This is my current project. Writing the biography of Jacob de Castro Sarmento (1690-1762). The life of Jacob (born Henrique) de Castro Sarmento (1690-1762) is both fascinating and enigmatic. A Portuguese converso (cristão-novo), he saw the nets of the Inquisition tighten around his close family when he was still a teenager. Even so, he managed to complete his medical course at the University of Coimbra and only left the country when he was an adult and these same nets were about to catch him. His entire subsequent career was marked by this departure in 1721 for London, where he lived the remaining four decades of his life. In England he changed his first name to a Jewish name and integrated – not always with enthusiasm or complete success – into the Sephardic community in London. He came marveled at the initial phase of the British Enlightenment, namely Newtonian thought, iatromechanicism and experimental philosophy, and sought – with appreciable success – to integrate himself into the great republic of letters. However, he always remained, in thought and action, close to his home country.
