ting, in 1523, a "History of
the Ottoman Empire," and Joseph Cohen, of Avignon, a "History of France
and Turkey," in 1554, in which he included an account of the rebellion
of Fiesco in Genoa, where the author was then residing.

The sixteenth century witnessed the production of several popular Jewish
histories. At that epoch the horizon of the world was extending under
new geographical and intellectual discoveries. Israel, on the other
hand, seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of despond.
Some of the men who had themselves been the victims of persecution saw
that the only hope lay in rousing the historical consciousness of their
brethren. History became the consolation of the exiles from Spain who
found themselves pent up within the walls of the Ghettos, which were
first built in the sixteenth century. Samuel Usque was a fugitive from
the Inquisition, and his dialogues, "Consolations for the Tribulations
of Israel" (written in Portuguese, in 1553), are a long drawn-out sigh
of pain passing into a sigh of relief. Usque opens with a passionate
idyl in which the history of Israel in the near past is told by the
shepherd Icabo. To him Numeo and Zicareo offer consolation, and they
pour balm into his wounded heart. The vividness of Usque's style, his
historical insight, his sturdy optimism, his poetical force in
interpreting suffering as the means of attaining the highest life in
God, raise his book above the other works of its class and age.

Usque's poem did not win the same popularity as two other elegiac
histories of the same period. These were the "Rod of Judah" (_Shebet
Jehudah_) and the "Valley of Tears" (_Emek ha-Bachah_). The former was
the work of three generations of the Ibn Verga family. Judah died before
the expulsion from Spain, but his son Solomon participated in the final
troubles of the Spanish Jews, and was even forced to join the ranks of
the Marranos. The grandson, Joseph Ibn Verga, became Rabbi in
Adrianople, and was cultured in classical as well as Jewish lore. Their
composite work, "The Rod of Judah," was completed in 1554. It is a
well-written but badly arranged martyrology, and over all its pages
might be inscribed the Talmudical motto, that God's chastisements of
Israel are chastisements of love. The other work referred to is Joseph
Cohen's "Valley of Tears," completed in 1575. The author was born in
Avignon in 1496, four years after his father had shared in the exile
from Spain.