The third man. Juan Baptista Pinero and the origins of the Spinozian rupture

The Third Man. Juan Baptista Pinero and the Origins of the Spinozistic Rupture.- In the middle of the 17th century, the young Spinoza and the physician Juan de Prado met in the Sephardic community of Amsterdam. Israel S. Revah considered the encounter as the initial spark for a rupture. According to the French scholar, the New Christian Prado decisively influenced the future Dutch philosopher and provoked his shift to heterodoxy. Furthermore, Revah in Iberian Crypto-Judaism saw the origins of the Spinozistic rupture, the more as he discovered that there was a third man involved in the matter. This Juan Pinero, who also had a Jewish background, according to a testimony of the time on his part pushed Juan de Prado to heterodoxy. Only recent research allows the partial reconstruction of his extraordinary life, that reflects the intellectual crisis of certain academic circles in 17th-century Spain.