Garcia de Orta: Encyclopedia II - Garcia de Orta - His Life

Garcia de Orta - His Life

He was born in Castelo de Vide in 1501, the son of Fernando (Isaac) da Orta, a merchant, and Leonor Gomes. He died in 1568 (presumed dates). His parents were Spanish marranos (Jewish converts or crypto-Jews) 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.

He studied Medicine, Art and Natural philosophy at the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Salamanca in Spain. He returned to Portugal in 1523 after graduating and practiced Medicine first in his hometown, then in Lisbon. There, he befriended the great mathematician Pedro Nunes. As a well known clinician, he ascended to the position of Royal Physician to the King of Portugal, John II of Portugal. He was appointed Chair of Natural philosophy at the University of Coimbra in 1530.

However fearing that the Portuguese Inquisition was moving against him, against which even the King was often impotent, he departed to India in 1534 as Chief Physician aboard the armada of the Viceroy Martim Afonso de Sousa.

In India, he first worked in the capital Goa as Chief Physician. There, he befriended the Poet Luís Vaz de Camões, who would become Portugal's national poet. Soon aftwards, thanks to his service to the Vice-Roy, he was granted the Foro or Lordship of the island and town of Mumbai (Bombay), then a part of Portuguese India. There, he established himself in his estate where he built his botanical garden, library and museum. He acquired wealth as a merchant of rare medicines and herbs.

He married a rich old-christian (that is an aristocrat without Jewish ascendacy) woman, Brianda de Solis, in 1543 but the marriage soon failed.

In 1565, the Inquisition was introduced to the Indian Vice-Kingdom and a Tribunal was opened in Goa. Active persecution against Jews, crypto-jews and new christians began. Orta's sister Catarina was condemned of Judaism and burned at the stake in an Auto de fe in Goa in 1568 or 1569.

Orta died in 1568 in Goa of natural causes. In 1580, post-mortem, he was judged and condemned for "the crime of Judaism", and his bones were exumed from Goa's Cathedral and burned in the practice of posthumous execution. His books were also censured and burnt.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "His Life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki