|
Garcia de Orta (or Garcia d'Orta) (1501? – 1568) was a Portuguese Renaissance Sephardi Jewish physician, herbalist and naturalist. He was a pioneer of tropical medicine, pharmacognosy and ethnobotany, working mainly in Goa, then a Portuguese colony in India. Garcia de Orta used an experimental approach to the identification and use of herbal medicines rather than the traditional approach of using received knowledge. His ''magnum opus'' was a book on the simples (herbs used singly) and drugs published in 1563 ''Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India'', the earliest treatise on the medicinal and economic plants of India. Carolus Clusius translated it into Latin which was widely used as a standard reference text on medicinal plants. Garcia de Orta died before the Goa Inquisition began in Goa but in 1569 his sister was burnt at the stake for being a secret Jew and based on her confession his remains were later exhumed and burnt along with an effigy. Memorials recognizing his contributions have been built both in Portugal and India. == Life == Garcia de Orta was born in Castelo de Vide, probably in 1501, the son of Fernão (Isaac) da Orta, a merchant, and Leonor Gomes. He had three sisters, Violante, Catarina and Isabel. Their parents were Spanish Jews from Valencia de Alcántara who had taken refuge, as many others did, in Portugal at the time of the great expulsion of the Spanish Jews by the ''Reyes Catolicos'' Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in 1492. Forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497, they were pejoratively classed as ''Cristãos Novos'' (New Christians) and marranos ("swine"). Some of these refugees maintained their Jewish faith secretly. A friendly neighbour at Castelo de Vide was the nobleman Dom Fernão de Sousa, Lord of Labruja, who may have influenced the idea Garcia father to send him to University. Dom Fernão's son Martim Afonso de Sousa would become a key figure in later life.〔 Garcia studied medicine, arts and philosophy at the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Salamanca in Spain. He graduated and returned to Portugal in 1525, two years after his father's death. He practiced medicine first in his home town and from 1526 onwards in Lisbon, where he gained a lecturership at the university in 1532. He also became royal physician to John III of Portugal. Perhaps fearing the increasing power of the Portuguese Inquisition, and fortunately evading the ban on emigration of New Christians, he sailed for Portuguese India leaving Tagus in March 1534 as Chief Physician aboard the fleet of Martim Afonso de Sousa, later to be named Governor. He reached Goa in September. He travelled with Sousa on various campaigns, then, in 1538, settled at Goa, where he soon had a prominent medical practice. He was physician to Burhan Nizam Shah I of the Nizam Shahi dynasty of Ahmadnagar, and concurrently to several successive Portuguese Viceroys and governors of Goa. The King of Portugal through the Viceroy Dom Pedro Mascarenhas granted a lifelong lease (on payment of a quit-rent) to Garcia da Orta for the ''Ilha da Boa Vida'' ("the Island of the Good Life") which became a part of Bombay. This was probably somewhere between September 1554 and June 1555. The only condition of the lease was that he had to improve the place. He had a manor house with a large garden. He probably maintained an excellent library here. This manor stood not far from where the Town Hall of Bombay was built. Garcia probably let out the house to Simao Toscano. At the time of Bombay's transfer to the English, the manor was occupied by Dona Ignez de Miranda, widow of Dom Rodrigo de Monsanto. It was in this house that the treaty by which Bombay was transferred to the English was signed by Humphrey Cooke on the 18th of February 1665. Garcia describes the people around Bassein and their traditions in his book. Contrary to some early biographical accounts, Garcia de Orta married a wealthy cousin, Brianda de Solis, in 1543; the marriage was unhappy, but the couple had two daughters. In 1549 his mother and two of his sisters, who had been imprisoned as Jews in Lisbon, managed to join him in Goa. According to a confession by his brother-in-law after his death, Garcia de Orta privately continued to assert that "the Law of Moses was the true law";〔Inquisition records quoted in Silva Carvalho (1934):74, 159.〕 in other words, he, probably in common with others in his family, remained a Jewish believer. In 1565 the Inquisition was introduced to the Indian Viceroyalty and an inquisitorial court was opened in Goa. Active persecution against Jews, secret Jews, Hindus and New Christians began. Garcia himself died in 1568, apparently without having suffered seriously from this persecution, but his sister Catarina was arrested as a Jew in the same year and was burned at the stake for Judaism in Goa in October 25, 1569. Garcia himself was posthumously convicted of Judaism. His remains were exhumed and burned along with an effigy in an auto da fé on December 4, 1580. They were among 342 New Christians accused of crypto-Judaism of whom 68 were executed between 1561 and 1623. His books were most likely burnt as well, possibly a reason why no copy of his book exists in Goa.〔Carvalho (1934):pp. 72-84; Révah, 1960.〕 The fate of his daughters is not known. During his lifetime, Orta had been protected from the Goa Inquisition by his friend and patron, Martim Afonso de Sousa, Governor-General of Portuguese India from 1542 to 1545. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Garcia de Orta」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|