Doña Reina Mendes

Born in Lisbon, Doña Reina (Ana) Nasi Mendes was the daughter of the famous philanthropist Doña Gracia Nasi (Beatrice de Luna). Following the death of her husband in 1535, and the renewed efforts of the Portuguese Inquisition, Doña Gracia fled to Antwerp and later Venice and Ferrara (where the family practiced Judaism openly for the first time) with her sister and daughter. After settling in Constantinople in 1553, Doña Reina married her cousin Joseph Nasi (Joao Miguez), Duke of Naxos and Cyclades, an important figure at the sultan’s court. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Doña Reina used the substantial fortune she inherited upon her husband’s death (90,000 ducats) to further Jewish learning. She founded a Hebrew printing press at her palatial residence, Belvedere, the only printing house in Constantinople at the time, enabling Jewish scholars in the Ottoman Empire to print their works. Doña Reina thus became the first woman to establish a Hebrew press (although others before her had inherited and managed printing establishments). Seven books printed by this press have survived (according to estimates, it printed at least fifteen).