The greatest of these historians was Joseph ben Joshua Cohen (born at Avignon, 1496, died 1575). His ancestors had come from Spain at the great expulsion, his father Joshua emigrating to Avignon, and thence moving to Novi, in Genoese territory. For a while he lived in Genoa, and was expelled thence. Joseph Cohen had studied medicine, devoting himself both to the theory and the practice. He appears to have been family physician to the doge, Andrea Doria. His heart beat warmly for his Jewish brethren, and he was zealous in his endeavors to lighten their unhappy lot. He once exerted himself to obtain the release of a father and son, cast into prison by the heartless Giannettino Doria, nephew and presumptive heir to the doge. But he succeeded in delivering only the father, the son did not escape till the stormy night of Fiesco's conspiracy. At the last expulsion from Genoa (1550), the inhabitants of the little town of Voltaggio begged him to settle amongst them as a physician, and he lived there for eighteen years. But history attracted him more than the practice of medicine, and he began to search for chronicles in order to write a sort of universal history in the form of annals. He began with the period of the decline of the Roman empire and the formation of the modern states, and represented the course of the world's history as a struggle between Asia and Europe, between the Crescent and the Cross; the former represented by the then powerful dominion of Turkey; the latter, by France, which had set up Charlemagne, the first emperor of a Christian realm. He connected the whole of European history with these two groups of nations. He included all the events and wars of Christendom, and of the Mahometan countries in "The Annals of the Kings of France and of the House of Othman," the title of his historical work. In the history of his own times, which he either witnessed himself, or obtained from the experience of contemporaries, he is an impartial narrator, and, therefore, his work is a trustworthy source of information. The Hebrew historical style, borrowed from the best books of the Bible, renders his account most forcible. The Biblical language and dramatic style give a charm to the work, and raise it above the level of a dry chronicle.
Joseph Cohen introduced the history of the various persecutions of the Jews at the different periods when they occurred. His chief aim was to point out the justice of God in the course of history, showing how violence and cunning met with their desert, and were cast down from the height attained. He sympathized with the sorrows which he described; therefore, he often wrote with intense bitterness.
Very different is another historical work of the same period, upon which three generations, father, son, and grandson, were employed. Judah Ibn-Verga, Kabbalist and astronomer, a member of the distinguished Ibn-Verga family, related to the Abrabanels, had noted down in a book some of the persecutions which Jews had undergone in different countries and at various times. Solomon Ibn-Verga, who had witnessed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal, and who for a time had pretended to be a Christian, and then emigrated to Turkey as a Marrano, added several narratives to his father's notes. He understood the Latin language, and so borrowed and added fresh material from various Latin documents. His son, Joseph Ibn-Verga, who belonged to the college of rabbis at Adrianople, completed the work by adding some of the events of his own times and the age immediately preceding, and then published the whole under the title of "Judah's Rod of Correction" (Shebet Jehuda). Joseph Ibn-Verga was also learned in Latin, and incorporated many narratives from Latin documents. This martyrology of the Ibn-Vergas, then, is not a unit, but a medley without plan or order, destitute even of chronological sequence. Imaginary conversations between Jews and Spanish or Portuguese kings are given as having actually taken place. But the Hebrew style is brilliant and graceful, without possessing biblical coloring like that of the historical works of Elias Kapsali and Joseph Cohen. Ibn-Verga sought (towards the end of the first part) to show the reason why the Jewish race, above all the Spanish Jews, were visited with so many intolerable trials, and found it in the preference once shown for the Jewish nation: "Whom God loves most He chasteneth most." But the chief sources of persecution were to be found in the division between Jews and Christians in the matter of food and drink, in the revenge taken by Christians for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in the offenses of Spanish Jews against Christian women, in the envy of their riches, and in the false oaths of which they were guilty. Ibn-Verga did not conceal the faults of his race; perhaps he exaggerated them. Joseph Ibn-Verga added a heartfelt prayer about the numerous sufferings which Israel had undergone, and was still enduring, the last causing the first to be forgotten. All the nations of the world were united in hatred to this race; all creatures in heaven and on earth allied in enmity against it; before a Jewish child began to prattle it was pursued by hatred and scorn. "We are despised like the lowest worms; may God soon fulfill His promises to His people."
The most original of the three historians, as well as of the three Usques, probably belonging to the same family, was Samuel, who had no doubt fled from the fire of the Inquisition in Portugal. He settled with his relations in Ferrara. Like Solomon Usque, known under his Spanish name of Duarte Gomez, he was a poet, but his muse did not occupy herself with foreign material, with imitations and adaptations, but created something original and peculiar. The brilliant and tragical history of the Israelite people had great attraction for him; it did not exist merely as a lifeless mass of learning in his memory, but lived in his heart as a fresh bubbling spring from which he drew comfort and inspiration. Biblical history with its heroes, kings, and men of God, the history subsequent to the Captivity, with its alternations of splendid victory and unhappy overthrow, the history since the destruction of the Jewish rule by the Romans, all the events and changes of these three periods were present to Samuel Usque's mind. The material gathered from many sources he transformed by the breath of poetry into a long, most touching lament and consolation in the Portuguese language, not in verse, but in elevated prose, more charming than a poetic garb. It is a conversation of three shepherds, Icabo, Numeo, and Zicareo, the first of whom laments with bitter tears the tragical fate of Israel since its appearance on the scene of history; the other two pour the balm of comfort into the broken heart of the unhappy shepherd, and show him that these sufferings are the necessary steps to the attainment of a glorious goal. Samuel Usque named this historical dialogue, "Consolation for the Sorrows of Israel." By his vivid picture of the Jewish past, he intended to give to the Portuguese fugitives in Ferrara and elsewhere, who had again attached themselves to Judaism, comfort in their great sorrow and suffering, and lead them to look forward to a happy future.
He represented the Israelite nation now as a mourning widow, wringing her hands in lamentation, and weeping day and night over the sufferings of her sons during thousands of years; now as a prophetess inspired by God, clothed in a radiant robe, whose eye pierces the darkness, and sees a glorious future, and whose lips utter wisdom, and pour balm on burning wounds. Though he was not a regular historian, yet no one has represented the principal features of Jewish history from the earliest times down to his own with so much light and life as Samuel Usque.
The external form of this historico-poetical dialogue is as follows: the shepherd, Icabo (or Jacob, the representative of the Jewish nation), laments in a lonely spot the misery of his flock, dispersed throughout all parts of the world, humiliated, and torn in pieces. "To what quarter of the globe shall I turn and find healing for my wounds, oblivion of my sorrows, and comfort in this grievous, heavy torment? The whole earth is full of my misery and my distress. I am like a poor, heavy-laden pilgrim in the midst of all the riches and delight of favored Asia. Amid the wealth of the gold of sun-burnt Africa, I am an unhappy, starving, fainting exile. And Europe, Europe! my hell upon earth! what shall I say of thee, thou who hast adorned thy greatest triumphs with the limbs of my flock? How can I praise thee, Italy, thou blasphemous and warlike land! Thou who hast fed upon the flesh of my lambs like a ravenous lion! Ye accursed pastures of France, which did furnish poisoned grass for my flocks to feed on! Thou proud, rough mountain-land of Germany, which hast taken my young, and dashed them in pieces from the tops of thy wild Alps! And you sweet, fresh streams of England, from you my flocks have drunk only bitter, brackish waters! Hypocritical, cruel, bloodthirsty Spain, in you voracious and ravening wolves have devoured, and still devour, my fleecy flocks!" The two shepherds, Numeo and Zicareo, attracted by the heartrending lamentations of Icabo, induce him by much persuasion to tell them his sorrow, and thus obtain relief for his burdened heart. But not without a struggle does he bring himself to do this. He then describes to his two friends the former splendor of his flock, and thus brings before their eyes the prosperous days of Israel. Then he passes to the trials which God's flock has had to endure. Icabo is at length induced by gentle persuasion to relate the history of his unhappy race in detail, first its adverse fortunes, and its exile during the existence of the first Temple; then, in a second dialogue, the bitterness endured, and the exile till the second destruction of the Temple by the Romans; and in a third dialogue, the sufferings of his people during the long exile; the first forced baptism which Sisebut, king of the Visigoths, imposed upon the Jews of Spain; the expulsion of the Jews from England and France, Spain and Portugal; the horrors of the Inquisition, which Usque had himself beheld; and lastly, the desecration of a synagogue at Pesaro (1552). In this manner does Icabo (or Samuel Usque) go through the long range of Jewish history. He concludes this summary of sorrows thus:
"Scarcely hadst thou ceased to drink of the poisoned cup of the Babylonians, which had well-nigh proved fatal to thee, O Israel, when thou wast revived to endure the torments inflicted by the Romans; and when this double misfortune, which so cruelly tore thee in pieces, was at an end, thou wert indeed still living, but fast bound to suffering and misery, tortured by fresh pangs. It is the fate of all created beings to experience change; only not thine, for thy unhappy lot is not changed, and has no ending."
The friends offer comfort and consolation to Icabo. They say:
"Sorrows, be they never so great and intense, have an object. They have been partly incurred by a sinful life and by backsliding from God and are intended to serve for the correction and purification of Israel. It is also a blessing that thy people is scattered abroad among all the nations of earth, that the wicked may not succeed in utterly destroying them. When the Spaniards drove thee out, and burnt thy people, God ordained that thou shouldst find a country ready to receive thee, where thou couldst dwell in freedom, namely, Italy."
The enemies who treated Israel so unmercifully were said to have received their punishment. The poet said of the Spaniards that Italy had become their grave; of France, that Spain had been its rod of correction; of Germany, that the Turks were its executioners, who made of it a wall against which to direct their cannon; and of England, that wild and savage Scotland was a perpetual thorn in its side. One great comfort was that all these sufferings, sorrows, and trials which came upon the Jewish race were literally announced and precisely foretold by the prophets. They had only served to elevate Israel, and as the prophecies of evil were verified, so they might trust that the prophecies of good would not remain unfulfilled.