Thursday, April 30, 2015

Z IS FOR ABRAHAM ZACUTO



     Abraham Zacuto was born c. 1452 and died sometime between 1510 and 1520, so it might be a bit of a stretch to call him a 16th-century personage, but I've gotten all the way up to Z in this Challenge, barely cheating along the way, so you're just going to have to cut me some slack with this.  Thank you.  He was a very interesting man, and well worth bending the rules for.  The story of his life reads like a well-plotted novel: every good turn of events is followed by a bad one, and vice versa.
     Zacuto was born in Salamanca, Spain, into a family of that city's Jewish nobility, and was given an outstanding religious and secular education.  As an adult he became a mathematician and astronomer, served as the rabbi of his community, and taught astronomy at several prestigious Spanish universities, becoming quite well-known in academic circles.  Unlike Copernicus, whom we discussed for the letter C, Zacuto apparently specialized in applied, rather than theoretical, astronomy.  From what little we know, it sounds like the first 40 years of his life were satisfying ones.  In 1478 he published, in Hebrew, a "Great Book" of 65 very detailed astronomical tables that corrected a navigational problem no one had been able to overcome before, and was thus of great practical use to seafarers.  The book, soon translated into Spanish and Latin versions, became a huge success, and no 16th-century European maritime explorers embarked without a copy of it. 


     Then all the Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in August 1492, beginning one day before Christopher Columbus embarked on his voyage to the New World with Zacuto's charts on board for guidance (a copy of the charts with Columbus's own handwritten notations is preserved in Seville).  Rather than undergo forced conversion (as some historians believe Columbus did, having possibly been born a Jew), Zacuto fled to Portugal, along with tens of thousands of other Jewish refugees.  His academic reputation had preceded him and allowed him to land on his feet.  He was soon appointed as the Royal Astronomer and Historian to Portugal's King John II. 
     For most Jewish immigrants to Portugal, their respite (bought from King John with cash) was only temporary; less than a year after granting them asylum, King John ordered that all remaining Jews in the country who refused forced conversions be enslaved.  Of course, exceptions were made for valuable citizens like Zacuto, who remained at court in Lisbon.  King John died in 1495 and was succeeded by Manuel I, who for a time maintained Zacuto in his royal position and consulted with him as to whether Vasco da Gama's proposed voyage to find a sea route to India would be feasible.  Zacuto supported the plan, and he personally trained da Gama and his crew before they departed on their voyage in 1496, bearing with them Zacuto's navigation charts as well as the new, more portable kind of astrolabe he had invented to be used at sea to determine latitude.
     But in 1497, bowing to political pressures (he wanted to marry the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, whose views on harboring Jews we all know), King Manuel ordered that the Jews in Portugal must either convert to Christianity or be deported without their children.  Zacuto and his son Samuel were among the few who managed to escape the country in safety. They fled first to Tunis, where in 1504 Zacuto wrote a history of the Jewish people from the time of the Creation to the year 1500, which was repeatedly reprinted for centuries afterward.  From Tunis, under the increasing threat of Spanish invasion, he moved on to elsewhere in the Middle East - possibly Turkey, possibly Damascus.  Exactly where he spent the rest of his life is unknown, but it is said that he was buried in Jerusalem. 
     The moon crater Zagut is named after Abraham Zacuto.

    In THE DISCOVERERS, Daniel Boorstin (my go-to awesome quotemeister) was writing about Jewish cartographers, but I think what he wrote was equally applicable to astronomers like Zacuto, who mapped the skies rather than the Earth: "It was no accident that Jews played a leading role in the liberation of Europeans from the slavery of Christian geography.  Driven from place to place, they helped make cartography, still the special preserve of princes and high bureaucrats, into an international science, offering facts equally valid in lands of all faiths.  Marginal both to Christians and to Muslims, the Jews became teachers and emissaries bringing Arab learning into the Christian world."

                                                      Vermeer: The Astronomer

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     And thus ends my 2015 A to Z Challenge.  It's been an incredible journey for me.  I've learned so much, I've made some new cyberfriends, and I feel like I've been part of something meaningful.  I'd like to thank the Academy - oops, wrong speech.  But I truly would like to thank every blogger who stopped by here during April, even if it was only once, regardless of whether they had time to leave a comment.  I started doing this Challenge last year thanks to Yvonne Ventresca, who told me about it.  And this year I had the extra satisfaction of being a Minion, which made me feel like I was doing a little bit to give back, even though I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to visit other blogs.  There was a comment left on my yesterday's post about how one person can change history, and indeed, that is true.  Well, one person, Arlee Bird, thought up this Challenge a few years ago, and look at the amazing thing he's wrought!  Bloggers from all around the world come together for one month to share a common goal.  The alphabet is, of course, secondary, but it does add a layer of structure and an added element of challenge.  Well done, all of us!  And that includes everyone who successfully finished as well as everyone who tried but didn't quite make it this time.  There's always next year!  I hope to see everyone back again in 2016!  And until then, here's an Irish blessing that may well date back before my beloved 16th century:

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back;
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
And, until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his[/her] hand.

    

20 comments:

  1. Yay for making it to the end of the challenge! I just wanted to take a moment to say a HUGE thank you for all your hard work as a minion this challenge. You were such a bug help and I appreciate every second of time you put in to making this challenge run so well. THANK YOU!

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  2. Lauren, it really was my pleasure. Maybe we can do this together again next year! I just hope I was actually a big help and not a bug help, because just reading that has started me itching. Congratulations on a great run!

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  3. LOL, Susan...your sense of humor is priceless and I'm sure Lauren did not mean to make you itch! I have said it before, but it bares or is it bears...not the naked one or the grizzly one, but the one that says 'it is worth repeating'...your research and presentation of your theme has been one of my favorite reads of this years challenge. With that said, please bare with me...same song different context...as I comment on Abraham Zacuto.

    Of course cutting you some slack is no problem. A. Zacuto was so worth the time to read and what an interesting life he led. I hope he did make it to Jerusalem. Now when you read my Letter Z...you will need to cut me some slack, too.
    Congratulations on making it to the Finish.  
    Sue at CollectInTexas Gal
    AtoZ 2015 Challenge
    Minion for AJ's wHooligans

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    1. Sue, you are the sweetest! Thank you for visiting and for saying such nice things about my theme. I loved yours too... such loving memories of a childhood from my own childhood era, but such different experiences than I had! I just signed up to follow your blog, so we WILL stay in touch! And congratulations to you too.

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  4. This was a fun theme, and amazing posts! I really enjoyed visiting, and I want to come back to read the ones I missed. It was nice cyber-meeting you! :) Let's keep in touch! :) And looking forward to your reflections on Monday!

    @TarkabarkaHolgy from
    Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
    MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

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    1. It's been great cyber-meeting you, and I definitely plan to keep in touch! So since this relationship is going to be more than a one-month stand, now I can ask you: what do I call you? Is it Csenge or something else?

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    1. OH YEAH WE DID! WE ARE SO AWESOME!! (you in particular)

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  6. I so enjoyed the several posts I read that I am going to come back in May and read several others, as time permits. You are a masterful researcher. Congrats on finishing the A to Z Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you SO much! I'm hardly a masterful researcher (I did most of it online and leaned heavily on Wikipedia), but I did put a lot of effort into something just as difficult as the research: figuring out what to put into each post and what to leave out. Thanks for thinking I did a good job of that. Congratulations to you too on finishing the Challenge! And thanks so much for your visits here.

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  7. How incredibly difficult it must have been for Zacuto and countless other Jews to face persecution wherever they turned. And for Zacuto to have held a protected position for so much of his life must have been a torture as much as it was a relief.

    Susan, I felt like doing cartwheels of glee when I came across your blog. The beautiful writing, the wit, the ability to encapsulate complicated and layered historical personages into these rich sketches--it's been an absolute delight. I'll be back in May to see what you're up to!

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    1. No, YOU are an absolute delight!! All those lovely things you said about my writing... May I use you as a reference for editors and agents? I'll be seeing you very soon again in the blogosphere, I hope!

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  8. it was a pleasant journey, i will make sure to read all your posts for i think missed some of them, and thanks for visiting my blog and leaving your comments. great.

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    1. And I've enjoyed your offbeat little stories, and I thank you for having found my blog so that I could then find yours! And thank you again for telling me about Habba Khatoon. I enjoyed reading about her.

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  9. I enjoyed your theme and posts, and will come back later to catch up on the ones I might have missed. And also your non A-Z future posts. Yess to the awesomeness of the challenge and its completion. Congrats!

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    1. Thank you, Nila. I greatly look forward to reading more of your poetry, NOT IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER! I love your idea of responding to poems that speak to you with related poems of your own.

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    2. Hi Susan, Please check this out and drop me a line when you have a moment to spare - nilabose306b(AT)gmail(DOT)com

      (It's not in any alpahabetical order, haha)

      Thanks so much.
      Nila.

      Love-lodestone

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  10. Congratulations on completing the A-Z challenge! It looks like you had a really interesting theme.

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    1. Thank you, Sherry! I can't tell from your blog whether or not you participated in the Challenge too, but if you did, congratulations back at you! And thank you very much for visiting!

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  11. Thanks for stopping by and saying hello. And Congrats! on finishing the A to Z journey. Hope to see you at next year's event!

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