El Macabeo, Poema Heroico. ["The Maccabee": Heroic Poem in octavos or eight-line stanzas]

SILVEIRA, MIGUEL DE

Egidio Longo

Naples

1638

FIRST EDITION. Spanish. Allegorical engraved title. Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author by Nic. Perrey (Rubens 2254). Sumptuous engraved plates relating to Maccabean history prior to each of the 20 sections of the book

Kayserling, p. 103; Palau 313850

Miguel de Silveyra was born in Beira, studied philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine and mathematics in Coimbra and Salamanca. Silveyra, a relative of the great classical scholar Thomas de Pinedo, was Royal mathematician and later Royal physician to the House of Castile. However in 1634, he was denounced to the Inquisition and subsequently fled Madrid for Naples. Aged sixty, he published El Macabeo, upon which he labored for twenty-two years. The twenty books of this epic poem relate the events of Judah Maccabee up to the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. Although to modern taste a bit bombastic, El Macabeo enjoyed wide popularity for centuries, going through several editions and translation into Italian. Silveyra died in Naples in 1638. See EJ, Vol. XIV, cols.1546-47