Revealing Beauty/Revealing Historyin El sueno de Venecia

Marıa Elena SolinoUniversity of Houston

To find something beautiful is to register the kinship between the object and themost important part of oneself—one’s soul.

—John Armstrong, The Secret Power of Beauty

ABSTRACT Paloma Dıaz-Mas’s El sueno de Venecia is a historicalnovel that traces not only important eras of Spanish history between theseventeenth century and !""#, but also Spain’s literary history, since eachchapter is written in a style imitative of that corresponding to the time inwhich the action takes place. What holds together such a literary mosaic isthe wedding portrait that appears in each chapter as an ancestral treasurefor the descendents of the Jewish courtesan Gracia de Mendoza. The con-clusion, titled ‘‘Memoria,’’ parodies the discourses of the art historianwhose task it is to decipher the mystery of the lady in the portrait. Thus,Dıaz-Mas, a historian herself, has produced a novel that blends a critiqueof modern Spanish historiography with a portrait of the Spain of !""# thatis revealed as a liminal space where modernity and the past coexist uneasily.The present essay posits that the novel is structured as a female picaresquein which through her self-fashioning, Gracia invites the modern reader torecover a past that imperial Spain banished. In keeping with the novel’sinvitation to uncover hidden truths, I argue that the character Gracia hasprecedents in historical women, mainly the Sephardic heroine Gracia Nasi-Mendes. Finally, through a study of the novel’s last chapter, we turn to theuse of a child narrator who functions as the cultural critic who through the

j $$%Hispanic Review (autumn #&&')Copyright ! #&&' University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

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innocence of her gaze, bids the reader to embrace the complexities of thepast for a nation that is still resisting the seductive beauty of a legacy that isboth Semitic and feminine.

One of the highlights of any visit to Madrid’s Thyssen-BornemiszaMuseum is the room dedicated to sixteenth-century Venetian art that isdominated by a painting titled La Bella, by Palma Il Vecchio (Jacopo d’An-tonio Negretti, ca. !4'&–!%#'). Its catalog description simply notes that thisunidentified lady is distant and admires the elegance of her attire. Althoughthe arrangement of the other paintings in the room changes periodically, asa permanent fixture in that room, La Bella always faces a wall of Virgins inNativity scenes. In the summer of #&&(, the curators of the Thyssen chose toposition Bernardino Guini’s Virgin and Child, a much-publicized loan fromthe Naples Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, next to La Bella. A quickglance around the room establishes obvious similarities among all the paint-ings. Most are from Venice and share the same hues of blues and reds in theintricately lit and folded feminine garments. One even suspects that the samemodel may have posed for more than one of these masterpieces. Yet, there isa distinct difference in this secular painting that distinguishes it from boththe Virgins and from the portraits of aristocratic Renaissance ladies that attimes hang in the same room or in adjacent galleries. In contrast to theirlowered eyes, what in Spanish we would refer to as recato, La Bella looks outat her viewers with a gaze as direct and inviting as Goya’s Maja desnuda (seefig. !). Her shoulders are bare, and as she holds a jewelry box she is caughtin an enigmatic moment in which the viewer cannot decipher whether she isdressing or disrobing. In either case, she is seductive in her beauty, a detailthat should not be surprising, for scholars have long known that the womenwho posed for Southern Renaissance painters were often courtesans.

In her extensive study of the women who lent their faces to Renaissancemasterpieces, Lynne Lawner highlights that it is important to note the cen-trality of the courtesan in Renaissance art. Although fashions and tasteschange over time, as evidenced by the selections at the Thyssen, even todayour perception of beauty is shaped by the aesthetic models proposed by suchworks as Palma Vecchio’s La Bella, as well as Raphael’s La Fornarina or evenLeonardo’s Mona Lisa. By frequently serving as models, the beauty of thecourtesan confronts the viewer in the most unexpected guises, since fewdecent women would pose for a painting other than an official portrait

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Figure $. Palma Il Vecchio, La Bella (ca. $%#"–$&!#). Reprinted with permission of the

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.

ordered by her family. A practice from antiquity adopted by Italian Renais-sance painters, courtesans’ faces, bodies, and powerful gazes compose theimages of saints and Madonnas, biblical and historical figures, as well asallegories of the state. But is the image of the Virgin or of La Bella in anyway tarnished by knowing her body was that of a whore, or does thisacknowledgement of the complexities that lie behind the representations ofthe female form, and the appreciation of her beauty, enhance our under-standing of the status of women in the Renaissance?

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These musings on society’s perception of beauty and its blindness regard-ing the facts behind such beauty are pertinent to understanding one ofSpain’s most successful novels of the !""&s. Paloma Dıaz-Mas’s El sueno deVenecia is a historical novel that traces not only important eras of Spanishhistory between the seventeenth century and !""#, but also Spain’s literaryhistory, since each chapter is written in a style imitative of that correspondingto the time in which the action takes place. The first chapter, in imitation ofthe picaresque, ends with a talented former slave painting the wedding por-trait of Gracia de Mendoza (Madrid’s most exclusive courtesan) and Pablo(the pıcaro whose narration we receive). This is followed by chapters in themodes of the eighteenth-century epistolary novel, the realist tradition, andthe ‘‘feminine’’ novels from the postwar period in the style of CarmenMartın Gaite’s El cuarto de atras. What holds together such a literary mosaicis the wedding portrait that appears in each chapter as an ancestral treasurefor the descendents of Gracia and Pablo. The conclusion, titled ‘‘Memoria,’’parodies the discourses of the art historian whose task it is to decipher themystery of the lady in the portrait. Over time the painting has been muti-lated, with Pablo cut out a century earlier and his hand on Gracia’s shoulderhaving been painted over with a dove, so that it is now taken to be a pictureof the Virgin Mary with the Holy Spirit. But the art historian ignores theevidence that the portrait is in fact that of a Jewish courtesan. In the end,Gracia’s portrait is restored to its original glory, with her direct gaze contain-ing all the family secrets the novel reveals to the reader.

Paloma Dıaz-Mas, a historian herself, has produced a novel that blends acritique of modern Spanish historiography with a portrait of the Spain of!""#, that in its failed quincentennial commemoration of Columbus’s discov-eries, but also the expulsion of the Jews, is revealed as a liminal space wheremodernity and the past coexist uneasily, one intruding on the other. In Dıaz-Mas’s own scholarly overview, ‘‘Judıos y conversos en la literatura espanola,’’the author notes that the attention sparked by the quincentenary led to afresh crop of academic studies and Spanish novels dealing with Jewishthemes, occasionally with unfortunate anti-Semitic overtones.1 A number of

!. In a long footnote written seven years after the original paper was presented, Dıaz-Mas providesan extensive list of novels written post-!""# dealing with Jewish themes, with special praise forCarme Riera’s Dins el darrer blau (‘‘Judıos y conversos . . .’’ $4().

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critics, such as Helen Graham and Antonio Sanchez, have voiced a certainuneasiness at the events of !""# that celebrated Spain’s new status as a mod-ern European nation, without a proper account of cultural legacies manySpaniards would rather ignore:

Critics of the quincentenary have pointed to its theme-park vacuity, itsfailure to confront the realities of genocide and racism either then or now;and to the way Spain’s continuing historical ‘‘amnesia’’ prevents the assim-ilation of the meaning of empire—in terms of the devastating experienceof otherness visited not only on the colonized, but also on those culturesexpelled from peninsular Spain (Arab, Jewish, and—later—Morisco). Bothof these processes had profound consequences for metropolitan Spanishidentities and mentalities which need to become the object of a new histor-ical-psychological ‘‘voyage of discovery,’’ this time into the interior. (4!()

The present essay studies the mechanisms of El sueno de Venecia throughwhich Dıaz-Mas examines Spain’s uneasy relationship to its still-felt past andanswers the call for a greater understanding of Spain’s tumultuous historyand its decisive imprint on the present. First, I posit that the novel is struc-tured as a female revision of the picaresque tradition, cunningly situating theimage of Gracia as the standard for iconic beauty in the chapters that follow.That Gracia’s beauty be recognized by Spanish society as a whole is key notonly for her individually, but mainly because through her picaresque self-fashioning Gracia de Mendoza invites the modern reader/viewer to recover apast that vanished with imperial Spain, along with all the complexities ofSpain’s multicultural heritage. In keeping with the novel’s invitation touncover hidden truths, I will argue that the character Gracia has precedentsin historical women, mainly the Sephardic heroine Gracia Mendes. Finally,through a study of the novel’s last chapter, we turn to the use of a childnarrator who functions as a cultural critic who, through the innocence of hergaze, bids the reader to embrace the complexities of the nation’s past. Thechild narrator unmasks the professional historian, who, in the closing wordsof El sueno, attempts to erase Gracia’s singularities. Yet, as with the identitiesof the courtesans who posed for the great Renaissance painters, Gracia’s dis-tinctiveness is hidden in plain sight for a contemporary Spain that is stillresisting the seductive beauty of a legacy that is both Semitic and feminine.

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The Pıcara’s Hidden Voice

In keeping with the theme of hidden truths in El sueno de Venecia, even aseach chapter is written in a style corresponding to the century in which theaction takes place, the presence of the picaresque mode persists throughout.One could theorize that the pıcaro, who through trickery attempts to achievea higher social status, is not so much Pablo but rather the painted Gracia,whose natural beauty and grace is venerated by an entire society in spite ofher marginality as courtesan and Jew. There is a hint later in the novel thatthe narrator of the picaresque chapter is Gracia, not Pablo as many readersand critics assume, when more than a century later the pillaging Lord Aston-Howard discovers that Gracia herself was a gifted author. Centuries afterposing for her portrait, like a true courtesan, Gracia continues to seducethrough her physical charms and intellect. Lord Aston-Howard is moredeeply enamored of Gracia after penetrating her library. He writes his friend,

Excuso decirle que mi locura, mi agitacion, mi insania han llegado alextremo: la bella que me fascino muda en un cuadro, estatica en una posede pintor, se me muestra ahora como un espıritu cultivado y sensible,exhibe ante mı—al cabo de los siglos—su mucho saber y la gracia de suescritura menuda y elegante. ('")

This hidden authorship is again suggested when the narrator of the textfound by Aston-Howard, Las semanas del jardın, compares herself to a‘‘nueva Penelope,’’ who weaves and reweaves the textures of the narrative. Ina story that provides us with alternate viewpoints of an underworld peopledby those labeled as sexual deviants (Pablo’s first master was a transvestite anda homosexual) and a myriad of characters surviving outside the codes of asociety obsessed with limpieza de sangre, Gracia shares important traits withthe various pıcaras of the Hispanic tradition—la Lozana Andaluza, la PıcaraJustina, la Ingeniosa Elena—all conversas. As the protagonist and probableauthor of the picaresque chapter, Gracia subverts the genre from within asthis pıcara seems to respect its conventions. As pointed out by Edward Fried-man, texts such as El Lazarillo de Tormes present the male pıcaro as a semioticentity who authenticates his existence by manipulating language to prove hishonorable status. Pıcaras, on the other hand, do not narrate their own talesbut depend on a male narrator to do so (4). In placing Gracia’s story inPablo’s voice, the first chapter of El sueno de Venecia follows the traditional

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precepts of genre and gender. Even in the second chapter, when the readerlearns that Gracia has authored a marvelous book, we know of it onlythrough Aston-Howard’s description. The pıcara’s voice is not openly offeredto the reader, but its echoes resonate throughout the remaining chapters.

Like other literary pıcaras, Gracia traffics with her body, yet she retains alarger measure of autonomy than figures like la Pıcara Justina. Unlike theirmale counterparts, the pıcaras serve no master, savoring their autonomy astheir major weapon. The male pıcaro is most often a servant; the pıcara isnot, instead working independently. Yet, one cannot glorify the fate of thepıcara, for although the female picaresques ‘‘put women in center stage toair their grievances and to overshadow their masters’’ (Friedman xi), theirmale authors in the end rarely offer up their stories as more than carnival-esque, entertaining interludes in which pıcaras often face disease, ill-fatedmarriages, abandonment of their children, and some like la Ingeniosa Elenaare even executed for their transgressions.2 Gracia, our female-authoredpıcara, transcends the genre she herself has rewritten. In the case of Gracia,she is most clearly the master, a state she celebrates when she tells Pablo,‘‘Comamos y bebamos, y vendimiemos la vina de los necios que la guardan,que en no tener vina que guardar esta nuestra alegrıa y en no tener honraque defender se asienta nuestro deleite’’ (4!). At some point the men ofMadrid may mock Pablo for serving Gracia because ‘‘siendo de esa casa, nocataras tocino’’ ($"), but they all desire her. Rather than suffer derision as isthe fate of the traditional pıcara, in light of her obvious superiority to allwho surround her, Gracia systematically subverts every negative aspect of thepunitive fates imposed on the pıcara in male-authored picaresque novels.Her physical exuberance reveals a perfect state of health, she has a happymarriage to a man who worships her, if Pablo is the child she abandoned, hehas now been recovered, and the only execution she faces is the execution of

#. Anne Cruz also examines the male bias in the portrayal of the pıcara as prostitute: ‘‘The femalepicaresque novels thus expose their authors’ perceptions of prostitutes and prostitution, but evenmore importantly, they illustrate the manner in which the male authors themselves are created bytheir texts, speaking to other men from their privileged place in a society separated by gender anddelimited by their own definitions of virtue and vice. Thus a homologous situation arises betweenthe prostitutes of Renaissance Spain and their literary counterparts. As the prostitutes becomesocialized by royal decree and their activities increasingly regulated for the benefit of the malepopulation, so the language of the female picaresque is both generated and controlled by the malepoint of view. The licentiousness of the pıcara does not give her license to break away fromauthorial control: the protagonist remains at the service of the author, a seductive figure of speechready to lure the reader into a male-dominated and male-oriented discourse’’ (!4&–4!).

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her portrait by a former slave whose talent she helps unleash. This branch ofthe Mendoza family may not have achieved its honorable status immediately,but a few generations later her portrait is exhibited by descendents so proudof their heritage that Aston-Howard, upon discovering the painting, receives‘‘la historia entera de su familia, tan monotona y embrollada como puedeUd. imaginar, y todo fue a parar en que tanto su esposo como ella descendıanpor lo menos del ultimo rey Godo’’ ('!).

Although sexuality is traded for advantage as much by the pıcara as thecourtesan, they all survive primarily by their wits. Courtesans were amongthe most highly educated and cultured women in Renaissance society. Theirlovers sought not only the pleasures of their flesh, but also a level of intellec-tual discourse with them not normally attainable with respectable wives,whose convent educations left them barely literate.3 Like the gifted courtesanthat she is, Gracia seduces with her body and through her intellect. Upondiscovering her library, Lord Aston-Howard reproaches himself:

¡Cuan necio habıa yo sido considerando a la bella mujer del cuadro comouna dama ignorante, tal vez analfabeta, como muchas de las damas decalidad de aquella epoca barbara, en que se despreciaban las cualidades delsexo y se relegaba a las mas finas inteligencias femeninas a la incultura y lafalta de instruccion! Dona Gracia, al parecer, formaba una autentica excep-cion entre las damas de su epoca y su instruccion y cultivo del espırituharıan, por lo que veo, palidecer a muchos hombres doctos aun hoy dıa.(''–'")

But what instantly seduces him is her physical image. Gracia’s book has nopublic diffusion. Only Aston-Howard reads her text, which he promptlysteals to send to a London bookseller, who in turn will sell the only existingcopy to a private collector. Aston-Howard may admire her intellect, but heis duplicitous with Spanish society in keeping Gracia’s literary talents hidden.Commenting on the fate of the pıcara, Friedman states that ‘‘women whowould challenge the status quo are figuratively and then literally silenced’’(xiii). Without public access to her words, Gracia must rely on her visualimage, thus following one of the dictums of the picaresque—that a great dealdepends on what is left unsaid.

$. Dıaz-Mas does insert into the novel a sharp criticism of female education in her descriptionsof Isabel and of Pepita, who is reminiscent of Moratın’s Paquita from El sı de las ninas.

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The Framing of Iconic Beauty

In El sueno de Venecia, the painting of Gracia is not merely a prop, becausethrough it Gracia creates multiple subject positions. In fact, to a certaindegree the painting itself functions as the pıcara who, without male recourseto language to convince Vuestra Merced of her elevated status, speaks success-fully to the future through the image of female beauty. The success of thepainted Gracia not only assures the interlocutor of her own elevated socialstatus, but in true matrilineal fashion, it establishes a noble lineage for herentire family. As in the Jewish tradition, genealogy is traced in El suenothrough the maternal line to the extreme that Pablo is taken to be her son inthe second chapter and is removed from the painting, and thus the narrative,by the third. The family will even bear her last name. It is Gracia’s face, andonly hers, that is sold to future generations as the face of honor.

The genre of the historical novel is especially notorious for using the faceof a beautiful woman as the marketing ploy that seduces the reader as con-sumer. A walk through any bookstore, whether it be Barnes and Noble or LaCasa del Libro, reveals that the covers of many successful novels are gracedby the image of a beautiful woman from a Renaissance painting. CatherineClement’s La Senhora exhibits Bronzino’s !%4% Leonor de Toledo. However,the opposite holds true in El sueno. The masterful cover design of this novelhas received frequent comment, for it is precisely a faceless body that gracesthe cover. Most Spanish readers recognize the hand, holding a lace handker-chief, of Velazquez’s Mariana de Austria as the enigmatic cover image luringthe reader into the novel. Yet the portrait described in the narrative can inno way be confused with that of Mariana de Austria; the contrast is brutalbetween Gracia’s facial perfections and the obvious physical shortcomingstypical of the Spanish Habsburgs. Christine Henseler remarks on the employ-ment of the image of Mariana that ‘‘[t]hrough the visual image, Dıaz-Mas’snovel undermines the authority of the original painting’’ (#%),4 and I would

4. Henseler offers a sophisticated reading of the relationship between the content of the noveland the mechanisms of the publishing industry, reaching the conclusion that ‘‘the paintingdescribed in the narrative can be confused with the fragment of Velazquez’s painting Mariana deAustria reproduced on the book cover, because the ever changing meaning of the painting in Elsueno represents ‘the ideology of the inexhaustible work of art, . . . the fact that the work is indeedmade not twice, but a hundred times, by all those who are interested in it, who find a material orsymbolic profit in reading it, classifying it, deciphering it, commenting on it, combating it, know-ing it, possessing it’ (Bourdieu). . . . The painting also ascertains the position that its painter and,

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go further to state that it also undermines the authority of the society createdby the Spanish monarchy and those who served it. Without meaning to becruel, one could say that with their elongated, sickly faces totally lacking innatural grace, the Habsburgs presented an apt public face for the SpanishEmpire and the Counter-Reformation. The novel contains a scathing critiqueof the Spanish governmental and religious organizations that with their poli-cies systematically eliminated some of the best and most beautiful aspects ofSpanish culture. The contrasts between the two images is even more perti-nent because Mariana de Austria was the second wife of Philip IV, the manrumored in the novel to have been one of Gracia’s first lovers upon herarrival in Madrid, and possibly Pablo’s biological father. At the outset of histale, Pablo recalls that as a young boy he would often daydream that he wasthe child of a noble lady forced to abandon him to cover up her disgrace and‘‘hasta a veces me gozaba pensando que quizas era hijo de reyes’’ (!$). In thisinterplay between reality and daydreams, the reader is led to question Pablo’sjudgment. If the tale that gives its title to the novel, which Pablo takes to behis master’s daydream about a city with canals instead of streets, is taken asfiction when in fact it is an accurate description of Venice, then cannot hisother alternate ‘‘dream’’ histories be true? Aston-Howard comments that inspite of the great physical resemblance he bears with his ‘‘mother,’’ Pablo’sappearance lacks her nobility: ‘‘Pero en el los mismos rasgos no tienen iden-tica nobleza, como si en el paso de una generacion a otra se hubiese debili-tado la fuerza de la estirpe’’ ('#). This is another direct allusion to thedegeneration that occurred in Spain through the expulsion of the Jews andthe continued marginalization of the conversos. Through the images of thebeauty of Gracia and her descendents, in !""#, the five-hundredth anniver-sary of the Jewish explusion, Dıaz-Mas offers the reader a glimpse of a Spainthat could have been. The following chapters introduce granddaughters whodirectly reproduce Gracia’s charms. The contrast between the women of thefictional Mendoza family and actual Spanish queens continues in the third

by extension, Dıaz-Mas may occupy as they are determined by the institutional frameworks thatvalue their work’’ (#%). I would argue that the book cover was designed with the assumption thatthe reader is familiar with Velazquez’s portrait and would not confuse it with Gracia’s, and thusthat the cover instead signals the series of contrasts between the way various readers within thenovel misread Gracia’s portrait, blinded by the sort of institutional frameworks so aptly studiedby Henseler.

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chapter when the child is named Isabel, in honor of the current monarchIsabel II. The contrast could not be more pointed between Gracia’s descend-ent—with her innate social graces, a level of intelligence that allows her totranscend her convent education, and again her beauty—and a queen whowas so reviled for her lack of social and political skills and who was parodiedfor her physical and sexual shortcomings.

One element that is striking in a novel so focused on the exultation offemale beauty is the fact that Gracia’s actual features are never oncedescribed. Instead, her visual image is transcribed through a series of well-known poetic tropes. Pablillo’s first description of her is the following: ‘‘Erael cabello un ascua de oro brillando bajo la noche del manto, en la cualnoche se adivinaban jazmines tan blancos como olorosos, rosas tan abiertascomo encendidas’’ ($#). The morning after they make love for the first time,he offers a similar detailed, yet vague, description, with tactile elementsadded: ‘‘el raso que acaricie vi tornarse jazmines, las hebras de seda conver-tirse en oro, el marmol dura nieve apretada, la fruta fresca una encarnadarosa’’ (4%). Rather than a live woman, the image offered by Pablillo is thecodified poetic description, the encomium of female beauty from the SpanishGolden Age tradition that lingers on into the twentieth century. In thesewords, Gracia is made to embody the standard female beauty of the Petrar-chan tradition of love poetry that inspired so many classical Spanish poets,from Garcilaso to Gongora and Lope. With Pablillo’s insistence on the meta-morphosis of Gracia’s beauty, this passage cannot help but remind us of themany carpe diem poems, in which the evocation of idealized female beauty,hovering just a breath away from decay and the grave, is deployed as a meansof demonstrating male rhetorical wit and literary mastery. But the paintingsubverts the poetics of the carpe diem tradition, for Gracia’s beauty lives onand evolves beyond her male admirer’s verbal description of it. This petrifiedPetrarchan icon she has created will never degenerate. In other words, Graciaincarnates the codified standard of beauty, which once it is acknowledgedcannot be retracted by the revelation of her Jewish identity.

Gracia’s portrait is a great example of Stephen Greenblatt’s often-quotednotion of ‘‘Renaissance self-fashioning’’ that posits a ‘‘self-consciousnessabout fashioning of human identity as a manipulable, artful process’’ (qtd.in Rogers !). The public staging of her persona is made more patent by thedetail that she is introduced into the novel at the theater, a space wheretransformations were applauded and in which the authorities saw possible

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threats to the existing social order.5 Curiously, as if to foreshadow the futuretransformation of Gracia’s portrait, ‘‘[o]ne of the most common complaintswas the affront to decency posed by having immoral actresses represent theVirgin Mary’’ (Greer 4&#). In this case, this ‘‘affront’’ is achieved through theform in which Gracia manipulates the display of her beauty, refusing to fol-low the representational codes associated with the courtesans, who in paint-ings often are portrayed with allusions to their profession. In the mostobvious examples, the courtesan exhibits her body immodestly, but otherrepresentations are more veiled to contemporary viewers, such as the inclu-sion of exotic animals representing lust, bottles of cosmetics, or emblems ofthe intellectual or musical talents of these educated women. La Bella’s jewelrybox is a symbol of her profession. Gracia’s portrait rejects all these conven-tions. The painted Gracia goes beyond the standard illustration of a respect-able lady, instead appearing in a celestial blue dress, with adornments thatresemble stars, codes normally associated with images of the Virgin Mary.These symbols lead to the confusion generated in the twentieth century.6 Inthis sense the painter, who so excelled in copying the tradition of Mary ontothe details of Gracia’s dress, and the courtesan form a logical alliance. Likethe courtesan, the painter was simultaneously in and out of court circles.Essentially a courtier for his patron, as exemplified in Velazquez’s ongoingstruggles for social recognition, the painter was denied social rights by thevery people who depended on him for the propagation of their images. Thisis particularly true in El sueno, where Zaide has been expelled from court.Until he was rescued by Gracia, her painter Zaide had been reduced to thestatus of a slave because of the threat it posed to Spanish notions of racialsuperiority to have a man of color exhibit such talent, or to have a Jewrecognized as the matriarch of a respectable dynasty. Gracia and Zaide

%. ‘‘One of the fundamental pleasures provided by theatre is precisely that of witnessing thetransformation of one being into another, of seeing men and women liberate themselves from theapparent limits of their own being, body, time, and space. The heyday of theatre in all threecapitals [Madrid, Paris, London] accompanied or closely followed eras of social turmoil and rapidurbanization, when many of the old bonds of the social order had been weakened or severed. It isnot surprising, therefore, that moralists and civil authorities should see a threat in the on-stagemodeling of possible social orders, or that diverse audiences should take such pleasure in it’’(Greer 4&$).(. According to Umberto Eco, ‘‘from the twelfth century onward blue became a prized color: itsuffices to think of the mystical value and aesthetic splendor of the blue used in the stained-glasswindows of cathedrals, which dominates the other colors and contributes to filtering the light ina ‘celestial’ manner’’ (!#$).

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together remind us that it is the task of the painter, but also of the pıcara, toconvince their audiences that their portraits, and ‘‘self-fashionings,’’ are sim-ple reflections of a truth that does not require interpretation, especially forfuture generations.

Historical Precedents

Simple objects found by chance, as happens to the painting of Gracia in thepostwar period, are the instruments often used by the historian to decipherthe past. In a description of her own theory of the historical novel, Diaz-Masexplains that

No son, pues, los objetos y los lugares los que se insertan en la narracionhistorica, sino justamente al reves: el pasado irrumpe en nuestra experien-cia actual a traves de esos restos materiales que llegaron hasta nosotros, yentonces decidimos escribir sobre nuestro pasado . . . esta reflexion lleva ala siguiente, que constituye para mı el elemento fundamental de la novela:la inquietante duda sobre nuestra capacidad para reconstruir verazmenteel pasado, para escribir la historia sin mentir y sin equivocarnos.(‘‘Lugares’’ #$)

This same critique of historical methods appears throughout three chap-ters of El sueno de Venecia, and especially in the ‘‘Memoria.’’ Dıaz-Mas, ahistorian herself, illustrates the dangers posed by what Nietzsche had called‘‘antiquarian history,’’ which assumes that the past can be known and vener-ated through objects left behind. For Nietzsche, antiquarian history posesdangers in that it ‘‘knows only how to preserve life, not how to engender it;it always undervalues that which is becoming . . . it hinders any resolve toattempt something new’’ (<%). This is the warning posed by the novel’s pref-ace in which a beautiful yet blind woman is led to the river by an old mancarrying a sieve. Like Cassandra, to whom she is directly compared, Beautyincarnates lost Truth while the old man represents Error. The sieve is Memo-ria who retains the bulk while releasing all subtlety, as happens in the final‘‘Memoria’’ of the novel. In effect, Dıaz-Mas’s novel responds to Nietzsche’sdictum that ‘‘the unhistorical and historical are necessary in equal measurefor the health of an individual, of a people and of a culture’’ (($). El suenode Venecia invents unhistorical truths to reveal a forgotten historical type,

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the conversa, who through her sexuality and social acuity helped engender anation.

One of the many artifacts used by historians to recapture some of theselost subtleties are the stories told by their own colleagues. As in most histori-cal novels, the protagonists of El sueno de Venecia not only inhabit realisticspaces and have existences punctuated by major historical events, but theyalso bear some resemblance to actual people who were once alive and whosepassages through this earth have been documented. Neither Dıaz-Mas norany of the critics of the novel mention the possibility, but such is the case forGracia in her role of Jewish family matriarch. Although, as has been statedby Dıaz-Mas and the many critics fascinated by her work, the portrait in thenovel is fictional, I do find an important similarity to an existing print. Anyresearcher interested in the history of Sephardic women will eventuallyencounter the similarly posed portrait of the historical Gracia Mendes andher nephew, Joseph Nasi, that appears repeatedly on websites that mentionGracia, whose maiden name was also Nasi, and in numerous books beforethe age of the Internet (see fig. #).7

Gracia Nasi’s Christian name was Beatriz de Luna, but it was seldom used,especially after she married the wealthy spice merchant Francisco Mendes.Upon his death, Gracia became independently wealthy, especially when latershe also inherited the portion of the business and the banking interestsbelonging to her brother-in-law Diogo, who headed the branch of the familybusiness in Antwerp. Her many efforts to save her fellow crypto-Jews fromthe European Inquisition led her to establish a network to aid fleeing Jewshoping to reach safety in her newfound home in Constantinople, whosemain synagogue, La Seniora or ha-Giveret, still bears her name. Gracia thusbecame a heroine for the Sephardic people. Her nephew, Joseph Nasi, whowould later become the illustrious Duke of Naxos, joined her in these enter-prises as they traveled from Antwerp, to Venice, and Ferrara, where Graciaopenly declared her Judaism. In addition to her work saving fleeing Jews,

<. As with most references on websites, Guleryuz’s article on The Jewish Virtual Library cites thisportrait as a ‘‘Woodcut from Les Demiers Jours de Shylock, page ''.’’ I have not been able to findany evidence that the book exists in French. This ‘‘woodcut’’ is an illustration by Arthur Szykfrom the novel The Last Days of Shylock by Ludwig Lewisohn, published in !"$! by Harper andBrothers. The novel is no longer in circulation, but copies of this image of Gracia have prolifer-ated, both in print and online. Most recently it graces the cover of Brooks’s biography of Gracia,The Woman Who Defied Kings.

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Figure !. Gracia Mendes and nephew Joseph Nasi. Reproduced with the cooperation of The

Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA, www.szyk.org.

Gracia used her considerable wealth to support academic enterprises such assponsoring printing presses.8 In Ferrara, Gracia patronized the translationsinto Ladino of both the traditional prayer book and the Jewish scriptures.The edition published for the Jews is dedicated to ‘‘one so noble and mag-nificent that it would adorn her nobility’’—‘‘the Very Magnificent Lady

'. See the essay ‘‘Experiencias culturales’’ by Laura Minervini, in a recent collection coedited byDıaz-Mas herself, which gives some credit to Gracia Mendes for the flourishing of print culture inItaly in the sixteenth century.

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Dona Gracia Naci [sic].’’ She also inspired the dedication to a poetic rendi-tion, in Portuguese, of Jewish history by Samuel Usque, titled the ‘‘Consola-tion for the Tribulations of Israel,’’ which is dedicated to Gracia.9 Historianssuch as Joseph Perez are among those who even credit Gracia with helpingfound the modern state of Israel when the Grand Turk granted her the pro-tectorate of Tiberıade and Safed into which she introduced thousands ofsheep and fruit trees, although most of her fellow Jews still preferred theprosperous urban centers such as Istanbul to living in the desert (#$"–4&).In honor of Gracia’s great contributions, the State of Israel issued a postagestamp with her likeness and the inscription from Shmuel Oushaki: ‘‘She, thewoman that helped you . . . in times of distress.’’

The stories of this great Sephardic heroine have also been taken up bynovelists, both in Europe and in the United States. Naomi Ragen’s The Ghostof Hannah Mendes is a sort of modern Jewish romance novel in which thisintrepid ancestor reconciles two modern sisters from an assimilated NewYork Jewish family with their Sephardic heritage. In a much more straight-forward fashion, the novel La Senhora chronicles the Sephardic diaspora andGracia’s valiant actions. In this French version, Catherine Clement alsoincorporates details of an intense and incestuous love between Gracia andher nephew, Joseph Nasi, that bears a certain similarity to that betweenGracia and Pablo. This figure will also resonate with the many readers ofCarme Riera’s Dins el darrer blau, as the historical Gracia provides a modelfor the mysterious and seductive lady who finances the failed escape of thecrypto-Jews of Mallorca.

Following other historical connections, Gracia’s last name unequivocallylinks her to one of Spain’s most illustrious and powerful family dynasties, aswell as one of the richest, the actual Mendoza family, who nurtured a partic-ularly strong and influential group of women. Feminist historians such as

". In the dedication of this history of the Jews, Gracia is described as a composite of a series ofOld Testament heroines: ‘‘who has seen revived the intrinsic piety of Miriam, offering her life tosave her brethren? The great prudence of Deborah, in governing her people? That infinite virtueand great sanctity of Esther, in helping those who are persecuted? The much praised strength ofthe most chaste and magnanimous widow, Judith, in delivering those hemmed in by travail? [Itis] the fortunate Jewess Nasci. She it is who at the beginning of their journey greatly helps yournecessitous sons. . . . In such wise, with her golden arm and heavenly grasp, she raised most ofthose of this people from the depths of this and other infinite travail in which they were keptenthralled in Europe. . . . she brings them to safe lands and does not cease to guide them, andgathers them to the obedience and precepts of their god of old’’ (Geller !).

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Helen Nader have recently uncovered the high level of education and sophis-tication of the women of the Mendoza family and their centrality to courtculture both in medieval times and in the Golden Age. During the reign ofPhillip II, the Mendoza family was so powerful as to host the king’s weddingto Isabel de Valois, during which the entire royal court lived under their roofat the Infantado Palace for two weeks. Traditional historians have longsilenced the harsh realities behind the glamorous public image of this family,especially in the case of such colorful figures as Ana de Mendoza, the Princessof Eboli, mysterious in the portraits of her wearing the black eye patch. Aswith the fictional portrait of Gracia, the superficial readings of Ana’s famousportrait by Sofonisba Anguissola fail to see the true complexity of women’slives in the past. In renditions such as Almudena de Arteaga’s !""' novel Laprincesa de Eboli, tales of her amorous exploits outnumber serious historicalconsiderations of Ana as an orphan and widow, instead turning her life intoa more steamy version of the novela rosa. Although eventually imprisonedfor her court exploits, Ana managed her own estate, and like many of herfemale relatives, functioned as family matriarch.10 We know from earlysources such as Lope de Barrientos that the Mendozas are of Jewish descent.11

Naming Gracia a Mendoza is not only a marker of her Jewishness but also alink to such illustrious historical figures whose invisibility in modern histori-ography can be somewhat remedied in works of historiographical metafic-tion such as El sueno, which bring to light Dıaz-Mas’s ‘‘inquietante dudasobre nuestra capacidad para reconstruir verazmente el pasado’’ (‘‘Lugares’’#$), a doubt better expressed through her fiction than in her more traditionalbook from !"'(, Los sefardıes: historia, lengua y cultura.

Perhaps the novel is even the by-product of writing such a comprehensivehistory of the Sephardic people, with its emphasis on those who left Spaininstead of those who stayed. While this last idea is mainly a conjecture, wedo know what novels she was reading the year before the publication ofEl sueno. In April of !""!, Dıaz-Mas attended the Second InterdisciplinaryConference on Sephardic Studies at the State University of New York inBinghamton. Her presentation ‘‘Judıos y conversos en la literatura espanolacontemporanea’’ was published in the proceedings in !""". In this article,

!&.Ana de Mendoza’s most famous romantic portrayals are in Verdi’s two librettos for Don Carloand in Schiller’s play Don Carlos. See Reed, ‘‘Mother Love in the Renaissance.’’!!. For more details on the family lineage, see Roth ($$$).

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Dıaz-Mas studies four novels, Los tornadizos by Antonio Cascales, Un sambe-nito para el senor Santiago by Magdalena Guillo, Melibea no quiere ser mujerby Juan Carlos Arce, and the novel she labels ‘‘casi ‘rosa,’ ’’ Mercedes Formi-ca’s Collar de ambar, in which she finds elements that ‘‘acerca[n] la novela aalgunos de los mas clasicos topicos antisemitas’’ (‘‘Judıos’’ $%%). In ‘‘Judıos yconversos,’’ Dıaz-Mas sees as a common trend in the three novels she viewspositively

un cierto sentimiento de deuda moral hacia esa casta perseguida, unida alconvencimiento de que esos conversos acosados constituıan uno de losmas fertiles fermentos de la vida social espanola y que, de no haber sidosofocadas las tendencias—mas abiertas, mas intelectuales, mas libres—queellos encarnaban, hubiera sido muy otra la historia de Espana. Es, portanto, una vision idealizada del converso como fermento fallido de unasociedad distinta. ($%%)

These are precisely some of the features present in her own novel, which shemust have been writing simultaneously with the article. A key element thatdoes distinguish El sueno from the novels Dıaz-Mas studies in her article isthe focus on the female protagonist and the strong contributions of thewomen of Spain.

Although her influence may not be as visible as that of the historical fig-ures, within the space of the novel Gracia de Mendoza, through her effortsnot only to survive but boldly to gain centrality in Counter-ReformationSpain, becomes a matriarch for her people, in this case the conversos. She isalso a tribute to the many conversas who through their mere endurancefounded numerous Spanish families. To a certain extent, conversos, althoughby no means a monolithic group, were excluded by both of the societies towhich they were irrevocably linked. No longer Jews, even those who madehonest attempts to assimilate into Spain’s hegemonic culture encounteredcontinuous discrimination. Numerous Inquisition cases attest to the strongrole of the women in crypto-Judaism since as mistresses of the household,especially the kitchen, they would have to be more actively involved in thepreparation of all the rituals.12 Tellingly, we discover that it was Gracia’s

!#. ‘‘There was a qualitative difference in wording in the accusation lists of women and men.Time after time, there was a sense of passivity on the part of many of the men, who were oftenaccused of ‘allowing’ or ‘permitting’ their wives to perform Jewish rites. The wives, on the otherhand, were more likely accused of actively Judaizing. . . . It is important to note here that even

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grandmother, from whom Gracia bravely takes her name, who was con-demned by the Inquisition. And even so, the male art historian of the‘‘Memoria’’ dismisses this self-renaming as being too bold an act for anyconversa, especially one from a family in Seville that had spent two genera-tions in a vain attempt to assimilate. Centuries later the details of importantevents in their lives remain buried, but no one has forgotten the one margin-alizing aspect that marked them forever. Instead of celebrating an inconve-nient but authentic past, what Gracia’s descendents try to preserve is aChristianized version of the story. The forged version prevails when the arthistorian states that the woman in the painting is the sister who became anun while the ‘‘fallen’’ sister has been cut out, thus providing an explanationfor the hand on her shoulder. Women like Gracia may have been cut out ofofficial history, but novels like El sueno de Venecia remind the reader of themany gaps left behind by the traditional historian.

Through the Eyes of a Child

El sueno de Venecia ends with a parody of the official discourse of the arthistorian, but first Dıaz-Mas presents a child narrator who is a worthydescendent of Gracia, and whose untainted view of the world reveals greatertruths to the reader than the experts. In the postwar chapter, the innocenceof a child discloses the absurdities of accepted truths and official histories.The protagonist of this chapter is another in a long line of transgressivefemales who describes her first steps out of bed as ‘‘el primer acto prohibidode la jornada’’ (!(<). The technique of using a child narrator links this novelto a longstanding tradition in Spanish literature and film, such as Ana MarıaMatute’s Primera memoria, Carmen Martın Gaite’s Entre visillos, ManuelRivas’s ‘‘La lengua de las mariposas’’ and the eponymous film it inspired,and more recently Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Such works use thepurity of the child narrator to highlight the truths that are often hidden orignored by adults in repressive societies.13 Although seemingly insignificant,this narrator’s acts of disobedience are spotlighted against a background that

the prosecution was aware of the strong and unusual role of the women in crypto-Judaism’’(Levine Melammed !#).!$. For a much more detailed study of the use of children in Spanish fiction, see my own Womenand Children First.

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contains the continuous presence of radio advertisements reminiscent of theofficial voices of the fascist regime that convinced audiences to accept unsa-vory ideals, much as the ads that locked the family into buying products theyhad grown to abhor. These are the harbingers of an official Francoist ideol-ogy insistent on portraying postwar Spain through an optimistic prism. Butour child narrator sees beneath the surface, and thus the most importantsubtext that shapes this postmodern chapter is El Capitan Trueno, a comicbook series launched by Bruguera on the fourteenth of May, !"%(.14

Even in its first year of publication, there are estimates that El CapitanTrueno reached a million and a half readers per individual issue and in thepages of the magazine Pulgarcito. Dıaz-Mas’s choice of this intertext perfectlycomplements the theme of Spanish society replete with remnants of subver-sion that are hidden in plain sight, for one of the most popular series of textsfor children of the Franco regime was in fact produced by two of its oppo-nents. El Capitan Trueno was created by Vıctor Mora Pujadas, with drawingsby Miguel Ambrosio Zaragoza (Ambros). Mora was arrested and jailed in!"%< for his clandestine political activities, and Ambros was one of the manyteachers who, in revenge for the service that they had given to the Republicanideal of a worthy education for every Spaniard, was relieved of his post afterthe war in which he had fought as a Republican. Some have read the story-lines of El Capitan Trueno as lightly veiled condemnations of the regime. JoseOrtega Anguiano considers him ‘‘un heroe para una generacion’’ preciselybecause

la lucha contra la opresion es el motivo central de la inmensa mayorıa delas historietas del Capitan Trueno. Sin entrar en matizaciones, el heroe seopone a un poder injusto, caracterizado por el abuso mediante la fuerza.Abuso nada refinado y burdo, realizado por dictadores con absolutodesprecio a los derechos y libertades de los demas. (!!!)

Like all comic book heroes, El Capitan Trueno is accompanied by his sec-ondary characters. These are Goliat, a jolly giant, Crispın, a young man in

!4. I have chosen not to focus on the postmodern elements of the novel since critics have alreadyprovided valuable readings from this angle. Drinkwater and Mackline note that, ‘‘In this reading,El sueno de Venecia constitutes a postmodern critique of the transmission and understanding ofcultural objects (particularly texts and graphic art). Insofar as it deals with the distortions ofhistoriography, it is to that degree metafictional, but its implications extend to wider areas ofSpanish cultural history, to a concern with those usually relegated to the margins of history, andto questions of memory, nation and identity’’ ($!<).

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training for his own future role as a superhero, and Sigrid, who is a bitmore his companion than the typical damsel in distress of tradition. Sigridfrequently echoes El Capitan’s calls to social justice. In one episode, Sigriddenounces the racism of the queen of an imaginary African city and receivesa response that to an adult reader resonates with the strict warnings of theFrancoist censors that in turn echo the Spain of the Inquisition: ‘‘Tus ideasme parecen peligrosas para la unidad . . . ¡Procura no hacer alarde de ellas!’’(Ortega !!4).

As a worthy descendent of Gracia de Mendoza, the child reader within thischapter breaks with the patterns established for her gender. To begin with,she is reading a comic strip meant for boys, and then in the process of identi-fying with specific characters rejects the role of Sigrid as being too passive.This little girl shifts reading positions and identifications as she substitutesherself for Crispın, and in so doing assigns to herself the role of active, desir-ing subject. She clearly rejects the traditional role of damsel in distress, as sheleads El Capitan into dangerous caves his male companions lack the courageto enter. In spite of her young age, she also adds a sexual element that ismissing in the comic as she clearly longs to be alone with him in dark, secretplaces. It is precisely this insistence in hiding with him that leads to thediscovery of Gracia’s painting. Since by the twentieth century her image hadbeen transformed into that of the Virgin Mary, to save it from the anti-Catholicism of wartime Madrid, someone had nailed the painting to the bot-tom of a table. Initially, rather than an object of beauty, Gracia’s transformedimage is referred to by the child as ‘‘los Ojos Malos’’ that provide the titlefor the chapter, and that are the enemy she and El Capitan must fight.

With a greater sense of logic than that of the adults who surround her, thechild unmasks the absurdity of Catholic symbolism and the many imagesused to represent it. In one of her more pointed comments, she compares ElCapitan Trueno with Saint Martin, both of whom sport long, red capes.According to Catholic hagiography, Saint Martin relieves the suffering of abeggar by cutting his own cape in half to share. Rejecting the manner inwhich she has been told this story, the child instead chides the saint, becausein dividing the cape he is ‘‘estropeando antieconomicamente su propiacapa—magnıfica prenda de centurion presumido, para dar al menesterosopoco mas de un pingajo inservible’’ (!<#). She points out that not only doesEl Capitan perform many more good deeds, but he would have given thebeggar the entire cape. Her description of the interior of San Martın churchis replete with a sharp criticism of the style of religious art that obscures true

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beauty. It is after this trip to the church that the child reexamines the imageof Gracia, this time seeing with her eyes, and not through the filters ofaccepted truths, to see eyes that are ‘‘azules y dulcısimos, trasparentes comoel agua del mar . . . y los Ojos Malos no volvieron a aparecerse nunca mas enla vida’’ (#&4).

Once the painting is rediscovered, ‘‘los Ojos Malos’’ could be said tobelong to the art historian who is given access to the real story of the paint-ing, yet refuses to see it. This is the second time in the novel that Spaniardsreject the truth, while foreigners uncover it. In this case, it is a man namedRaimund Volk who reveals Gracia’s identity. In the second chapter of thenovel the British Lord Aston-Howard had complained that everything beau-tiful is hidden in Spain and describes Madrid as ‘‘esta ciudad, que pareceavergonzarse de sus meritos y querer encubrirlos con una capa de abandonoy miseria’’ (<4).15 Chief among these merits are the things directly associatedwith Gracia—her painting, her book, the garden. Traditionally, a courtesan’sgarden was considered the center of a household that provided a pastoralretreat from the stresses of urban life her clients wished to escape. In El sueno,the garden offered another sort of Eden. Whereas Zaide had previously beenmarginalized because of his race, now not only is he valued for his talent,but in his new color-blind household the child he has with a white Christianmaid plays in a garden where he is loved by all in this enclosed space offeminist convivencia set up by Gracia. But like many other details too danger-ous to unveil in the fanatic Spain of the Inquisition, and later fascism, thisisland of harmony is kept secret, and later untended. The dangers to societythat secrets pose are made patent in the third chapter in which family secretsonce again lead to incest, with an added suicide. And in this case the suicidecan be read as a metaphor for the many acts of self-mutilation committed bya Spanish society intent on cutting off its own members, even those who aremost productive. The talented black painter Zaide will remain in obscurityas the historian of the ‘‘Memoria’’ attributes his work to the artist BartolomeZabala.

!%. Although Aston-Howard does reveal some crucial truths about this family’s past, there is acertain level of irony in his general blindness about Spain typical of many traveling Europeans atthe time. In a letter dated April #, !'&', he says, ‘‘Las semanas transcurridas desde mi ultima cartahan sido de una monotonıa insufrible: empiezo a pensar que Espana es un paıs aburrido dondenunca pasa nada. La sangre ardiente, el espıritu arrojado y hasta temerario de los naturales nopasan de ser mitos creados por viajeros fantasiosos: son seres pobres de espıritu, incapaces de unaaccion heroica o siquiera de un atisbo de rebeldıa’’ (!&!). His reading would obviously soon beproven unjust with the successful rebellion against the Napoleonic invasion.

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The idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder becomes one of thecritical commonplaces explored in El sueno de Venecia. In the second chapter,as he contemplates Pepita, one of Gracia’s great-granddaughters who bears astunning resemblance, Aston-Howard describes her sitting ‘‘ante la miradacomplaciente de los papas de la senorita, que se miran en ella como en unespejo que les devolviese su imagen mejorada y rejuvenecida . . . dona Pepitaes tan clara y lisa como una lamina de cristal pulido’’ ("(). In effect, Aston-Howard is describing one of the common effects of beauty in art as being amirror that reflects back onto the viewer the pleasure of human possibilities,as it connects us to a past we can only glimpse. He is also inadvertentlyhighlighting one of the flaws associated with traditional representations ofbeauty, complacency. The standard aesthetic theories of the Renaissanceposit that ‘‘the painting of a beautiful woman, like the lyric poem maybecome its own object, the subject being necessarily absent’’ (Cropper !'!).In our own times, this blindness persists. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museumdescription of La Bella reads: ‘‘With its spectacular beauty, this work standsas the compendium of all the achievements of Venetian painting, of its sen-sual colouring and suggestive luminosity.’’ Yet in Gracia her Jewishness andher engendering sexuality are part of her intrinsic beauty. In a deviation fromthe traditional discourses of philosophy and history, in El sueno de Venecia itis not the painting that is beautiful, but the woman herself. With Gracia areversal of roles takes place as the woman controls the gaze, both her ownand the viewer’s. She has offered herself up as a carefully posed spectacle shemust know will last for generations, as her image continues to seduce all whogaze upon this revealing beauty. In so doing, she founds a new family line,providing an image devoid of the usual markers. Echoing standard philo-sophical thought, George Santayana writes that ‘‘[t]o feel beauty is a betterthing than to understand how we came to feel it’’ (!!). The portrait of Graciade Mendoza inverts Santayana’s assertion, for in El sueno de Venecia it is abetter thing to understand how we came to feel beauty. Gracia’s beauty isrevealing to those who choose to see beneath the surface of the canvas andacknowledge a long-forgotten and defiled set of ancestors whose beauty hassecretly illuminated the nation since its conception.

Works Cited

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Brooks, Andree Aelion. The Woman Who Defied Kings: The Life and Times of Dona GraciaNasi—A Jewish Leader during the Renaissance. St. Paul: Paragon House, #&&#.

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fulfillment of requirements for courses on Jewish Education and Sephardic History.Boston: International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, n.d. #( Aug. #&&'.!http://www.kahalbraira.org/mendes/GraciaMendes.html".

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Perez, Joseph. Los judıos en Espana. Madrid: Marcial Pons, #&&%.Ragen, Naomi. The Ghost of Hannah Mendes. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, #&&!.Reed, Helen. ‘‘Mother Love in the Renaissance: The Princess of Eboli’s Letters to her

Favorite Son.’’ In Power and Gender in Renaissance Spain: Eight Women of the MendozaFamily. Ed. Helen Nader. Urbana: U of Illinois P, #&&4. !%#–<(.

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