CARDOSO, ISAAC (FERNANDO). Philosophia Libera

(SEPHARDIC LITERATURE)

Bertanorum

Venice

1673

FIRST EDITION. Title with engraved vignette in red and black. Uncut copy

Unknown to Kayserling (cf. pp.55-6)

A huge encyclopedic tome ranging from natural philosophy to theology, it was “the first major work in general philosophy to be written and published by a professing Jew in a secular language, and intended from the outset to reach a wide European audience.” Y.H. Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto (1981) p.300. Born in 1603/4 to a New Christian family of crypto-Jews in Trancoso, Portugal, Cardoso studied medicine in Spain where he rapidly gained access to the highest social circles and eventually became a physician at the court of Philip IV. In 1648, his dual life proved intolerable and he disappeared from Madrid and re-emerged in Venice where he joined the Sephardi community as a professing Jew. See Y.H. Yerushalmi, Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana-Treasures of Jewish Booklore (1994) pp.48-9 (illustrated)