Don Moses Curiel (1620–1697), in Dutch Mozes Curiël, alias Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, was a

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Jewish nobleman, diplomat, and wealthy merchant, who traded in diamonds, sugar and tobacco. Curiel was born in Florence; he was the eldest son of Jacob Curiel, alias Duarte Nunes da Costa. In 1627 the family moved to Hamburg. He was sent to be educated at Protestant

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

Heidelberg, Germany Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. In 1642 he moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and served as Agent to the Portuguese Crown from 1645 until his death. In 1654 he lived on

Sint Antoniesbreestraat The Sint Antoniesbreestraat ("St. Anthony's Broad Street") is a street in the centre of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The street runs south from Nieuwmarkt square to the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates, where it continues as the Jodenbreestraat. ...

and married Rabecka Abbas. During his time in Amsterdam he generously patronised Hebrew scholarship. He was a major contributor to the Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam, built in 1675. From around 1687 he lived along the Nieuwe Herengracht where he had bought two plots in the year before. He was a close friend of William of Orange and housed him in Amsterdam on more than one occasion. The Curiel family is widely believed to have been 'one of the richest and most important families in the Sephardic Diaspora in northwest Europe.' In 1984, the historian

Jonathan Israel Jonathan Irvine Israel (born 22 January 1946) is a British historian specialising in Dutch history, the Age of Enlightenment, Spinoza's Philosophy and European Jews. Israel was appointed as Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historic ...

wrote a book charting Moses Curiel's life, ''An Amsterdam Jewish Merchant of the Golden Age: Jeronimo Nunes Da Costa (1620-1697), Agent of Portugal in the Dutch Republic''.

References

Heidelberg University alumni Dutch nobility 17th-century Portuguese nobility Portuguese diplomats Dutch merchants Dutch Sephardi Jews Curiel family 1620 births 1697 deaths {{Europe-diplomat-stub