Benvenida Abravanel

Benvenida Abravanel , also Benvegnita, Bienvenita or Bienvenida , (* around 1473 in Portugal , † after 1560 in Italy ) was one of the most influential and wealthy Jewish women of early modern times in Italy.

Life

The place and date of birth of Benvenida Abravanel are unknown. She was the daughter of Jakob Abravanel, one of the three brothers of the financier, philosopher and Bible writer Isaak Abravanel . The family originally came from Spain and fled to Portugal after the massacres of 1391 and the forced conversion of their great-grandfather Samuel Abravanel. Benvenida married her cousin Samuel Abravanel (1473-1547), the youngest of the three sons of Isaac Abravanel, who was thus her uncle and father-in-law at the same time. The place and date of their wedding are not known. Benvenida brought a large dowry into the marriage. She and her husband had emigrated to Naples with the majority of the Abravanel family when the Spanish Jews were expelled in 1492 . Like his father Isaac, her husband worked as a financial advisor to the Viceroy of Naples and as a successful businessman. After the death of his father-in-law Jakob Abravanel, he took over the leadership of the Jewish community in Naples. Benvenida raised six of his own (three boys and three girls) and one illegitimate son of Samuel. According to tradition, one of her adult daughters lived as a crypto-Jewish woman in Portugal.

Although Ferdinand II did not succeed in introducing the Inquisition in Naples for the time being , the local Jews repeatedly came under pressure. Edicts of deportation could often only be circumvented by paying large sums of money. Even under the rule of Charles V , the Jews were repeatedly threatened with expulsion. The situation improved somewhat when Pedro Álvarez de Toledo was appointed Viceroy of Naples in 1532 . This frequented the Abravanels 'house and even gave Benvenida and Samuel his second oldest daughter, Eleonora of Toledo (1522–1562) , who would later become the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici , for upbringing.

Benvenida was widely known for her piety and generosity. She is said to have made ransom payments for a large number of Jewish Marran refugees. When the Messiah pretender David Reubeni was in Italy between 1524 and 1525, he found an ardent admirer in Benvenida. She sent him sums of money several times.

When Charles V again ordered the deportation of the Jews in 1533, Benvenida and Neapolitan princesses succeeded in postponing the decision for ten years. In 1540 the Jews were forced to wear a badge on their clothes. As a result, the Abravanels left Naples and moved to Ferrara in 1541 , a center of Sephardic immigration in Italy. A few years after arriving in Ferrara, her husband, Samuel, died unexpectedly in 1447. Benvenida had been appointed general heiress by her husband. Samuel's illegitimate son challenged this will for reasons of rabbinical law and thus triggered a wide dispute between the rabbis of Italy and Turkey. Despite this dispute, Benvenida took over her husband's business. Together with her sons Jacob and Judah, she succeeded in expanding power by establishing five banking institutions in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany with the permission of the Florentine authorities .

As in Naples, Benvenida enjoyed the reputation of a generous benefactress and patron of the arts in Ferrara. From 1548 to 1553 she had grown into another famous patroness in Ferrara in the person of Gracia Nasi . It is not known whether the two met. Despite her great power and influence, little is known about Benvenida Abravanel. In addition to the entries in the inheritance dispute with her stepson, she was mentioned in David Reubeni's diary. It is also mentioned in Samuel Usque's book Consolacam as tribulacoens de Israel (Ferrara 1553).

By 1560 Benvenida Abravanel was still alive. The exact time of death is not known.

literature

• Howard Tzwi Adelman:  Abravanel, Benvenida. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 1, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865929-9 , p. 275 (English).
• David Malkiel: Jews and Wills in Renaissance Italy: A Case Study in the Jewish-Christian Cultural Encounter . In: Italia 12 (1996), pp. 7-69.
• Renata Segre: Sephardic Refugees in Ferrara: Two Notable Families . In: Benjamin R. Gampel (ed.): Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World, 1391-1649 . New York 1997, pp. 164-185, 327-336.
• Meyer Kayserling : The Jewish Women in History, Literature and Art . Leipzig 1879.

Web links

• Howard Tzvi Adelman: Benvenida Abravanel . Jewish Women's Archive (English)
• Benvenida Abrabanel in Jewish Virtual Library (English)
• Video Lecture on Benvenida Abravanel by Dr. Henry Abramson (English)