Testamento Politico [Political Testament: Open Letter to King José I]

DA CUNHA, LUIZ.

Impressão Regia

Lisbon

1820

FIRST EDITION in book form

An Enlightened Portuguese Statesman Calls for Religious Freedom for Portugal's Jews. Portuguese career diplomat Luis da Cunha (1662-1749) served at various times as Portugal's ambassador to London, Paris, the Hague and Vienna. According to the title of this book, he was a counsellor to King Pedro II (reigned 1683-1706) and to his son and successor King João V (reigned 1706-1750). The work is framed as advice to the latter's son and successor King José I (reigned 1750-1777) before he assumed the throne. Da Cunha's Political Testament is considered a renewal of philosophical and political culture in Portuguese history. It first appeared in the London newspaper Observador Portugues in 1815. Later it appeared in booklet form in 1820. It contains a novel idea: the granting of religious freedom to Jews. Leading up to this radical proposal, Da Cunha makes some caustic remarks concerning the Portuguese Inquisition. On p. 46, Da Cunha writes: "Fr. Domingo de Santo Tomás, a deputy of the Holy Office, used to say that just as in Lisbon's Calcetaria there is a building where coins are stamped out of metal, so on Lisbon's Rossio there is a building where Jews are stamped out of Christians" (cited in A.S. Saraiva, H.P. Salomon, I.S.D. Sassoon, The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians (2001) p. 129). Indeed in 1821, Portugal formally closed the "Holy Office of the Inqusition" which had held the country in its death-grip for the past three centuries. It was this book and others like it by liberal-minded Portugese that brought the dreaded institution to its end.