Historia Judaica [Latin translation of Solomon ibn Verga’s historiography, “Shevet Yehudah”]

GENTIUS, GEORGIUS

Petrus Niellius

Amsterdam

1651

FIRST LATIN EDITION. Latin interspersed with Hebrew

Freimann, p. 220

Christian Hebraist George Gentze (1618-1687), a pupil of Menasseh ben Israel, was entrusted with the task of completing the translation of ibn Verga's history Shevet Yehudah that Menasseh himself had begun. Besides enjoying the confidence of the great Dutch rabbi, Gentius was also held in high esteem by R. Isaac Aboab and Moses Aguilar. See Aaron L. Katchen, Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis (1984), pp. 247-268 The Shevet Yehudah is a chronicle of Jewish persecution from the destruction of the Second Temple until the Author’s own day, “(it is) one of the outstanding achievements of the Hebrew literature of the Renaissance.” (EJ, Vol. VIII col.1204)