The Woman Who Defied Kings

The first comprehensive biography of Dona Gracia Nasi, an outstanding Jewish international banker during the Renaissance. She used her wealth and connections to operate an 'underground railroad' that saved hundreds of her fellow Spanish and Portuguese conversos (Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism) from the horrors of the Inquisition. Born in Lisbon, 1510, she later moved to Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara, and finally to Constantinople where she spearheaded one of the earliest attempts to form an independent state for Jews in Israel.