Showing Results 1 - 10 of 64
Born in Aldgate, London, bare-knuckled pugilist Daniel Mendoza was the first Jew in England to become heavyweight champion, a title that he defended twice before losing it to John Jackson on a ninth…
In this baroque Christian altarpiece that Anton Raphael Mengs painted for the Catholic church, the Colegiata of Castrojeriz, which is near Burgos, Spain, the Madonna is holding an open book. The angel…
Isabel María Parreño Arce y Valdés (1759–1822), the Marquesa de Llano, had her portrait painted by Anton Raphael Mengs, in Parma, Italy, where her husband was the ambassador from Spain. At the time…
This eighteenth-century map of Venice includes the ghetto within which the city’s Jews were required to live from 1516 until Napoleon’s conquest of the Republic of Venice in 1797. The Venice ghetto…
Born to converso parents and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro, Menasseh Ben Israel moved as a boy with his family to Amsterdam, where they reverted openly to Judaism. In 1626, he established the first…
From May through August 1541, the forces of the Ottoman Empire laid siege to the city of Buda (present day Budapest, Hungary) and captured it, ushering in 150 years of Ottoman rule. This illustration…
In 1705, the Nuremberg artist, Johannes Alexander Böner, published a slim volume about Fürth, Germany, containing several copper-engravings dealing with the life of Jews in the city. This print…
This belled gilt-silver Torah finial topped with a crown was made in Amsterdam and has been attributed to master silversmith Pieter van Hoven, who lived near the Jewish quarter and is best known for…
This flyer calls for the Jewish community to pay a ransom to rescue Jewish captives from the 1686 siege of Buda, which resulted in the capture of the Hungarian city from the Ottoman Empire by armies…
This portrait of Jacob Judah Leon Templo, one of three that are known, is believed to be a self-portrait. In it, he clutches a coat of arms featuring a lion, which he himself designed, and holds a…
