inclined to ask awkward questions unless forced to do so. Therefore, in the relatively liberal climate of Tuscany, Montalto would have had many opportunities to meet openly practicing Jews as well as other Portuguese New Christians who were rethinking their options. The present letter documents the time and place of his public reconversion. It also describes in telling detail both the human and the political context of this event.

Shortly before his flight to Venice in 1607, Montalto published an authoritative treatise on optics dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinando’s son Cosimo (later Cosimo II), with the title, Optica intra philosophiæ et medicinæ aream, de visu, de visus organo et objecto theoriam ... complectens (Florence, 1606.) In the introduction, he claims to have taught at the Medici-sponsored University of Pisa, though his name does not appear in the official lists of the faculty. The illustrious Girolamo Mercuriale held the professorship of medicine there from 1592 until his death in 1606, as well as the title of First Physician to the Grand Duke. As Asdrubale Barbolani di Montauto observed, a professional disappointment might well have influenced the timing of Montalto’s momentous decision.

In recounting his meeting with Montalto, the Medici agent expresses a curious mixture of respect, sympathy and calculation. Barbolani di Montauto views the Portuguese doctor as a distinguished public figure and admires him as a man who has persevered with a difficult moral decision. Most of his letter, however, focuses on the public perception of the event and its implications for Tuscan commercial policy. The very last thing that the Medici administration wanted was for wealthy Portuguese conversos to think that a highly visible figure like Montalto was compelled to flee the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany in order to live peacefully and securely.

Barbolani di Montauto conveys the perceived gravity of the situation in another letter from a week earlier, where he repeats his instructions from Florence, "You order me to seek out the Portuguese medical doctor Montalto, who is believed to be in this Jewish Ghetto. And when I find him, I am to talk with him, explaining his mistake and the deceit that he perpetrated on His Highness [Ferdinando I], admonishing him and threatening him to desist from bringing Portughese here from Pisa." ("mi ordina che io faccia opera de ritrovare il Medico Montalto Portughese, che si crede essere in questo Ghetto hebreo, et trovatolo gli parli rapresentandoli il suo errore, et l'inganno fatto a S.A. et lo amonisca et minacci a desistere, circa al far venir qui Portughesi di Pisa", 22 December 1607, Asdrubale Barbolani di Montauto to Belisario Vinta, ASF MdP 3000, f.248, Database Entry 14546.)

In Venice, Montalto emerged as a highly committed partisan of the Jewish faith, using the name of Philotheus Eliahu de Luna Montalto, in various linguistic and formal variations. (It remains to be determined exactly when in his career he shed the Rodrigues label.) He publicly debated points of comparative theology and composed manuscript treatises, including a widely if discretely circulated Commentary on the Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah, which attacks the basic tenets of Christian redemption. Montalto apparently remained in Venice for only a few years, returning to France around 1611 and taking up the position of physician to Queen Maria de’ Medici. In France, he published several influential books, including a notable study of mental disorders, Archipatholgia, in qua internarum capitis affectionum essentia, causæ, signa, præsagia, et curatio ... edisseruntur (Paris, 1614).

Maria de’ Medici was highly supportive of Montalto’s Jewish activities. When the doctor died suddenly during her court’s visit to Tours in 1616, she had his body embalmed and shipped to the new Portuguese Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk near Amsterdam. The Ouderkerk "Bais HaChaim" ("Home of the Living") had been founded only two years earlier and Montalto’s impressive tomb became one of its chief sights. It was often depicted by artists and forms the most conspicuous element in Jacob van Ruisdael’s famous representations of the "The Jewish Cemetery".

SPECIAL THANKS to Dr. Lucia Frattarelli Fischer for her historical notes on Jews in early seventeenth century Tuscany.

FOR FURTHER READING: Hary Friedenwald; The Jews in Medicine, New York 1967, pp.468-497.

ILLUSTRATION NOTE:

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

In his dramatic evocation of the Portuguese Jewish Cemetery at Ouderkerk, Ruisdael centers his composition on the startlingly white tomb of Doctor Philotheus Eliahu de Luna Montalto (in Christian life known as Felipe Rodrigues de Castelo Branco.) Since the painting was realized only some forty years after Montalto’s death (1616) and the founding of the cemetery (1614), the aura of romantic decay should be taken as poetic license. The tomb’s craggy setting also has little to do with the actual topography of the Ouderkerk "Bais HaChaim", which is situated on a flat stretch of the Amstel River four kilometers south of the city of Amsterdam.

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