Garcia de Orta

On the 12^th March 1534, Garcia de Orta left Lisbon for India, taking with him his brief experience as a lecturer in Natural Philosophy at the University of Lisbon, a medical education at the universities of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares as well as some years of medical practice in Portugal. At the time of Orta’s departure, Portugal had seen the growth of its empire in the East. His departure also occurred shortly after the establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal in 1531, an event that would prove fateful for for Orta due to his Jewish ancestry.

It was in Goa, the capital of the Portuguese empire of the East, that Orta developed most of his activities, establishing a successful medical and commercial practice in materia medica and precious stones. He also acted as the physician of governors and viceroys and, for some time, as Chief Physician of the Military Hospital of Goa. Orta’s lifelong project to accumulate knowledge on Eastern materia medica later materialized in his pioneering book, the Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India, or the Colloquies on the simples and drugs of India, published in 1563, primarily a medical and botanical book. But while publication of the Colloquies can be seen as the high point in Orta’s life, it also marks a downward personal trajectory for him marked by poor health and monetary difficulties. He died in 1568, and  year after his death, his family was persecuted severely and his sister Catarina, who by now was also living in Goa, was condemned and burned alive on charges of Judaism. Under torture, members of Orta’s family admitted that he had been a crypto Jew which led to his posthumous auto de fé in 1580. As a result, the remains of Orta’s body were exhumed and publicly burned.

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