Gracia Mendes Nasi
She was the maternal aunt and business partner of João Micas (alias, Hebrew name Joseph Nasi), who became a prominent figure in the politics of the Ottoman Empire.
In order to continue to practice Judaism, the family fled to Portugal when the Catholic monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, expelled the Jews in 1492.
Following the beginning of the Age of Discovery and the Portuguese finding of a sea route to India, the Mendes brothers became particularly important spice traders.
[3] A few years before Francisco's death in 1538, his brother, Diogo, had opened a branch office of their house in the city of Antwerp together with his relative Abraham Benveniste.
Soon after Francisco's death, Beatrice Mendes moved to Antwerp to join Diogo with her infant daughter, Ana (the future wife of Joseph Nasi) and her younger sister, Brianda de Luna.
The move from Lisbon was also timely due to the changing political landscape in Portugal, when as of 23 May 1536, the Pope Paul III ordered the establishment of a Portuguese Inquisition.
These fleeing conversos were first sent secretly to spice ships, owned or operated by the House of Mendes/Benveniste, that sailed regularly between Lisbon and Antwerp.
In Antwerp, Beatrice Mendes and her staff gave them instructions and the money to travel by cart and foot over the Alps to the great port city of Venice, where arrangements were made to transport them by ship to the Ottoman Empire Greece and Turkey in the East.
Under Beatrice Mendes (Gracia Nasi), the House of Mendes/Benveniste dealt with King Henry II of France, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, his sister Mary, Governor of the Low Countries, Popes Paul III and Paul IV, and Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan.
While in Venice, she had a dispute with her sister, Brianda, Diogo's wife, regarding his estate, and left yet again to the nearby city state of Ferrara to avoid the ruling the Venetian Giudici al Forestier (Tribunal for the Affairs of Foreigners) decided would end the sisters' conflict over equal control of the fortune.
In Ferrara, Beatrice Mendes, for the first time in her life, was able to openly practice Judaism in a distinguished Sephardi Jewish Community and in a city that recognized her rights.
[3] The move to Ferrara, however, did not end the quarrel between Doña Gracia and her sister, Brianda (now Reyna de Luna), over control of the estate.
In 1556, soon after Doña Gracia arrived in Constantinople, Pope Pius V sentenced a group of Conversos in Ancona to Execution by burning at the stake, claiming they were still practicing Jewish rites.
In 1558, Doña Gracia was granted a long-term lease on the Tiberias region in Galilee (part of Ottoman Syria at the time), from Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, in exchange for guaranteeing a substantial increase in the yearly tax revenues.
The Ottoman Empire, under the Sultan, had conquered that part of the Holy Land some years earlier, but it was largely a desolate place.
In 1969, Jewish educator and historian Bea Statdler published a book length biography, The Story of Doña Gracia Mendes.
[citation needed] The growing numbers of women in business and the professions who attend the programs identify with her ambition, courage and even personal loneliness.
She is idolized by the descendants of conversos she saved, now living in southern Italy, Central and South America and the United States.
[citation needed] In the TV series Muhteşem Yüzyıl, Gracia Mendes Nasi is portrayed by Turkish actress Dolunay Soysert.
