Samuel Usque

Samuel Usque (* around 1500 in Lisbon , † after 1555 in Italy or Palestine, possibly in Safed ) was a Portuguese poet and historian. He is the author of the Consolação às tribulações de Israel .

Life

Consolacam as tribulacoens de Israel - Title page of the first edition from 1553

Little is known of the biography of Samuel Usque. Most of his life can be gleaned from his book Consolaçam as tribulaçoens de Israel (Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel).

Samuel Usque comes from a Jewish family from Spain ( Huesca ?) Who were expelled to Portugal in 1492 and forcibly baptized in 1497. At that time Usque was born in Lisbon. His Christian name is not recorded. As Marrane he was a witness of the mass baptism in Portugal in 1497 and the massacre of Lisbon in 1507. Usque spoke several languages ​​(in addition to his mother tongue Portuguese, he also understood Spanish, Italian, Latin and Hebrew) and had knowledge of biblical and post-biblical literature. He also knew the classical Greek authors. Although the possession of Hebrew books had been forbidden in Portugal since 1497, he acquired a great deal of knowledge in rabbinic literature and quoted from the Talmud , the Midrash and Maimonides .

Around 1530, when the introduction of the Inquisition in Portugal was becoming more and more foreseeable, Samuel Usque fled to Italy. The way led him over England, Flanders, and from there over the Alps to Milan. The first major stop in Italy was Naples , where he made friends with Samuel Abravanel and his wife Benvenida . His path led him on to Istanbul and Saloniki and finally to Safed in Palestine . On his return to Italy he moved to Ferrara via Bohemia around 1550 . Here he found a functioning Jewish-Portuguese community. He met two namesakes: the printer Abraham Usque and the poet Solomon Usque . It is not certain whether and how he was related to the two. Benvenida Abravanel and Gracia Nasi , who both worked as patrons and supported Usque in his work, also lived in Ferrara . Gracia Nasi he dedicated his work To the Consolation of Israel , which was printed in 1553 by Abraham Usque in Ferrara.

Little is known about the further life of Samuel Usque. Some sources suggest that he moved from Italy to Palestine again and died in Safed.

Consolação às Tribulações de Israel

In his main work Consolacam as tribulacoens de Israel , Samuel Usque describes the story of suffering of the Jewish people from antiquity to his time. Usque chose the form of pastoral dialogue that was widespread in the Renaissance.

The dialogue takes place between three allegorical shepherds. Ycobo (Jacob) is the representative of the Jewish people who tells the Jewish story in the first person . At his side are Numeo (Nahum), the comforter and Zicareo (Zacharias), the “reminder”.

The history of the Jewish people is presented chronologically in three dialogues (days). In the first day ( Diálogo pastoril ) the story of the biblical time up to the Babylonian captivity is developed. The second day ( Diálogo segundo ) deals with the time of the second temple up to its destruction. In the third day ( Diálogo terceiro ) 37 persecutions from the seventh century to 1533 are presented. Usque relied on Hebrew as well as Italian and Latin sources and also processed his own experiences.

The font was dedicated to Gracia Nasi; The actual addressees were the Marranos expelled from Portugal ( To the Lords of Exile from Portugal .)

The first edition, which appeared in Ferrara in 1553, was largely destroyed by the Inquisition shortly after its publication . The second edition (Amsterdam 1559) marks the beginning of Sephardic literature in the Netherlands.

With the Consolação , the consolation for the tribulations of the Jewish people , Samuel Usque is considered a classic of Portuguese literature and one of the first historiographers in Jewish history.

expenditure

• Consolacam as tribulacoens de Israel. Composto par Samuel Usque Ferrara 1553 (second edition Amsterdam 1559).
  • Consolação às tribulações de Israel . Reprint of the edition from 1533 with introductions by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and José de Pina Martins. 2 volumes. Lisbon 1989
  • Samuel Usque's Consolation for the tribulations of Israel . English translation by Martin A. Cohen. Philadelphia 1977.
  • A consolation for the tribulations of Israel, third dialogue . English (partial) translation by Gershon I. Gelbart. New York 1964.
  • Bay di ṭaykhn fun Porṭugal: Shemu'el Usḳi, zayn tḳufe un zayn "Ṭraysṭ tsu di Laydn fun Yisroel" . Yiddish translation by Eliyohu Lipiner. Buenos-Aires 1949.
  • Consolaçam ás tribulaçoens de Israel . Edited and commented on by Mendes dos Remedios. 3 volumes. Coimbra 1906-1908.

literature

• Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi: A Jewish Classic in the Portuguese Language . In: Samuel Usque, Consolação às Tribulações de Israel. Lisbon 1989
• Heinrich Graetz : History of the Jews from the oldest times to the present . Volume 9. Leipzig 1917. pp. 311-215, 543-544.
• Abraham A. Neuman: Samuel Usque: Marrano Historian of the Sixteenth Century . Philadelphia 1946.
• Cecil Roth : The Marrano Press at Ferrara, 1552-1555 . In: The Modern Language Review , 38/4, 1943, pp. 307-317.
• Martin A. Cohen:  Usque, Samuel. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 20, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865948-0 , pp. 433-434 (English).
• Gabriella Zavran: Gli ebrei, i marrani e la figura di Salomon Usque . Treviso 2004.

Web links

• Richard Gottheil , Meyer Kayserling :  Samuel Usque. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Consolaçao: Third Dialogue: Quando os fizeron cristãos por força .
2. ^ Cohen, 1977. Foreword, p. 12 f.
3. ^ Graetz: History of the Jews . Leipzig 1907, Volume 9, p. 543.
4. ↑ Consolaçao: Prologue: Aos Senhores do desterro de Portugal .