Tale of a Jewish Man’s Persecution in the New World
It is perhaps the most significant artifact documenting the arrival of Jews in the New World: a 16th- century manuscript written in an almost microscopic hand by Luis de Carvajal the Younger, whose life and pain it chronicled.
Until 1932, the 180-page booklet by de Carvajal, a secret Jew who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in Spain’s colony of Mexico, resided in that country’s National Archives. Then it vanished.
The theft transformed the manuscript into an object of obsession for a coterie of Inquisition scholars and rare-book collectors. Then it showed up 13 months ago at a London auction house. The manuscript was on sale for $1,500; the house had little sense of its value.
But last year the relic caught the eye of a prominent collector of Judaica, Leonard Milberg, when it showed up for resale at the Swann Galleries in Manhattan. It was now priced at more than 50 times what it had sold for just a few months earlier in England. Mr. Milberg consulted experts, who told him it might be the actual manuscript, and worth as much as $500,000. They also warned him to be careful — the original had been reported stolen.
Financed by Mr. Milberg, the man- uscript will be returning to Mexico’s archives in March. But it is on display through March 12 at the New-York Historical Society, part of an exhibition on the experience of the first Jews in the Americas.
“It is the earliest surviving personal narrative by a New World Jew,” said David Szewczyk, a book expert, “and the earliest surviving worship manuscript and account of coming to the New World.”
De Carvajal was a Jew who posed as Catholic in New Spain, now Mexico, during a period when the Inquisition persecuted heretics and false converts with torture and grisly executions.
De Carvajal, a trader, was arrested around 1590 as a proselytizing Jew and, while in prison, began writing a sometimes messianic memoir, the “Memorias,” on pages roughly 10 centimeters by 8 centimeters. In it, he called himself Joseph Lumbroso — Joseph the Enlightened. It begins: “Saved from terrible dangers by the Lord, I, Joseph Lumbroso of the Hebrew nation and of the pilgrims to the West Indies in appreciation of the mercies received from the hands of the Highest, address myself to all, who believe in the Holy of Holies and who hope for great mercies.”
The memoir tells how he learned from his father that he was Jewish, circumcised himself with scissors and secretly embraced the faith.
He was freed for a time — possibly so that the authorities could track his movements — and finished his autobiography. Scholars believe he made it miniature so he could conceal it. In 1596, after having been found guilty again of observing Jewish practices, he was burned at the stake. He was 30.
His manuscript, discovered in his clothing, eventually ended up in the National Archives.
How the book disappeared remains a matter of conjecture. At the time, at least three scholars were delving into the Inquisition’s pro- ceedings against de Carvajal. One accused a rival of the theft. The rival spent three months in jail but was released for lack of evidence.
In December 2015 in London, Bloomsbury Auctions listed the de Carvajal materials in its catalog as “three small devotional manuscripts.” It described the manuscript as a 17th- or 18th- century work and said it had come “from the library of a Michigan family.”
The buyer, described by a Swann official only as a rare- book dealer, brought the manuscript to Swann, which priced it at $50,000 to $75,000. Though some experts value it closer to $500,000, Swann thought the de Carvajal manuscript to be a transcript — an old copy — not the original.
That’s where it was spotted last summer by Mr. Milberg, 85, the owner of a Manhattan commercial finance company who collects Judaica and Irish poetry. He decided to buy the manuscript “copy” and include it in the planned exhibition at the NewYork Historical Society, which was to include many pieces from his Judaica collection. Then he was going to donate it to his alma mater, Princeton University in New Jersey.
But experts he consulted convinced him that it was both authentic and stolen. Swann pulled the manuscript from the sale, and Mexican curators confirmed its authenticity.
Mr. Milberg told Diego Gómez Pickering, Mexico’s consul-general in New York, he needed a few months before returning it so that it could be displayed in New York.
Mr. Milberg also insisted that digital copies be made for Princeton and the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in Manhattan. He said highlighting the book is his way of “getting back at anti-Semitism.”
“I wanted to show that Jews were part of the fabric of life in the New World,” he said. “This book was written before the Pilgrims arrived.”