Multilingual Exemplar Leaf

Iehudah Machabeu

1655

Decorative page of birds, flowers, and rectangular sections of different scripts.

This sheet by the calligrapher and scribe Iehudah Machabeu presents samples of different “lettering,” including Hebrew (at the top), Arabic, Greek, Castilian, English, French, Italian, and Latin. It was produced in La Rochelle, France.

Credits

Collection Ets Haim - Livraria Montezinos, Amsterdam, EH Pl A 20. Photo by Ardon Bar-Hama.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

Iehudah Machabeu

16th Century

Iehudah Machabeu was the pen name of Louis Nunes Dovale, a scribe and member of the Spanish and Portuguese community in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. Between 1646 and 1654 he lived in Brazil. He was known as an outstanding calligrapher, adept at many different kinds of scripts, which he offered as choices for his clients. During the Eighty Years’ War, he forged Spanish documents for Dutch merchants who wanted to flout the Spanish embargo.

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