Flor de Apolo [“Flower of Apollo”: collected poetry].

BARRIOS, MIGUEL (DANIEL LEVI) DE.

Geronymo & Juan Bautista Verdussen

Antwerp

1674

First Edition, with title-page of second edition (“Las Poesias Famosas.”) Sumptuous engravings by Peter Clouwet.

Miguel de Barrios (1635-1701) was born in Montilla, Spain to Marrano parents. In 1659 he emigrated to Italy, where he publicly embraced Judaism in Livorno (then a safe haven for Spanish Marranos) and assumed the Jewish name “Daniel Levi de Barrios.” After a brief stint in Tobago in the West Indies, de Barrios returned to Europe in 1662 and entered military service, becoming a captain in the Spanish cavalry. After retiring from the military in 1674, he relocated to Amsterdam where he became a leading literary figure and founding member of Amsterdam’s literary salons: The Academia de los Sitibundos and the Academia de los Floridos. During the eruption of Messianic fervor surrounding the person of Shabthai Tzvi, de Barrios was a fervent believer. Kayserling considered Flor de Apolo, Barrios’s earliest published collection of poems, to be his finest. See M. Kayserling, Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica, pp. 16-17; see also T. Oelma, Marrano Poets of the Seventeenth Century (1982) pp. 219-91. (Coincidentally the National Library of Spain’s copy of this work is also incomplete - as the present copy - lacking pp. 105-106).