Some Information Concerning Yom Tob Atias (Jeronimo de Vargas)

Abstract

The team of Ferrara editors was headed by two former New Christians: an entrepreneur, a native of Spain, and a Latin scholar from Portugal who in the introductions to variant editions of their scriptural production alternately call themselves by their Christian names Jeronimo de Vargas and Duarte Pinel, and by their Jewish names Yom Tob Atias and Abraham Usque. This “editorial schizophrenia” is reflected in the Italian archives. Whereas the historian Renata Segre’s researches have documented that Duarte Pinel and Abraham Usque were one and the same person, she was unable to find archival proof uniting Jeronimo de Vargas and Yom Tob Atias. The researcher Aron Leoni came up with a Latin notarial deed in the Ferrara archives wherein “Joantu Athias” is called “ptrem ac legitimum administratorum Hieronimi Vargas” and also the latter’s “patre et legitimo administrator.” He supposed “ptrem” to be an abbreviation of “procuratorem” and “patre” to mean father. Thus he concluded that Yom Tob Atias was the father of Jeronimo de Vargas. Close examination of the document and comparison with two others which have recently come to light reveal, however, the incontrovertible identity of Yom Tob Atias and Jeronimo de Vargas. We are dealing with a typical case of ex-Marrano heteronomy: a former New Christian maintaining a separate onomastic Christian identity alongside his Jewish one.