Vives was born in Valencia to a family which had converted from Judaism to Christianity. As a child, he saw his father, grandmother and great-grandfather, as well as members of their wider family, executed as Judaizers at the behest of the Spanish Inquisition; his mother, born 1473, was acquitted but died of the plague in 1508, when he was 15 years old, shortly thereafter, he left Spain never to return. After damnation, the corpse of his mother, Blanquina, was unearthed and burned, 31 Jan 1530.