AMEDEO MODIGLIANI and Spinoza (Bento de Espinosa)

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Modigliani tomb, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

In Tablet, a New Read on Jewish Life (http://www.tabletmag.com), Adam Kirsch reviews a new biography of Amedeo Modigliani by Meryle Secrest. (Modigliani: A Life, Knopf, $35). Modgliani was born in the Jewish community of Livorno, an early refuge for Marranos fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821). It is often claimed that Modigliani's mother was a descendant of Baruch Spinoza (Bento de Espinhosa), himself a descendant of Portuguese Marranos. Spinoza, one of the most important philosophers of all time, although born in Amsterdam (of Portuguese parents) wrote and spoke Portuguese, as well as Hebrew.

Kirsch casts doubt on Modigliani's connection to Spinoza. He refers to Modigliani's mother's side as the "Garsins". Professor António Borges Coelho in "Inquisiçaõ de Évora" (The Inquisition of Evora), Caminho, Lisboa, 1987, Vol. 1, traces Spinoza's ancestors. His maternal side includes names such as Ana Garcês, Henrique Garcês (buried in Amsterdam in 1619), and Maria Nunes Garcês, from northern Portugal (Ponte de Lima and Porto), Antwerp, and Amsterdam. Maria Nunes Garcês was a daughter of Duarte Fernandes, native of Ponte de Lima, Porto merchant, and one of the founders of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam in 1598.

In 1593 Livorno or Leghorn, Modigliani's birthplace, was an unimportant fishing village until the Marrano diaspora transformed it into one of the wealthiest Jewish communities of Europe. By 1644 they numbered close to 100 families, mostly former Marranos from Portugal. Two centuries later it had it had 7,000 Jews, mostly Sephardic descendants from the Iberian peninsula. Until 1821, regulations of the Society for Dower-Brides were issued in Portuguese. Cecil Roth in “A History of the Marranos”, describes how the Portuguese Jews monopolized the coral trade. Their ships traded in every port of Europe. Unlike Amsterdam, this important and prosperous Sephardic community has not yet attracted much academic interest.

A word on the name Baruch Spinoza. As noted by professor Borges Coelho, Portuguese Marranos often used two or three names in the diaspora: a baptismal name, a Hebrew name and perhaps a business name. Spinoza did not use different names so much as variations. In the herem of July 27, 1656 excommunicating him from the Esnoga, he is named as Baruch Espinosa and Baruch de Espinosa. In 1655, in a sworn notarial record he signs his name as “Bento despinoza”, Bento being the Portuguese version of Baruch. In the same year the notary refers to him as “Bento d'Espinosa” and “Bento d'Espinoza”. In many of his letters he signs with the initials “B. d.S.” or “B. De S.”

Beco da Espinhosa (Spinoza Lane), Évora. Spinoza's father was from nearby Vidigueira.

Ponte de Lima, site of former synagogue, now Misericordia chapel

CRUCIFORMS/CRUCIFORMES,

an introduction

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Ponte de Lima, photo by Rafael de Gilberto

“Cruciforme” is the name given by Portuguese researchers to medieval stone engravings resembling Christian crosses usually found on doorposts in the historic centres of many cities in Portugal in or near the former sites of “Judiarias" (Jewish neighbourhoods) before the edict of expulsion of 1496.

Unlike the Spanish edict, the Portuguese expulsion was not carried out; instead Portuguese Jews were baptized en masse, perhaps only 40 were permitted to leave according to noted historian Elias Lipiner. After the forced baptism, Judiaria walls were torn down and Jews, thereafter known as New Christians moved away, but many remained as King Manuel promised not to inquire into private religious practices for 20 years, a period which was extended following the Lisbon massacre of thousands of New Christians in 1506.

The Portuguese Inquisition did not get underway until the 1540's, unlike neighbouring Spain which established the Inquisition in 1478. Accordingly, a unique culture of secret Judaism developed in Portugal with tacit royal consent, which is commonly described as Marranism by such distinguished authors as Cecil Roth (The History of the Marranos), Yosef Yerushalmi (From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto), and Yirmiyahu Yovel (The Marrano, Split Idendity).

The foremost archeologist in Portugal studying these cruciforms is Carmen Balesteros of CIDEHUS, the Interdisciplinary Centre of History, Culture and Society, of the university of Evora. As she notes in her study of Guarda (Marcas Mágico-Religiosas no Centro Historico, Guarda, 2007, 2nd ed; p. 18-19) cruciforms are also found outside the Judiarias in Trancoso, Covilhã, Castelo de Vide, and Guarda. Many cities along the Spanish/Portuguese border where thousands of Jews settled following the 1492 Spanish expulsion, contain cruciforms. On the Spanish side, Balesteros has studied cruciforms in Valencia de Alcantara, Trujillo, and Coria. In her study of Guarda, she and her team identified and documented over 80 cruciforms.

There is no written documentary evidence to explain the form or existence of the cruciforms. Balesteros refers to the historic significance of the Christian cross and calls for the contextualization of the meaning of cruciforms; the significance of an engraving of an altered form of a Christian cross on the doorway of a home in a Judiaria should not be interpreted the same way as a normative cross on a Roman Catholic religious building or a public building.

Balesteros suggests that a concentration of cruciforms in a Judiaria, such as Guarda, may be understood in two ways, either as evidence of the necessity of Jews following their forced baptism to publicly demonstrate their allegiance to the only religion permitted by the state, Roman Catholicism, even if they continued to secretly observe Judaism, or a genuine expression of relious belief in difficult times.

Was an engraved cruciform on a doorpost a public declaration of the faith of the occupants and thus used as protection from the Inquistion? Much more study is needed in this fascinating area.

Guarda, photo by Rafael de Gilberto