WERE THE MEDICI JEWISH???
CONTENTS:
(1) "Well... the Medici were all Jewish... of course..."
(2) "Medici money was Jewish money..."
(3) " 'Medici' means' 'Medical Doctors' and Medical Doctors are usually Jewish..."
(4) "The Medici always hung out with other Jews..."
(5) JEWISH MEDICI! Here are the exceptions that prove the NOT-JEWISH rule...
The Medici were Jewish...
This intriguing premise has persisted until the present day— defying time, historical evidence and common sense.
FOR THE RECORD:
The Medici family dominated Florentine politics and culture for four centuries.
Along the way, they produced four popes: Leo X (1513-1521), Clement VII (1523-34), Pius IV (1559-65) and Leo XI (1605). Also, no less than nineteen cardinals.
At no time— from the primordial Giovanni di Bici (1360-1429) to Anna Maria Luisa "Last of the Medici" (1667-1743) —were they not professed Catholics.
Jewish Medici!!! Of all things... Where did this stuff come from anyway?
Mostly the realm of historical fantasy ...I would say... with just a tinge of fact to complicate matters.
Let's try out a a favorite story line:
* The Medici were bankers and they made a great fortune lending money at interest.
* Lending money at interest was forbidden by the Church as the mortal sin of "usury".
* Meanwhile, Jews in various parts of Europe happily enriched themselves through usury, just like the Medici.
* So, the Medici could not have been Christian and were obviously Jewish.
If you follow that train of thought, the balls on the Medici Arms are visual proof— representing either coins or bags of money, as you wish.
Both readings, however, are equally tenuous. In heraldry, balls (properly "roundels") are merely a notional device.
They usually signify "armorial balls" and nothing more —in whatever number, color and arrangement they appear.
There is seeming evidence to the contrary— circumstantial or not.
Three pendant balls is the universal sign of a pawnbroking establishment, Medici-adjacent at least.
And in English (particularly British English), "going to the Jews" has long denoted "borrowing money at interest", usually from pawnbrokers and often on extortionate terms.
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Even today, the juxtaposition of a pawnbroker's sign and a Jew (especially an elderly Jew) can trigger intense emotions, conjuring a long and fraught history.
But as for the alleged Medici Balls dangling over the shop, there are other competing theories.
Probably the most convincing involves St. NIcholas of Bari— not coincidentally the patron saint of pawnbrokers. He is revered for his charitable gift of three bags of gold to three dowry-less girls, allowing them to marry and escape a life of prostitution.
"Medici Money = Jewish Money" might seem a neat piece of deduction, if only things worked that way in the past.
No one can deny the ancient tradition of Jewish money-lending in Christian lands, which Church authorities condoned at least sporadically.
As for Christian loan-sharking, we know that the Church insistently banned their faithful from business of that sort —time and again, implying that the ban never really stuck.
Meanwhile, we should never underestimate the infinite flexibility of Catholic Dogma, the Church's perennial skill at playing all sides of every game and man's insatiable inventiveness (whatever his faith) when it comes to personal gain.
In Italy, the Fifteenth Century was the heroic age of modern commerce. The Medici and other mercantile families cultivated an expanding range of methods and means —monetizing goods and services in cash, in kind and on paper.
In his momentous publication, Pacioli specifies nine principal ways of making acquisitions: (1) by cash, (2) by immediate credit, (3) by exchanging one item for another, (4) partly in cash and partly with credit, (5) partly in cash and partly by goods, (6) partly by goods and partly by exchange, (7) partly by goods and partly on time, (8) partly by credit and partly by time draft, (9) partly by credit, partly by time draft and partly by goods.
Five of these nine modes involve delayed payment, opening the door to usury and its various derivatives.
Well before Pacioli's treatise, Giovanni di Bici de'Medici was already covering much of the same ground— deploying money in Rome, Venice, Naples and elsewhere on behalf of his family's burgeoning Florentine bank.
There were many ways that more-or-less Good Christians (Medici and otherwise) could profit usuriously while pretending to do something else.
Above all, there was the "money-changing" and "money-transferring" dodges. You could pay out cash in one currency and recoup it months or years later, in another currency or another place, while racking up hefty "service fees".
Often this occurred only on paper, in notional "money of account", generating illicit interest in all but name.
For five generations— from Giovanni di Bicci (1360-1429) to Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464) to Piero the Gouty (1416-69) to Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-92) to Piero the Fatuous (1472-1503)— the Medici of Florence presided over an international financial empire while emerging as heads of state.
All along, there was a curious scheme of moral equivocation at play, based on the deferred laundering of ill-gotten gains— spiritual usury, if you will.
For much of their lives, the Medici and other businessmen could amass troublesome fortunes, then redirect conspicuous sums to good works as the end drew near.
In Florentine public life, there were ample opportunities for performative virtue— especially if you were Catholic (like the Medici) and pretty much owned the city.
The name "Medici" does indeed mean "medical doctors".
Following that train of thought, some imagine that they are looking at pills —not coins or sacks of money —on the coat-of-arms.
Then they see Saints Cosmas and Damian in the entourage— shared patrons of both medical doctors and the Medici family.
According to the story, these twin brothers practiced medicine in 3rd Century Syria, treating patients for free while converting them to Christianity— thereby earning martyrdom and a place on the Church calendar.
As for their association wtih the Medici family, that is indeed a historical fact —but only a belated one.
Thereby hangs a tale...
A pair of Medici twins was born on 27 September 1389 —the Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian.
People took "destiny" seriously in those days, so the conjunction of twins, medical saints and the Medici name could not be ignored (although there was only a plausible assumption that their forebears might once have practiced medicine).
The two boys were named Cosimo and Damiano, but Damiano promptly died— leaving Cosimo and his descendants to chart the course of Medici history.
That included Cosimo the Elder (the original Cosimo; 1389-1464) and three subsequent Grand Dukes of Tuscany: Cosimo I (1519-74), Cosimo II (1590-1621) and Cosimo III (1642-1723).
The instinctive overlap of “Jews” and “doctors” can seem quaint these days —at least in America, where your guy is as likely to be named Patel, Chang or Sayed as Ginzberg.
But meanwhile, there was indeed a notable history of Jewish doctors reaching back to the time of the Medici and beyond.
Italian universities generally excluded Jews, although a few (primarily Padua, but also Siena and very rarely Pisa) admitted them to their faculties of medicine and no other.
For Jews, Medicinae Doctor was the only social and professional distinction formally recognized by the Christian authorities.
In fact, many Rabbis were also licensed physicians, thereby enhancing their status and supplementing their income.
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, medicine was primarily a theoretical study, linked to philosophy, astrology and sometimes the occult.
With their proprietary interest in Kabbalah, Jews were thought to have a distinct edge in accessing healing powers.
Some could also channel knowledge from the East, including ancient Greek treatises that survived only in Arabic translation.
In later years, with the expansion of empirical research in the universities and the scientific academies, Jews could also draw on a widening range of modern skills and expertise.
There were relatively few Jews in Italy and Europe at the time of the Medici and not many Jewish medical doctors. Those few, however, gripped the public's imagination— especially highly-skilled "Portuguese Physicians" (usually professing Christians with a crypto-Jewish past).
Probably the most notorious case was that of Roderigo Lopes. His father was a royal physician at the Portuguese court, of Jewish descent like many. Roderigo himself was raised as a Catholic and took a degree in medicine at the University of Coimbra —but fled to England in 1559 when accused by the Inquisition of “Judaizing” (indulging in secret Jewish practices).
Doctor Lopes converted to Anglicanism and launched an enviable medical career based in London, with Elizabeth I as his patient. This all collapsed in 1594, when the queen’s favorite Robert Devereux (2nd Earl of Essex), accused the Portuguese doctor of plotting with England’s enemies to poison his royal charge.
Evidence was tenuous but the pervasive distrust of both Jews and Iberians carried the day, so Lopes was hanged, drawn and quartered before a large crowd. On the scaffold, he allegedly asserted that "he loved the Queen as well as he loved Jesus Christ”, eliciting ironic laughter.
Almost as sensational was the case of Elia Montalto (1567-1616) who served three members of the Medici family: Grand Duke Ferdinando I and Grand Duke Cosimo II in Tuscany and Queen Maria de'Medici in France.
Born in Portugal in 1567 to a distinguished family of “New Christians”, Montalto attained his degree in medicine at the University of Salamanca. There he was known as Felipe Rodrigues de Castelo Branco, a grand gentile apellation.
In 1602, the Montalto family resettled (evidently as Catholics) in the cosmpolitan Tuscan port city of Livorno. The doctor then established himself at the University of PIsa and also at the Medici Court. After this initial success, he encountered a series of professional obstacles, likely linked to his suspect origin.
Then in 1606, he fled to Venice and took up residence in the Ghetto as a declared Jew, calling himself Philotheus Eliahu de Luna Montalto.
Montalto then entered the service of Queen Maria de'Medici (niece of Grand Duke Ferdinando), serving as her personal physician. As the only professing Jew allowed to live in the Kingdom of France, he emerged as an outspoken polemicist, fiercely defending his people's rights and prerogatives.
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Montalto died suddenly in 1616, while accompanying the royal court on a visit to Tours. His patroness then ordered an astonishing tribute— embalming his body and transporting it to the new Portuguese Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk near Amsterdam.
The physician’s impressive tomb quickly became one of the cemetery's chief sights, often depicted by artists. Jacob van Ruisdael featured it in his most famous painting, The Jewish Cemetery—a moving evocation of time and human mortality.
IN CONCLUSION: Were the Medici of Florence Jewish Medical Doctors?
We can tabulate the facts, then answer with a resounding "NO!"
(1) We have Medici (the Tuscan dynasty, four centuries of them on the world stage) and medici (medical doctors, present and past).
(2) The Medici might well have been medici at some phase in their evolution but that remains to be proven.
(3) During the four relevant centuries, some medici (medical doctors) were Jewish and a few of them were associated with the Medici family.
(3) But as for actual Jewish Medici (with a capital “M”)... we can't get there from here!
"Members of the Tribe!"
"You know how clannish Jews are!"
"And the Medici were right there in the mix!"
If you went looking for Medici ...back in the day... you found Jews too...
We have all heard this, but what does it mean?
Since we are already bouncing on clouds, let's dive into AI...
The Jewish Golden Age and the Medici Golden Age.
"Economic Cooperation" and "Significant Intellectual Exchange".
Is any of that true???
I can give you a good Jewish answer: Yes and No...
Looking back over the centuries, the basic fact is that no one ever liked Jews very much.
The question, therefore, is not who wished the Jews well but who wished them less ill.
Where do the Medici fit into this picture —on the ground in fifteenth-century Florence?
The Jews and the Medici shared essential enemies, which is probably what mattered most.
When the Medici were expelled from Florence in the 1490s, during the theocratic dictatorship of Savonarola, the Jews were sent packing too.
The Jews followed the Medici out the door again in 1527, during the final upheaval that ended the Republic and substituted a Medici princely state (ultimately the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany).
We usually see the Medici as the epitome of Fiorentinità (Florentine Identity)— although many (or most) would not have agreed back in the "Golden Age".
In those years, the Medici and their opponents were locked in a fierce struggle for Florence’s soul— Christian or otherwise.
Savonarola led the attack on secular humanism— but predictably enough, he had a second enemy in sight: Jews and especially Jewish usurers.
Like the Jews, the Medici were using money to make money —usury, that is to say.
The Medici, however, didn't see them as competitors and allowed their activity. The Jews, in fact, serviced small Christian borrowers and offered a parallel stream of liquidity.
As early as 1473 (before Savonarola), some Florentines moved to circumvent Jewish usury by founding a Monte di Pietà— a distinctly Christan pawnbroking operation. This initiative failed due largely to Medici opposition.
When Savonarola expelled the Medici from Florence in 1494, their bank closed forever (for some years, it had already been failing across Europe.)
Savonarola also expelled the Jews, drying up the last resource for Christians who needed to borrow to meet everyday expenses.
Then in 1495, Savonarola started up a new Monte di Pietà in Florence— eliminating the need for both Jewish and Medici usury (in theory, at least).
In 15th Century Florence, Jews were allowed to reside, practice their religion and earn a living while the Medici ruled the roost, which —in the broad sweep of Jewish diaspora history —was as good as they could hope.
There was also "Economic Cooperation" —up to a point.
But how about "Significant Intellectual Exchange"?
If Medici Intellectual Heaven is what we see above, why are there no Jews in the picture?
Maybe cultures were indeed shared in that alleged "Golden Age", but the Jewish story was nothing to paint on palace walls?
In fact, when we look for "Medici-Jewish Intellectual Exchange", we quickly drill down to Kabbalah (which had Jewish, Christian and Neo-Platonic aspects) and a single cluster of scholars around Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (an Emilian nobleman associated with Lorenzo il Magnifico de'Medici).
"In the mix" was one thing but "hanging out" and members of the tribe another.
Pico and friends were mostly no tin Flroence
"With the Medici right there in the mix!" I wonde what means?!
Jewish history is a running tale of degrees of separation
of calculated indirection and hedged bets
A free scholarly exchange with Jews in the conversation (a unique moment)
A series of elsuive questions with no clear answers
In Early Modern Europe, life was rough for the Jews almost everywhere
Ranged from awful to less bad to almost good
In Florence, the Jews could practice their faith while living in a tiny ghetto wih many restrictions.
Livorno
The history of the Medici family was long and often turbulent
In Florence, the Jews were usually better off when the Medici were in power and are far worse when they were out.
It was all relative however...
The Medici always hung out with Jews...as everyone knows...
They even spoke Hebrew...at home...when no one could hear them
Kabbalah
Conversation
The Medici always hung out with Jews...as everyone knows...
They even spoke Hebrew...at home...when no one could hear them
Kabbalah
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