Diego Pereira d'Aguilar
Diego Pereira d'Aguilar · Economics & Business
Marrano financier of Maria Theresa, baron of the Empire, who paid for Schönbrunn and protected Vienna's Sephardim
1699, Portugal (ou Espagne selon une source) — 10 août 1759, Londres, Royaume-Uni
Lisbonne, Londres, Vienne
Diego Pereira d'Aguilar is recognized among Jewish contributors to Economics & Business — Marrano financier of Maria Theresa, baron of the Empire, who paid for Schönbrunn and protected Vienna's Sephardim
Origins and early life
Diego Pereira d'Aguilar was born in 1699 — in Portugal by most sources, in Spain by one — into a family of conversos, 'a Marrano financier' in the words of the Encyclopaedia Judaica: descendants of forcibly converted Jews who kept their faith in secret under the Inquisition.
Work and career
This fiche states the divergence over his birthplace as the sources do. He left Iberia for London, where he could live openly as a Jew, and from there went in 1722 to Vienna, where he built one of the great fortunes of the Habsburg capital: farmer of the Austrian tobacco monopoly, whose revenues he multiplied, he was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire and became the favored banker of the Empress Maria Theresa, advancing her three hundred thousand florins for the rebuilding of the palace of Schönbrunn.
He used his standing for his people, as head and protector of the small Sephardi 'Turkish' community of Vienna, for which he obtained rights of residence and a synagogue, and he is said to have intervened to prevent the expulsion of the Jews of Moravia.
Later years
In 1749 he left Vienna suddenly — tradition holds that Spain had demanded his extradition to the Inquisition — and returned to London, where he died on 10 August 1759, a Jew of the Bevis Marks congregation.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/aguilar-diego-d
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Marrano financier of Maria Theresa, baron of the Empire, who paid for Schönbrunn and protected Vienna's Sephardim
Source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/aguilar-diego-d
