The Warburg family is a prominent German and American banking family of German Jewish and originally Venetian Jewish descent, noted for their varied accomplishments in biochemistry, botany, political activism, economics, investment banking, law, physics, classical music, art history, pharmacology, physiology, finance, private equity and philanthropy.They are thought to have originated as the Venetian Jewish del Banco family, Anselmo and Abraham Ha Levi Kahana de Palenzuela from Spain, one of the wealthiest Sephardic Venetian families in the early 16th century. Following restrictions imposed on banking and the Jewish community, they moved to Bologna, and thence to Warburg, in Germany, in the 16th century, after which they later took their name. The first known ancestor was Simon von Kassel.The family later established itself in Altona, near Hamburg in the 17th century, after the Thirty Years' War, and it was in Hamburg that M. M. Warburg & Co. was established in 1798, among the oldest still existing investment banks in the world. Other banks created by members of the family include: M.M.Warburg & Co., Warburg Pincus, S. G. Warburg & Co. (becoming UBS Warburg).