Las Excelencias de los Hebreos [“The Admirable Qualities of the Jewish People]”

First edition of a masterpiece of Jewish Apologetics. Contains numerous references to the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, anti-Jewish Iberian authors and the history of sixteenth and seventeenth century Marranos in Spain an Portugal, with many first-hand anecdotes This famous apology of Judaism was written by the former converso, the physician FERNANDO CARDOSO (1604-1681). Born in Trancoso, Portugal, Cardoso was one of the many Portuguese New Christian immigrants who settled in Spain in the early seventeenth century. He studied at Salamanca and was accorded the title of “phisico mayor” or court physician by Philip IV. Afterwards he practised as a physician in Madrid, where he gained access to the highest literary and social circles. Fearing persecution by the Inquisition, he fled to Venice and subsequently settled in Verona. His comprehensive apologetic work Las excelencias y calunias de los Hebreos describes ten virtues of the Jewish people and refutes ten common calumnies, or anti-Jewish stereotype accusations. It has been considered “a masterpiece of Jewish anti-defamation, perhaps the most striking since Josephus’s Contra Apionem”. See EJ, s.v. “Cardozo, Isaac” and Y.H. Yerushalmi on Cardoso’s Excelencias in Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Treasures of Jewish Booklore. Amsterdam, AUP, 1995, p. 21