Sales catalogue 528: Maggs Bros

Date:: 1929

Reference:: WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/83

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 528: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

15/100 page 13

Judaica—continued. THE JEWISH ORIGIN OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE NOBLES. 55 MENDOZA Y BOBADILLA (Cardinal Francisco de), Tizon de la Nobleza de Espana. Memoria escrita y presentada al Rey Felipe II por el Cardenal . . . anotada y dedicada a las clases productoras por BD. Antonio Luque y Vicens. 12mo, wrappers. Madrid, 1840. £10 10s Not in Salva. Palau (V, 153), cites an edition exactly the size of this book and containing the same number of pages (60), with precisely the same title, as having been printed in Madrid in 1845; but possibly that is a misprint, and the edition offered herewith may be the first. There were several subsequent commentaries on the original Tizon, but the nature of the data contained therein led to the suppression and consequent extreme rarity of the book. It is, in fact, no less than an authoritative though concise treatise on the Jewish and Moorish origin of the most illustrious families in Spain and Portugal, and is therefore designated a Tizon, or Stain on the Nobility. As shown, the pedigrees of ‘‘nearly all Castile and Portugal ’’ may be traced to a Jewish patriarch, one Ruy Capon (revenue official, cirea 1109, to the mediaeval Castilian, Queen Urraca), whose descendants, through the Pacheco and Portocarrero lines, were related to the Dukes of Infantado, Alba, Florence, Castrorela, Arcos, Albuquerque, and Alcala, in addition to the Benaventes, Medinacelis, Guzmans, and other distin- guished families. The Dukes of Braganza were of ‘‘ converted ’’? descent; while a considerable proportion of the Spanish and Portuguese peerage were able (albeit reluctantly) to claim descent from D. Fernando Alonso de Toledo, a converted Moor of the time of Alonso VI of Castile, Conqueror of Toledo (A.D. 1085). Although the original information was gathered in a spirit of vindictiveness, it was disseminated centuries later by a democratic commentator, Luque y Vicens, who urges in the preface of this lttle volume that ‘‘ all are equal before God: it is only learning, wisdom, and the virtues that make men differ.’’ In 1560, Cardinal Mendoza, Bishop of Burgos, had addressed a long letter, dated Burgos, August 20th, to Philip IJ. Incensed at the manner in which some Spanish Grandees had slighted the Mendoza family, by refusing their enrolment in some Order of Chivalry, the Cardinal had set to work among the archives and unearthed what he regarded as the discreditable genealogical secrets of the great courtiers, with a view to /lisgracing them in the eyes of the King; or alternatively, to proving to the Catholic Sovereign that practically all the nobles in the inner and outer circles of his entourage sprang from the hated stock. Quite unintentionally, however, he has bequeathed invaluable records to the students of genealogy and Jewish sociology. 56 NEWMAN (Louis Israel). Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Move- ments, Royal 8vo, cloth. New York, 1925. £1 12s 6d 57 OROBIO DE CASTRO (Isaac). Israel vengé, ou Exposition naturelle des Prophéties Hébraiques que les Chrétiens appliquent a Jésus, leur prétendu Messie., Small 8vo, crzmson morocco, gilt lines and crest on sidés, g. @. London, 1770. £10 10s

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