Shevet Yehudah (The Staff of Judah)

Solomon Ibn Verga

ca. 1520

The slaughter that occurred there, in Lisbon:

I was out of the city, and when I returned after several days they told me that the two [events, namely, the massacre within Lisbon and in the surrounding countryside] are not to be compared, the only common factor being that it was evil and bitter in the extreme. And that which an old man related to me…

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Creator Bio

Solomon Ibn Verga

1460–1554

Born in Castile, Solomon Ibn Verga was a historiographer. With the 1492 Edict of Expulsion from Spain, Ibn Verga fled to Lisbon; in 1497, he was forcibly baptized. In 1506, Ibn Verga escaped to Rome, where he wrote Shevet Yehudah (The Staff of Judah), a series of chapters describing events in the history of the Jews, mainly persecutions. Solomon’s son Joseph Ibn Verga edited, completed, and published the manuscript in 1554.

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