COMPOSED BY A MARANO POET FOR HIS JEWISH BENEFACTOR. 4to. [20.8 x 14.5 cm]. (8), 328 pp, including engr. title-page. Bound in contemporary gilt-ruled calf with gilt florets on spine. Bookplate of Francisco de Saldanha da Gama Ferrão on pastedown. Binding rather worn but holding firmly; blank gutter of A1 strengthened with old paper; otherwise a very good copy in its original binding. Sole edition of this extravagant production by the Marano poet Manuel de Leon (ca. 1650-1715), intended to curry favor with the ruling Catholic elite in the Low Countries. The work was commissioned by Leons fellow Jew, the remarkable Moses Curiel (1620-1697), alias Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, a Sephardic diamond merchant who enjoyed close relations with the Portuguese court and acted as Agent of Dom Pedro II in the Netherlands (cf Jonathan Israels 1984 biography of Curiel, An Amsterdam Jewish Merchant of the Golden Age). Israel (Conflicts of Empires: Spain, the Low Countries and the Struggle for World Supremacy, 1585-1713, p. 194) also mentions the present work in the context of Curiels lavish presents to the Portuguese king and queen again, an effort to maintain his prestigious court position. In his preface here, Manoel Leon praises his patron for his loyalty to the Portuguese crown. Across 93 verses, Leon celebrates the nuptials of Pedro II and Maria Sofia Isabel in 1687, including approximately 120 pages describing bull-fights and approximately 40 pages describing fireworks. "In some cases, the works patronized by the Dutch Sephardi élite, though written by Sephardi authors, were essentially intended to boost their standing in the non-Jewish Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. This was the case, for example, with Manoel de Leons Triumpho Lusitano (1688) " (Rapoport-Albert (ed.), Jewish History, p. 276). We can surmise that Leons talents went unappreciated, because his second published work printed just three years later was a eulogy of the Protestant (!) William of Orange, suggesting that he had since joined the sizeable exodus of Jews from Spain and Portugal to the religiously-tolerant Netherlands in the late 17th century. Leon died in Amsterdam sometime after 1712. OCLC shows US copies at Yeshiva University, the Getty, U Penn, Jewish Theological Seminary, Harvard, Hebrew Union, and the Newberry. * Cf Maggs Bros, Judaica & Hebraica #149 (£4 4s in 1926!); and Kayserling, Sephardim: Romanische Poesien der Juden in Spanien, pp. 315-316.
