Joseph Penso de la Vega

Joseph Penso de la Vega was a Marrano writer and merchant. Joseph was born and has lived most of his life in Amsterdam. His family was originally from Spain, but his father Isaac Penso Felix had been imprisoned by the Inquisition, and once freed he and his family fled to Antwerp and then to Amsterdam. Joseph’s father was also a successful merchant and charitable man who has distributed 80,000 guldens as tithes from his profits.

Joseph was a member of several literary academies and produced many and varied works. Some of his work include a Hebrew drama, “Asirei ha-Tikvah” (Amsterdam, 1673), Spanish books “Triunfos del Aguila” (1683), “Retrato de la Prudencia”(1690), “Discursos academicos, morales, retoricos y sagrados” (1685), and “Rumbos Peligrosos” (1684) all published in Amsterdam.

He also wrote “Confusion de Confusiones” (1688), the first book to treat the workings of the stock exchange. The book is written in the form of four dialogues between a “fastidious philosopher,” a “prudent merchant,” and an “erudite stockholder”. The book explains what stocks are, how they are bought and sold, the use of options, speculative maneuvers, and so on, and describes the operations of the Dutch trading companies. It also describes, somewhat ironically, the bourse, Amsterdam’s coffee houses, and the life of stock traders.