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Moses Curiel

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Don

Moses Curiel
Knight of the Royal Household of Portugal
Beschrijving Hof van den Ed: Heer d'Acoste
Born1620
Died1697
Noble familyCuriel
Issue
FatherJacob Curiel
Occupationmerchant, diplomat

Don Moses Curiel (1620-1697), in Dutch Mozes Curiël, alias Jeronimo Nunes da Costa,[1] was a Sephardic Jewish nobleman, diplomat, and wealthy merchant, who traded in diamonds, sugar and tobacco.[2][3]

Curiel was born in Florence;[4] he was the eldest son of Jacob Curiel, alias Duarte Nunes da Costa.[5][6] In 1627 the family moved to Hamburg. He was sent to be educated at Protestant Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1642 he moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and served as Agent to the Portuguese Crown from 1645 until his death.[7][8] In 1654 he lived on Sint Antoniesbreestraat and married Rabecka Abbas. During his time in Amsterdam he generously patronised Hebrew scholarship.[9]

He was a major contributor to the Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam, built in 1675.[10][11] From around 1687 he lived along the Nieuwe Herengracht where he had bought two plots in the year before.[12] He was a close friend of William of Orange and housed him in Amsterdam on more than one occasion.[13]

The Curiel family is widely believed to have been 'one of the richest and most important families in the Sephardic Diaspora in northwest Europe.'[14] In 1984, the historian Jonathan Israel wrote a book charting Moses Curiel's life, An Amsterdam Jewish Merchant of the Golden Age: Jeronimo Nunes Da Costa (1620-1697), Agent of Portugal in the Dutch Republic.[15]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Mozes Curiel". www.biografischportaal.nl. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  2. ^ Bodian, Miriam (1999). Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253213518.
  3. ^ Israel, Jonathan (1997-07-01). Conflicts of Empires: Spain, the Low Countries and the Struggle for World Supremacy, 1585-1713. A&C Black. ISBN 9780826435538.
  4. ^ ISRAEL, JONATHAN I. "AN AMSTERDAM JEWISH MERCHANT OF THE GOLDEN AGE: JERONIMO NUNES DA COSTA (1620-1697), AGENT OF PORTUGAL IN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC." Studia Rosenthaliana 18, no. 1 (1984): 21-40. Accessed August 13, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41442146.
  5. ^ Bodian, Miriam (1999). Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253213518.
  6. ^ Israel, Jonathan (1990-01-01). Empires and Entrepots: Dutch, the Spanish Monarchy and the Jews, 1585-1713. A&C Black. ISBN 9781852850227.
  7. ^ Israel, Jonathan (1990-01-01). Empires and Entrepots: Dutch, the Spanish Monarchy and the Jews, 1585-1713. A&C Black. ISBN 9781852850227.
  8. ^ Kaplan, Yosef (2008). The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History. BRILL. ISBN 9789004149960.
  9. ^ Church, Catholic; America, Renaissance Society of (2001-01-01). Jews in the Canary Islands: Being a Calendar of Jewish Cases Extracted from the Records of the Canariote Inquisition in the Collection of the Marquess of Bute. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802084507.
  10. ^ "Huis van Jeronimo Nunes da Costa (Mozes Curiël) aan de Nieuwe Herengracht te Amsterdam, Romeyn de Hooghe, c. 1695". Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  11. ^ "Woonhuis familie Nunes da Costa (Residence of the Nunes Da Costa family)". www.iamsterdam.com. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  12. ^ Amsterdam City Archives, 4 May 1686
  13. ^ Prak, Maarten; Maarten, Prak (2005-09-22). The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521843522.
  14. ^ Kaplan, Yosef (2017-11-06). Early Modern Ethnic and Religious Communities in Exile. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527504301.
  15. ^ Israel, Jonathan Irvine (1984). An Amsterdam Jewish Merchant of the Golden Age: Jeronimo Nunes Da Costa (1620-1697), Agent of Portugal in the Dutch Republic.