Abstract
Gedalya (1526-1587), considerado por muchos estudiosos como un autor simplistamente ecléctico que seleccionaba un material muy común de crónicas ya conocidas, no era un simple copista, sino que, como se ve especialmente en los ejemplos tomados de la parte de su trabajo sobre la persecución los judíos de la Península Ibérica, Gedalya intenta complementar y enriquecer los meros hechos con nueva información basada en fuentes adicionales judías y no judías. La finalidad de Gedalya era proporcionar información partiendo de su comprensión de las situaciones y de su observación personal. Estos aspectos son determinantes del lugar que se le asigna en la historiografía judía del siglo XVI.
Highlights
Two of its outstanding members were the ex-converso Samuel Usque, the well-known historian mentioned earlier, and his brother Abraham Usque, who founded a press in Ferrara in order to publish Jewish literary material for the Portuguese ex-conversos ^. Both families played a prominent role in helping conversos return to Judaism. It seems that Gedalya cannot be viewed as he was by many scholars, merely as a simplistic eclectic
As we saw, especially in the examples cited from the part of his work concerning the persecution of Iberian Jews, Gedalya attempted to supplement and enrich the bare facts with new information as well as to shed new light based on additional Jewish and non-Jewish sources
Gedalya's aim was to provide information based upon his understanding of the situation and upon personal observation
Summary
The closing period of the Middle Ages, from the Spanish Expulsion until the late sixteenth century, saw the appearance of Jewish historiographical compositions of varied length and quality. The majority were written by Iberian exiles or their descendants Noteworthy works in this genre include: i>t7ni> lùv (Book of Genealogy), written by the well-known Spanish astronomer Abraham Zacuto ^; nbipn 1ÙV (Book of Tradition) written by Abraham ben Solomon of Torrutiel ^; ntin> uiw (The Scepter of Judah), written by Solomon Ibn Verga ^; Consolaçam as Tribulaçoens de Israel (Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel), written by the ex-converso Samuel Usque ^; n>inn ^KDIOIN n>ii TIDIÍÍ '>'Dbtb o>D>n >nii (History of the Kings of France and Turkey), written by Joseph ha-Kohen of Genoa ^; and vbipn nbwbvy (Chain of Tradition), written by Gedalya Ibn Yahya, the subject of the present paper. This article is based on a lecture I presented in a conference: «1492 - Expulsion des Juifs d'Espagne» (Université de Paris-Sorbonne [Paris IV], May 1992). It has been translated from the Hebrew by Mrs Dena Ordan.
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