(Silva, Antonio da). Entremez intitulado: O Grande Governador da Ilha dos Lagartos [Untitled comedy: Grand Governor of the Isle of Alligators]

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Francisco Borges de Sousa

Lisbon

1774

First condensed version. Portuguese

Unknown to Kayserling

RARE 18th CENTURY PLAY BY THE MARTYRED BRAZILIAN-JEWISH PLAYWRIGHT, ANTONIO DA SILVA. This seems to be an unrecorded, early edition of an “entremés,” a short comical play in the Portuguese language, centered on Sancho Panza. This work is really extracted from larger comical play Vida do Grande D. Quixote de la Mancha e do gordo Sancho Pança (1737) by the great Brazilian/Portuguese playwright of Jewish descent, António José da Silva “O Judeu.” Ironically, this work, Da Silva’s most celebrated one, was staged at the Carnival of the very same year the author was arrested (1737), two years later to be burnt at the stake by the Portuguese Inquisition. The fact that the Entremez was published anonymously was most probably intended to mislead the Portuguese Inquisition