Amatus Lusitanus, one
of whose important discoveries is said to have brought him close up to
that of the circulation of the blood. Before the banishment of Jews from
Spain took effect, Antonio di Moro, a Jewish peddler of Cordova,
flourished as the last of Spanish troubadours, and Rodrigo da Cota, a
neo-Christian of Seville, as the first of Spanish dramatists, the
supposed author of _Celestina_, one of the most celebrated of old
Spanish dramatic compositions.

The proscribed, in the guise of Marranos, and under the hospitable
shelter of their new homes, could not be banished from literary Spain,
even in its newest departures. Indeed, for a long time Spanish and
Italian literatures were brought into contact with each other only
through the instrumentality of Jews. Not quite half a century after the
expulsion of Jews from Portugal and their settlement in Italy, a Jew,
Solomon Usque, made a Spanish translation of Petrarch (1567), dedicated
to Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma, and wrote Italian odes, dedicated
to Cardinal Borromeo.

At the zenith of the Renaissance, Jews won renown as Italian poets, and
did valiant work as translators from Latin into Hebrew and Italian. In
the later days of the movement, in the Reformation period, illustrious
Christian scholars studied Hebrew under Jewish tutorship, and gave it a
place on the curriculum of the universities. Luther himself submitted to
rabbinical guidance in his biblical studies.

In great numbers the Spanish exiles turned to Turkey, where numerous new
communities rapidly arose. There, too, in Constantinople and elsewhere,
Jews, like Elias Mizrachi and Elias Kapsali, were the first to pursue
scientific research.

We have now reached the days of deepest misery for Judaism. Yet, in the
face of unrelenting oppression, Jews win places of esteem as diplomats,
custodians and advocates of important interests at royal courts. From
the earliest period of their history, Jews manifested special talent for
the arts of diplomacy. In the Arabic-Spanish period they exercised great
political influence upon Mohammedan caliphs. The Fatimide and Omayyad
dynasties employed Jewish representatives and ministers, Samuel ibn
Nagdela, for instance, being grand vizir of the caliph of Granada.
Christian sovereigns also valued their services: as is well known,
Charlemagne sent a Jewish ambassador to Haroun al Rashid; Pope
Alexander III. appointed Yechiel ben Abraham as minister of finance; and
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