The Vaez family was a prominent Jewish family of

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, whose foremost members, the four brothers Immanuel, Pedro, Ayres, and Salvador, resided in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

Marranos ''Marranos'' is a term for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as Navarrese jews, who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued t ...

during the sixteenth century. The family included several Jewish scholars and

physicians A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...

for the royal family.

Family

Abraham Vaez

Abraham Vaez was a

hakham ''Hakham'' (or ''Chakam(i), Haham(i), Hacham(i), Hach''; ) is a term in Judaism meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He who says a wise th ...

of the Portuguese congregation in

Bayonne Bayonne () is a city in southwestern France near the France–Spain border, Spanish border. It is a communes of France, commune and one of two subprefectures in France, subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments of France, departm ...

during the latter half of the seventeenth century. He was the author of a work on Jewish ritual laws entitled ''Arbol de Vidas'', to which was appended a lengthy treatise on rituals by Abraham Rodriguez Faro (Amsterdam, 1692). He also wrote several sermons on the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

, and a number of ethical treatises, which were collected under the title ''Discursos Predicables y Avisos Espirituales'' and published, at the expense of his son Jacob Vaez, by Isaac Aboab (Amsterdam, 1710), who himself wrote a long introduction.

Ayres Vaez

Ayres Vaez was a physician to

John III of Portugal John III ( ; 6 June 1502 – 11 June 1557), nicknamed The Pious ( Portuguese: ''o Piedoso''), was the King of Portugal and the Algarve from 1521 until he died in 1557. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of ...

. He died in Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century. At the request of the King of Fez, with whom John, however, was not on terms of amity, Vaez was sent to Africa, where he succeeded in curing the monarch of a dangerous illness. Upon his return to Lisbon, Vaez devoted himself to the study of

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

and

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

. In consequence of predicting to the king and queen the death of one of their children, a prediction which was fulfilled, he lost the royal favor. Thinking to regain the king's confidence, Vaez declared, in the course of a discussion, that astrology was an unreliable mode of divination, and that its practise was foolish and irreligious. The king, who had recently read a treatise expressing similar views, delivered Vaez to the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...

, charging him with being a heretic and a secret Jew. Vaez was ordered to defend himself before the inquisitors, and later to engage in a disputation with the theologian Sorao; but Capodiferro, the papal nuncio, succeeded in removing him from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and sent him to Rome to be tried by the Curia.

Pope Paul III Pope Paul III (; ; born Alessandro Farnese; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death, in November 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era follo ...

, who was himself a believer in astrology, not only set Vaez at liberty, but even issued a bull (June 6, 1541) protecting the entire Vaez family, as well as the lawyers who had defended Ayres Vaez, against the Inquisition.

Daniel Vaez

Daniel Vaez was a Portuguese scholar who flourished at

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

in the seventeenth century. Together with Joseph Athias, he published a prayer-book entitled ''Orden de las Oraciones del Todo el Anno'' (Amsterdam, 1677).

Immanuel Vaez

Immanuel Vaez was a physician and the eldest of the Vaez brothers. According to the account of Rodrigo de Castro (''De Universa Mulierum Morborum Medicina'', ii. 47, 332, Hamburg, 1603), who was his nephew, and who settled in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

in the sixteenth century, Immanuel was appointed physician to four kings of Portugal—John III., Sebastian, Henry, and Philip II. He won this distinction by virtue of his erudition and the experience which he had gathered in his extensive travels.

Pedro Vaez

Pedro Vaez was a physician at

Covilhã Covilhã (), officially Covilhã City (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in the Centro, Portugal, Centro region, Portugal. The city proper had 33,691 inhabitants in 2021. The municipality population in 2021 was 46,455 in an area of . It is ...

, Portugal; second in age of the Vaez brothers. He is repeatedly mentioned in the ''Medicorum Principum Historia'' of Abraham Zacuto.

Salvador Vaez

Salvador Vaez was the youngest of the Vaez brothers. He served as a page to the papal

nuncio An apostolic nuncio (; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international organization. A nuncio is ...

Hieronymo Ricenati Capodiferro in Lisbon, and was able to interest the prelate in the case of his brother Ayres, and to induce him to interfere in the latter's behalf. The result was that after the sessions of the Inquisition had begun, Salvador suddenly entered the hall and declared the sitting dissolved by order of the nuncio. Later he probably accompanied Capodiferro to Rome.

Eleanore Vaez

Eleanore Vaez was a sister to the above. She married Dr David Namias de Castro also known as Andreas Fernandez. Cir 1544. They had two children Francisco Namias de Castro (1545 Lisbon) and Dr David Namias de Castro also known as Rodrigo Namias (c 1546 Lisbon - Feb 1627 Hamburg)

References

*{{JewishEncyclopedia, title=Vaez, url=https://archive.org/stream/jewishencycloped12sing#page/394/mode/2up Jewish-Portuguese families Portuguese Jews Sephardi families History of Lisbon