Joseph Nasi

Joseph Nasi (1524 – 1579), known in Portuguese as João Miques, was a Portuguese Sephardi diplomat and administrator, member of the House of Mendes and House of Benveniste, nephew of Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, and an influential figure in the Ottoman Empire during the rules of both Sultan Suleiman I and his son Selim II.

A court Jew, he was appointed lord of Tiberias, with the expressed aim of resettling Jews in Palestine (then Ottoman Syria) and encouraging industry there; the attempt failed, and, later, he was appointed Duke of Naxos. Nasi also supported a war with the Republic of Venice, at the end of which Venice lost the island of Cyprus to the Ottomans. After the death of Selim, he lost influence in the Ottoman Court, but was allowed to keep his titles and pension for the remainder of his life.

Etymology Also known as João Miques/Micas and Dom João Migas Mendes in a Portuguese variant, Giuseppe Nasi in Italian, and Yasef Nassi in Ottoman Turkish.

Biography Joseph Nasi was born in Portugal as a marrano (practicing Judaism in secret), a son of the doctor Agostinho Micas (d. 1525), a well-known physician and professor at the University of Lisbon. A friend of Maximilian, nephew of the Habsburg king Charles I of Spain. He escaped to Portugal after Charles decided to confiscate the Mendes fortune, he was himself considered a suitable choice for hospodar of either Moldavia or Wallachia in 1571, but Selim II rejected the proposal. It is believed that he intended parts of Cyprus to be a Jewish colony and encouraged the Ottoman annexation of Cyprus in the war to that end; he was granted a coat of arms by Selim that indicated he would be given viceregal rank in that colony. Nasi's relative Abraham Benveniste (Abraham Bene, Righetto Marrano) was arrested in 1570, on charges of having set fire to the Venetian Arsenal on Nasi's instigation.

Maintaining contacts with William the Silent, Nasi encouraged the Netherlands to revolt against Spain, a major adversary of the Ottoman Empire (the rebellion was ultimately carried out by the Union of Utrecht, as the start of the Eighty Years' War). He was the first person in modernity to attempt to settle Jews in the cities of what was then Ottoman Palestine by practical means, as opposed to waiting for the Messiah.