Isaac de Pinto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Isaac de Pinto (1717 - August 14, 1787 in the Hague) was a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin.

Pinto was a man of broad learning, but did not begin to write until nearly fifty, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762 he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year appeared his Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques. The author sent a manuscript copy of this work to Voltaire, who thanked him. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire.

In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit appeared in Amsterdam in 1771, and was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English and German. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. Pinto's works were published in French (Amsterdam, 1777) and also in German (Leipzig, 1777).

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

• Didot, Nouvelle Biographie Générale, p. 282;
• Barbier, Dictionnaire des Anonymes;
• Dictionnaire d'Economie Politicale, ii.;
• Quérard, La France Littéraire, in Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, 1787, No. 273.