The Woman Who Defied Kings

the long version

"One wintry day early in 1535, merchant banker Francisco Mendes lay dying in his whitewashed, tile-roofed home near the royal palace in Lisbon. It was a pivotal moment for his elegant wife Beatrice, later known as Dona Gracia Nasi. The death of Francisco, one of Europe's wealthiest spice traders, offered Dona Gracia, still in her twenties, an unsettling mix of promise and peril.". "So begins the remarkable rise to power of one of the greatest Jewish women of all time; an international woman banker who used her family's fortune and access to the royal courts of Europe to save thousands of her people from torture, ruin and death at the brutal hands of Inquisition officials."--BOOK JACKET.