Dictionary of Maritime Terms
David Franco Mendes
ca. 1780

Creator Bio
David Franco Mendes
David Franco Mendes was a Dutch-Portuguese businessman born into a prominent Sephardic family of Amsterdam. A prolific writer, he had a gift for languages, of which he knew seven, and wrote his poetry in Hebrew. His best-known literary work is the drama Gemul Atalyah, influenced partly by Jean Racine’s play Athalie. Franco Mendes was also a highly regarded Judaic scholar. In the latter part of his life, a crisis in the Dutch economy ruined his business, obliging him from 1778 on to earn his living by copying manuscripts.
Related Guide
Scholarship and Science, 1750–1880
The scholarly and scientific ethos permeated Jewish intellectual life in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and resulted in contributions obscure and renowned. The foundations of the astonishing breakthroughs of Jews in the sciences in the twentieth century were laid in this period.
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