Isaac Rodrigues de Espinosa

Biography

Family origins

Spinoza's ancestors were of Sephardic Jewish descent, and were a part of the community of Portuguese Jews that grew in the city of Amsterdam after the Alhambra Decree in Spain (1492) and the Portuguese Inquisition (1536) had led to forced conversions and expulsions from the Iberian peninsula.

Some historians argue the Spinoza family ("Espinosa" in Portuguese) had its origins in Espinosa de los Monteros, near Burgos, Spain. Others claim they were Portuguese Jews who had moved to Spain and then expelled back to their home country in 1492, only to be forcibly converted to Catholicism in 1498. Spinoza's father was born roughly a century after this forced conversion in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira, near Beja in Alentejo. When Spinoza's father was still a child, Spinoza's grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza (who was from Lisbon), took his family to Nantes in France. They were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinoza's father, Miguel, and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they reassumed their Judaism. Manuel changed his name to Abraão de Spinoza, though his "commercial" name was still the same.

de Spinoza, Isaac Birth : ABT 1558 Death : 9 APR 1627 Rotterdam Gender: Male

Parents:

   Father: Spinoza, Fernäao (Espinhosa)

   Mother: , N.N.

Family:

   Marriage: in Vidiguiera, Portugal

   Spouse:

       Álvares, Mor

       Birth : ABT 1558 Vidigueira Municipality, Beja, Portugal

       Death : 1616 Nantes, France

       Gender: Female

       Parents:

           Father: Alvares, Joseph

           Mother: , N.N.

   Children:

       de Spinoza, Fernando         Birth : ABT 1587         Gender: Male

       de Spinoza, Michael

       de Spinoza, Maria Clara       Birth : ABT 1589        Gender: Female