Abstract
In 1580, as the Neapolitan curia’s prosecution of the nazione catalana moved to a conclusion, a series of events occurred that would further alter the religious and social landscape of the Mediterranean. After Henry I of Portugal died without issue, his kingdom entered a dynastic crisis that pitted Philip II of Spain, who claimed inheritance through his mother, against a pretender from the native aristocracy, Antonio, the Prior of Crato. A brief war resulted in Philip’s favor, and he was crowned king of Portugal, uniting the Iberian Peninsula in its totality under a single monarch for the first time since the end of the Roman Empire. The Habsburgs controlled the country for another sixty years, until the House of Bragança claimed the throne in 1640, returning it to the control of a Portuguese dynasty.1
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Notes
For an overview of the dynastic crisis and its resolution, see Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain. (New Haven, CT: Yale Universty Press, 1997) 168–177, 242–245; on the contribution of the Kingdom of Naples, both in finances and manpower, to Philip’s Portuguese campaign, see Giuseppe Coniglio, I viceré spagnoli di Napoli. (Naples: Fiorentino, 1967), 131–132.
Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano, “Las negociaciones con los cristianos nuevos en tiempos de Felipe III a la luz de algunos documentos inéditos,” Sefarad. 66 (2006), 345–376; David Graizbord, Souls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580–1700. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004), 20–22. Graizbord estimates that “hundreds and probably thousands of Lusitanian conversos crossed the Portuguese border into Castile, Aragon, and Navarre during the period of Spanish control.”; Anthony Molho, “Ebrei e Marrani fra Italia e Levante Ottomano,” in Storia d’Italia, Annali 11: Gli Ebrei in Italia., ed. Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1997), 1009–1043.
Antonio Feros, Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III. (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 143–163; Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers., 17–18.
Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano, Injurias a Cristo. Religión, política y antijudaismo en el siglo XVII. (Universidad de Alcalá, 2002), describes the mounting antiJewish fervor in Madrid in the 1630s, including an auto de fe. in 1632 in Plaza Mayor.
Ruggiero Romano, “Tra XVI e XVII secolo: Una crisi economica: 1619–1622,” Rivista Storica Italiana. LXXIV (1962), 480–531; Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers., 19–42; on the career of Olivares see J.H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: the Statesman in an Age of Decline. (New Haven, CT: Yale Universty Press, 1986).
Galasso, Alla periferia dell’impero., 191–192; Muto, Le finanze pubbliche del Regno di Napoli., 91–108; Antonio Calabria, The Cost of Empire: The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the time of Spanish Rule. (Cambridge, 1991), 37–39.
The history of the Vaaz family in the kingdom of Naples was first reconstructed in two articles by Maria Sirago which provide a wealth of archival documentation regarding the family’s patrimony and political position, though their description of the Inquisition in the kingdom and the religious status of the Vaaz as Jews is inexact: “L’inserimento di una famiglia ebraica portoghese nella feudalità meridionale: I Vaaz a Mola di Bari (circa 1580–1806),” Archivio Storico Pugliese. 40 (1987), 119–158 and “Due esempi di ascensione signorile: I Vaaz Conti di Mola e gli Acquaviva Conti di Conversano tra ‘500 e ‘600,” Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni. XXVI (1986), 169–213; Carolina Belli, “Michele Vaaz hombre de negocios.,” Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano. (1990), 7–23. The date of Miguel Vaaz’s arrival in the kingdom and the reasons for his coming are unclear; according to one legend, so far unsubstantiated, he was sent to Naples by Philip II himself.
On the reforms of Lemos and Vaaz’s role in their creation see Giuseppe Coniglio, Il Viceregno di Napoli nel secolo XVII. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955), 190–216; Galasso, Alla periferia dell’impero., 157–164; on Lemos’ cultural patronage in Naples, see Otis H. Green, “The Literary Court of the Conde de Lemos at Naples, 1610–1616,” Hispanic Review. vol. 1, no. 4 (1933), 290–308 and Girolamo Miranda, Una quiete operosa. Forma e pratiche dell’Accademia napoletana degli Oziosi, 1611–1645. (Naples: Fridericiana, 2000).
Sirago, “L’inserimento di una famiglia,” 126–27; some evidence of Vaaz’s commercial transactions is available in the records of the Banco della Pietà: Notizie tratte dai giornali copiapolizze dell’antico banco della pietà., ed. Fausto Nicolini (Naples: Banco di Napoli, 1951), 43,145, 185,196, 199, 212, 239–241, 256, 262–264, 275, 279, 288, 299.
BNN, ms. X.B.65, “Michele Vaaz e le sue pregiuditiali invention,” cc.nn.; BNN, ms. Brancacciana V.B.10, ff. 10–40, 63–66, 108–109.
Sirago, “L’inserimento di una famiglia,”, 131–132; Francesco Zazzera, “Narrazioni tratte dai giornali del governo di Don Pietro Girone Duca d’Ossuna, viceré di Napoli,” Archivio Storico Italiano. 9 (1846), 478, 481–82, 510–12; on the agitation of the seggi against Vaaz’s manipulation of the grain market in 1622, after Osuna’s departure, see Nunzio Federigo Faraglia, Storia dei Prezzi a Napoli dal 1131 al 1860. (Naples: Nobile, 1878), 151–52, 198–200.
On Osuna’s career and reputation, see the biography by Luis M. Linde, Don Pedro Girón, duque de Osuna: la hegemonía española en Europa a comienzos del siglo XVII. (Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 2005), in particular 125–203.
Giuseppe De Sanctis, Ricordi storici di Mola di Bari. (Napoli: Aniello Eugenio, 1880), 70–90; the privilege granted by Philip II is in the appendix to the text, xxi–xxxix; on the centrality of feudal titles and landholding for economic and social strategies of aristocratic families in the Kingdom of Naples throughout the early modern period, see Gerard Delille, Famille e proprieté dans le royaume de Naples. (XVe–XIXe siècle)(Rome: École Française de Rome, 1985).
Ibid.., 90–97; this occurred in the context of a widespread inflation in the value of aristocratic titles, which became more than doubled as the century progressed. See the statistics provided in Astarita, The Continuity of Feudal Power., 220.
The story of Casa Vaaz/San Michele is recounted in detail in L. D’Addabo, “San Michele e una colonia serba,” Iapigia. XIV (1936), 289–301. Despite the heavily racist overtones of the article, it provides an accurate reconstruction of the events surrounding the colony’s construction and its end. The acts of foundation of Casa Vaaz and San Michele and a brief contemporary summary of the events leading to the expulsion of the slavs are included in an appendix to the article.
Sirago, “L’inserimento di una famiglia,” 156; Annastella Carrino, “Città, patriziati, fazioni. La politica locale nel mezzogiorno spagnolo: Tre studi di caso,” Società e Storia. 113 (2006), 559–598; Brancaccio, Nazione Genovese., 94–97.
Sirago, “L’inserimento di una famiglia,” 133; Toppi, De origine tribunalium., 3: 26–27, 66–70.
For the decree Francesco Capecelatro, Diario di Francesco Capecelatro: contenente la storia delle cose avvenute nel reame di Napoli negli anni 1647–1650. (Naples, 1854), 1: 220 and Giuseppe Donzelli, Partenope Liberata overo la heroica risolutione fatta dal popolo di Napoli. (Naples, 1647), 113; ACDF, BB– 3 b, f. 990; for an recent account of the 1647 revolt, which lasted until April 6,1648, long after Masaniello himself had been killed, see Silvana D’Alessio, Masaniello. (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2007).
Capecelatro, Diario., 3: 76–79; ACDF, St. St. BB-3 b, ff. 1069–1075.
Lodovico Pepe, “Nardò e Terra d’Otranto nei moti del 1647–1648,” Archivio Storico Pugliese. vol. 1, no. 2 (1895), 285–321; the Count of Conversano proved equally ruthless against his own subjects, executing the cathedral canons of Nardò several days later.
This is the reconstruction provided in an anonymous memorial, which probably came from within the curia: ACDF, Stanza Storica., BB 3-b, 483.
ACDF, Stanza Storica., BB 3-b, 569–570.
ACDF, Stanza Storica. BB 3-b, 1095–1105.
ACDF, Stanza Storica. BB 3-b, f. 468–469.
Francesco Capecelatro, Degli annali della città di Napoli. (Naples, 1849), 2: 203–209; significantly, one author wrote a poem commemorating the protest in support of the old aristocracy in which described d’Aquino as “the vile mud of a low-born Jew,” though he was not in fact of Jewish origin: Villari, La rivolta antispagnola., 177–180. See also Astarita, The Continuity of Feudal Power., 171–182, on this incident and the resistence of the old aristocracy to marriage with members of new families.
ACDF, Stanza Storica, BB 3-b, f. 1106.
Sirago, “L’inserimento di una famiglia,” 155; on the Neapolitan nobility in the seventeenth century, see Giovanni Muto, “La feudalità meridionale tra crisi economica e ripresa politica,” Studi Storici Luigi Simeoni. XXXVI (1986), 29–55.
Both the texts of Confuorto and the Corona brothers exist only in manuscript. I used the copy of the Notizie. in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome ms.V.E. 1307; other copies can be found in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, see Sirago “L’inserimento di una famiglia,” 125; Silvio and Ascanio Corona, Successi diversi occorsi ai Napoletani. exists in various copies, BNN, ms. XVIII.3, ff. 191–199, 359–369 contains the story of the Vargas and Vaaz families; The edition edited by Borzelli contains a partial census of the manuscript copies of the text and a summary of their contents.
BNN, ms. XVIII.3, ff. 192–193; BNR, ms.V.E.1307, ff. 91–94; Toppi, De origine tribunalium., 32–33; BNN, ms. X.B.50, “Giornali historici delle cose accadute nel regno di Napoli nel governo di D. Ferdinando Afan de Ribera Enriquez Duca d’Alcalà,” 43–45.
On the Pinto outside of Naples, see Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers., 48, 74–75.
Ciro Cannarozzi, Francesco Pinto Principe d’Ischitella. (Quaderni de “Il Gargano,” 1962).
Asentista.: the term used to designate the bankers who purchased asiento bonds from the crown.
On the Cortizos family, Julio Caro Baroja, Los judìos en la España moderna y contemporanea. (Madrid: 1978) 2: 114–134; Carmen Sanz Ayán, “Consolidación y destrucción de patrimonios financieros en la edad moderna: Los Cortizos (1630–1715)” in H. Casado Hernando and R. Robledo Hernández, ed. Fortuna y negocios. La formación y gestión de los grandes patrimonios (siglos XVI–XX). (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2002), 73–98; on Sebastian Hierro del Castro, see the entry in Diccionario Biografico Espanol.; Salvador Escallon, La verdadera alquimia, oracion funebre en las exequias del senor D. Sebastian Lopez Hierro de Castro. (Naples, 1667); Toppi, De origine tribunalium., 3: 141.
J.H. Elliott and Jonathan Brown, The Sale of the Century. (New Haven, CT: Yale Universty Press, 2002), 279, 290.
Edward Glaser, “Miguel da Silveira’s El Macabeo,” Revue des Etudes Portugaises et de l’Institut Français en Portugal. 21 (1959), 5–49; Benedetto F. di Bitonto, “Miguel de Silveira, letterato e cristiano nuevo. nel Viceregno di Napoli,” in Giancarlo Lacerenza, ed. Hebraica Haereditas: Studi in Onore di Cesare Colafemmina. (Naples: Università degli Studi L’Orientale, 2005), 33–58; Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto: Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981), 141–145, considers Silveira a probable crypto-Jew because of his choice to write on the Maccabean revolt, and because of his inclusion in a contemporary list of Hispano-Jewish poets compiled by Miguel de Barrios in Amsterdam in the late seventeenth century. On the list, Meyer Kayserling, “Une histoire de la literature juive de Daniel Levi de Barrios,” Revue des Etudes Juives., XVIII (1889), 276–289.
Luis Enriquez de Fonseca, De podagra. (Naples, 1687), 19–20; Caro Baroja, Los judios., 3: 152.
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Mazur, P.A. (2013). The Rise of the Portuguese Merchant-Bankers, 1580–1648. In: The New Christians of Spanish Naples 1528–1671. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137295156_5
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