Spanish, Portuguese, and Neo-Latin Poetry Written and/or Published by Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Nineteenth-Century Sephardim from Hamburg and Frankfurt (2)

^ K. Brown herein wishes to express his sincere appreciation to the following individuals and institutions for helping to promote the present study: the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (New York City), for providing him a three-month «Travel/Research Grant» to Wolfenbiittel, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, for fall 1998; Dr. Michael Studemund-Halévy, personal friend and Hamburg savant, who unselfishly provided him the seven lapidary inscriptions, much-needed bibliography, constant encouragement, and the fruits of his own scholarly research on the Hamburg-based Sephardim; Dr. Jill Bepler, Vice-Director, and Christian Hogrefe, Chief Librarian, The Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbiittel), whose heightened sense of professionalism made his sojourn at the research library enormously worthwhile. The authors acknowledge herein permission from the Herzog August Bibliothek directors to reproduce rare texts from their collection in this study; and K. Brown thanks Susan Rosenstein and Dr. John O'Neil, the Hispanic Society of America, for providing him ready access to scores of rare printed books in the HSA collection during his visit to the institution in May 1999. Information concerning these texts is included with the express permission of The Trustees of the Society. 2 The first appeared in Sefarad 59 (1999) pp. 3-42. The following is a list of errata and additions to Part One. (Pp. 3-4) Population figures are inaccurate; STUDEMUND-HALÉVY 1999a:2, provides more precise statistics: «Sefardische Juden in Hamburg und Altona»: 1600,150; 1640, 600; 1652, 1.250; 1700, 450; 1800, 375; 1900, 275; 1933, 250; 1938,85. (P. 4) Mosé Abudiente was born ca. 1610. (P. 4) Sefarad Vol 60, Fasc. 2 (2000)

6 For Abraham Zacuto, see LEMOS 1909. 7 For Rodrigo de Castro, who died on 15 Shevat 5387 (20 Jan. 1627), see STUDEMUND-HALÉVY 1994:52 (nos. 797-805), and, especially, SCHLEINER 1994, and FRIEDENWALD 1944and 1946 The present anthology significantly broadens the registers of poetry contained in Part One, in which circumstantial verse, sporadically written for poetic contests in Spanish or Portuguese in commemoration of inquisitorial martyrs, is the norm, not the exception.What characterizes the present new corpus poetaram are intricate, sometimes pedantic, neo-classical, Neo-Latin distiches explicating Platonic or Neo-Platonic philosophy -for instance, Jacob Rosales' «Exponam dubium» (poem 29) and his Epos Noetikon (poem 32)-, examples of Baroque metametrics (poem 31, a goblet and, possibly, 46a, a funereal urn), and copious references to pagan mythology and classical literature.All evidence a strict adherence to classical conventions and their metrics.As well, there are simple, Portuguese-language funerary dirges penned by a local Hamburg scribe or poet for hire and sculpted with great care into tombstones that have withered the storms of centuries.Herein also is facile, «neo»-gothic courtly love poetry included in a bi-lingual Portuguese-German dictionary prepared for purposes of international commerce and wrought on the influence of a stray couplet.In our anthology, Minerva and Adonay, Clio and Moses, an Iberian scholastic university education and formative yeshivah studies, European mercantilism, learning languages for fun and profit voices from the tomb, and unrequited love combine to provide a fascinating window to the literary creativity of the seventeenth-, eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Hamburg Sephardim.The novelty of Part Two is not only quantitative -that is, expanding the corpus poetarum from twenty-eight to forty-five works-, thematic and stylistic, but also chronological, for it extends the creative muse beyond 1785 {terminus ad quem established in Part One) to the third decade of the nineteenth century.
In addition to Spanish, Portuguese, and Neo-Latin (and the temporarily excluded, but not forgotten, Hebrew verse; a subject for future analysis), Classical Greek finds its way into Jacob Rosales' elegaics.This Portuguese-Jewish scientist, philosopher and poet -an authentic humanist-recalls the intellectual/linguistic ambiance of the Iberian university (Cfr.Pérez Ibáñez 1997:21, sect.II, on «Humanismo Médico») as he employs Ovid's Elegiac couplet and Horace's Sapphic Strophe in his Odes in a deft attempt to ponder the mysteries of humankind: he combines verses from the Song of Songs, refers insistently to Judaic oral law and the rite of circumcision, explores the importance of death and good deeds, and adds the practical need to improve a mother's chances for survival in childbirth.But even in his scientific disquisitions, Galen's medicine is subservient to the God of the Hebrews.In the Carmen Intellectuale, for instance, Adonay is 'Rector of the heavens' (32.1.9:«Ex rectore poli producta scientia»).Jewish orthodoxy prevails.The colloquial Zacuto's Latin is purely utilitarian and less-than-elegant as he lashes out at detractors.
The sociological bits of personal information these poems and the appended texts provide tell a compelling story of the Hamburg-based physical-science-minded Sephardim: Rosales (Appendix 1 Is.7-8) came (or fled) to German-speaking lands in search of 'more [religious qua intellectual] freedom'.In the letter from Zacuto to Rodrigo de Castro (Appendix 2 Is.13-14), the author cites a rabbinical source -Rabbi Moses in his aphorisms-to support an argument ascertaining the superior physician from the mediocre one.We read of mutual friendships between Sephardim and Protestant men of science and government, of admiration by Sephardim of the ruling Protestant powers that be: Beverovicius (Zacutus Historiarum: Liber Quintus 1639 fol.5r), Ullefeld (Appendix 4), Joannes Antonides Van der Linden (Zacutus Historiarum: Liber Septimus 1641 fol.25), Jonstonus (Zacutus Historiarum: Liber Ultimus [= 11] 1642 fol.7), and the Herzog August Junior i^.Medicine, science and poetry mix -a phenomenon which would much later characterize Iberian culture in the figures of Pío Baroja, Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Pedro Lain Entralgo, though not an uncommon occurrence in the renaissance: Galileo is an apt example 11.
Noteworthy are the seven funerary inscriptions in verse -called in German Begrabnisgedichte-eulogizing five deceased women medicine are lifeless, languid and inert, as well as befuddled.Medicine is accorded no importance: it is downtrodden.You have given medicine new life, which previously had been so indignantly prostrate in the dust.You have envigorated your students toward study and have delighted and excited them by your extremely erudite written works.I thank you profoundly for the wisdom in your books.Hear my admiration for you, such that I consider myself uncultured when I compare myself to your erudition: it is bewildering to me, [so much so that] I can now safely say that I know something.Many times Godspeed, Zacuto!You are so intellectually sharp: I obstinately beseech you that you visit your Jonstonus with a letter within nine days.From the glorious city of Frankfurt.7 August 1641').
^0 and two men, with Portuguese the language of linguistic choice (see Faust and Studemund-Halévy 1996, 1997aand 1997b).Brief as they may be, these verses allow us specific biographical insights into the Sephardic Community and the marital life of its women (nos.[39][40][41][44][45].The inscription to Miriam Coronel's remains consecrates the ground as «O poço de Miriam», a romantic gathering place for family and friends to venerate her spirit; Angela Miriam Abendana Mendes provided alms to orphans and widows, probably by generously supporting a beneficent society, similar if not identical to Amsterdam's O Dotar ^^.Married 42 years, she served her husband faithfully.Rahel Rodrigues Mendes succumbed at too early an age as did Rahel Hana Abudiente, who represented one of the more influential Sephardic families in Hamburg.Perhaps they were victims of the bubonic plague, which was devasting Europe during the times of the Thirty Years War.Though most likely the commissioned works of for-profit commercial versifiers (the earliest of whom had a penchant for culteranista word choice), we can still glean from these funerary pieces distant feminine voices recalling from the tomb salient events of these forgotten women's lives: they tell a constant tale of virtue and self sacrifice, filtered as it were by masculine voices (Brown 1999a).Nothing comparable emerges from the tombstone inscriptions of the two deceased men: Eliau Semuel Israel Baruch (42) and Jacob Álvares de Vargas (43).
Those who question the bookprinting of Sephardic-authored titles in Frankfurt am Main do so without providing or substantiating the burden of proof to the contrary.Den Boer's strong argument concerning falsification of frontispieces for seventeenth-century Sephardic-authored texts printed in Amsterdam though bearing Antwerp place of publication (for said reason, aimed at breaking the commercial book embargo against anything having to do with the heterodox Dutch Netherlands, and, consequently, destined to a wider Spanish, that is Catholic, reading public and export market) does not appear to hold the same sway for Frankfurt-based imprints (Boer 1992:51-55, especially 52;1989).
Despite Vincenz Fettmilch's horrorific 1614 pogrom which decimated much of the Ashkenazi ghetto ^^ normality quickly resumed, the culprits were hanged, and the German-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish population was immediately conceded greater protection (EJ 7:84-86).That says nothing for a small population of Sephardim in the city's environs, a group allied to the Ashkenazi minority in religious beliefs alone, though remote from them in their Iberian upbringing and ethnic background.
The authors of this study see a recognizable pattern emerging from the quantifiable titles authored by both Sephardim and their converso half-brethren on their way to reconversion: Frankfurt was, as it still is, the European printing centre and book distribution fair/market par excellence, where one could have any book in any one of several European major languages translated and printed for a highly attractive, competitive price.Frankfurt may also have been a stopping-off place for soon-to-be-reconverted marranos en route to cities of safer haven: Hamburg, Amsterdam, Leghorn, and Venice.
It is no wonder that many genuinely Sephardic-authored books bear the explicate Sumptibus Auctoris ('[PubHcation] Paid for by the author') or nothing at all concerning the typesetter and printer on their frontispieces.Our contention is that authors such as Menasseh ben Israel and David Abenatar Melo had their works printed in Frankfurt because it was the most economical means of production.Other Sephardim obviously came to Frankfurt, manuscript in hand and cash in pocket, only to then return to Amsterdam and Hamburg with boxes of their newly-printed books to sell among their coreUgionaries back home.It must have been smart business.The greatest printing enterprise in Frankfurt's environs were the Wechsel-Aubri editorial houses, ever active in protecting continental intellectualism, high creativity, and rehgious heterodoxy (Evans 1975:38, 43-45, 48).As we shall see below, the Wechsel-Aubri presses were responsible for numerous publications of books dealing with the Iberian Peninsula: be it in creative literature, history (secular, military and ecclesiastical), the physical sciences, medicine, and geographical exploration.They were also actively engaged in divulging the Greco-Roman classics by rendering them to high German.Neither were Frankfurt-am-Main presses strangers to Old Testament-inspired works and editions, many requiring Hebrew typeface (Zafren 1997:231-271, andWirth 1996 nos. 2-3).
When the Amsterdam Sephard Joseph de Cáceres wrote the preface to his Los siete días de la semana (Amsterdam 5372 = 1616), he was explaining a truism likely applicable also to the rival printing emporium in Frankfurt: «Considere el lector que estamos fuera de España y que los impresores están muy remotos en la impresión castellana, y que yo también soy nobicio en semejantes cosas».The frontispiece for David Abenatar Melo's Spanish translation of the Book of Psalms (Frankfurt 1626), 'printed at the author's personal expense', registers at least thirty major and minor errors in standard typography, orthography, and syntax with respect to the Spanish language ^' ^, an indication that whoever assumed responsibility for the typesetting and subsequent printing was marginally familiar with Spanish and unable to completely correct authorial errors.
The counter argument also fails to acknowledge the following documented facts.
1) In 1641, the Frankfurt-am-Main university professor of medicine, Johannus Jonstonus, penned many words of praise in honor of his Spanish-Jewish homologue Abraham Zacuto (see above).
2) Fuks and Fuks-Mansfeld (1987 no. 611), relate the editorial history of a treatise on the metrical construction of the Psalms with Hebrew text by Marcus Meirboom (Amsterdam 1698): ^"^ Examples are: CL. instead of CL, In instead of En, Espannola, uarias, conpuestos, Dauid, ABenatar melo, uerdadera, Tracduccion, ferraresqua, aleguorias The publisher and bookseller Hendrik Wetstein (1649-1726) carne as a young man from Switzerland to Amsterdam and married in 1678.He learned his trade from Daniel Elsevier and started his business in 1676.He had bookshops in Amsterdam and Frankfurt on the Main and was one of the most important booksellers and publishers of Amsterdam.He had no printinghouse of his own and had his publications printed by others.Though the place of printing appears on the titlepage, Steinschneider doubts of this is really an Amsterdam edition and we agree with him.Steinschneider gives no further reasons for his doubt, but it is a remarkable fact that the quires are marked with German gothic characters in this edition which is most unusual in Amsterdam Hebrew printing, as normally the quires are marked with Hebrew numerals.The German lettering of the quires could be an indication of a German place of printing.
3) The same bibliographers (1984:33) write of Johannes Le Maire (1603-1657): Maire was one of the most important printers of his day.He also traded in books, his own as well as those of other printers, and had a permanent bookshop in Frankfurt, where he could stock his books after the annual bookfair.The many books he printed are of excellent quality and this also applies to his few Hebrew books.He does not mention in any of his Hebrew books the names of compositors or other assistants.

They add the following footnote:
The existence of the shop of Maire in Frankfurt came to light after the death of Maire's son Dirck, who was printer and bookseller in The Hague.To repay the substantial loan which Maire had given to his son, Dirck's widow rendered him all the books which were in a room of the Frankfurt shop.See E. F. Kossman, Boekhandel te s-Gravenhage tot het eind van de 18e eeuw, The Hague, 1937, 250.
Frankfurt am Main obviously competed on a vigorous commercial level with Amsterdam when it came to book printing in any one of the major European languages, and it was not unrare to find the same select bookdealers in both Protestant publishing capitals.For Sephardim from Amsterdam or Hamburg to have their works printed in Frankfurt would not have been an oddity; to the contrary, it would have been rather a commonplace.