Joseph ha-Kohen
Encyclopedia
Joseph ben Joshua ben Meïr ha-Kohen (also Joseph HaKohen, Joseph Hakohen or Joseph Hacohen) (December 20, 1496, Avignon
, France - 1575 or shortly thereafter, Genoa
, Italy) was a historian and physician of the sixteenth century.
. When the Jews were expelled from Spain the family settled at Avignon. At the age of five Joseph left Avignon with his father and went to Genoa
, where they remained until 1516. Driven from that city, they went to Novi
, but returned to Genoa in 1538, where Joseph practiced medicine for twelve years. On June 3, 1550, he and all his coreligionists were driven from Genoa as a consequence of the rivalry of the non-Jewish physicians. Joseph then settled at Voltaggio
, at the request of the citizens of that small town, practicing there until 1567. When the Jews were driven out of the territory of Genoa, he went to Costeletto (Montferrat
), where he was very well received. In 1571 he was again established at Genoa, where he died a few years later.
Joseph ha-Kohen had three sons (Joshua, Isaac, Judah) and two daughters. As for his brother Todros, he has tentatively been identified by Robert Bonfil with Ludovico Carretto, who is known to have converted from Judaism. Joseph ha-Kohen was highly regarded as a historian and physician. One of his chief concerns was also the release of the many Jewish captives taken by the vessels of the Italian republics and by the Corsairs; as in 1532, when Andrea Doria
captured many Jews on taking Coron
, Patras
, and Zante; in 1535, when the emperor Charles V
took Tunis
; in 1542, when the galleys of Cegala Visconti had imprisoned a number of Jews.
and Christianity
, the protagonist for Islam being the mighty Turkish empire
, and for Christianity, France. With these two great groups he connects European history, beginning with the downfall of the Roman empire
. In this he also includes narratives of persecutions of Jews during the first and second crusades, copied from eye-witness reports available to him in manuscript. The work was printed in 1554 at Venice but later put on index (Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin). It was reprinted in Amsterdam in 1733. Parts were translated into German and French; the entire work was issued in English, but badly translated, by Bialloblotzky. He continued, however, the work on it, as is evident from autographs preserved in British Library.
He undoubtedly tried to be a careful historian. He gathered his facts from all possible sources, made notes, kept registers, and conducted a wide correspondence. He added continually to the first redaction of his works, carefully dating each one. Of his second chronicle Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears) he thus made at least four updated editions. Yet his style is monotonous, although he tries to write in a biblical style. Having lived in Italy from his childhood and become acquainted with persons prominent politically, he is a valuable source for the history of his time; concerning many events, he had examined witnesses. He also mentions a number of important facts ignored by other historians. He is less accurate in the treatment of ancient history, for which he often was obliged to consult untrustworthy sources.
's Consolaçam as Tribulaçoens de Ysrael (1557), the chronicle of Abraham ibn Daud
as well as other material that had reached him, calling it Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears)). Its set purpose in the introduction to the book was to serve as reading on the fast of 9 Av. There he dwells upon the sorrows and sufferings the Jews endured in various countries in the course of centuries. The book, which is a martyrology from beginning to end, closes with the 24th of Tammuz, 5335 AM (1575 CE). The tenor of the book makes it an out-spoken representative of "the lachrymose conception of Jewish history" (Salo Baron).
Joseph ha-Kohen finished the first version of this work in 1558, at Voltaggio
. Another version was finished in 1563, a third version ca 1565, and the fourth and final version in 1575. It circulated in Italy in manuscript and was edited for the first time by Samuel David Luzzatto
and published in 1852 by Max Letteris
. In 1858 M. Wiener published a German translation. A modern text-critical edition, edited by Karin Almbladh, appeared in 1981.
Joseph ha-Kohen wrote also a Hebrew version, with the title Meqitz Nirdamim, of Meïr Alguadez's Spanish medical work giving prescriptions for the healing of various diseases; to these prescriptions he added some of his own.
(whom, however, he confounds with Amerigo Vespucci
); the work is very meager in its information. After writing it he became acquainted with Francisco López de Gómara
's Historia General de las Indias and Joan Boemus's Omnium Gentium Mores Leges et Ritus. From these, in 1557, he compiled his Matztib Gebulot 'Ammim (Who Setteth the Boundaries of Nations), a history of the conquest of Mexico, to which he added a full account of the discoveries of Columbus. This work was published in 2002 by Moshe Lazar.
A small work of a different kind was his Peles ha-Shemot, written in 1561, containing an alphabetical list of Hebrew
nouns, with scripture illustrations of their occurrence given for the purpose of fixing their gender — a matter in which (as he says) "many writers in Hebrew erred." He also compiled, in 1567, a book of polite formulas to be used in addressing letters, and a large number of verses, which are found, written in his own hand, at the end of his works. A large number of letters, evidently meant to serve as models, are found in the MSS. Rabbinowicz, No. 129 (now in Budapest and edited by Abraham David in 1985). Two-thirds of these are by Joseph ha-Kohen; they give a good insight into his private life.
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, France - 1575 or shortly thereafter, Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, Italy) was a historian and physician of the sixteenth century.
Life
Joseph's family originally lived at CuencaCuenca, Spain
-History:When the Iberian peninsula was part of the Roman Empire there were several important settlements in the province, such as Segóbriga, Ercávica and Gran Valeria...
. When the Jews were expelled from Spain the family settled at Avignon. At the age of five Joseph left Avignon with his father and went to Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, where they remained until 1516. Driven from that city, they went to Novi
Novi Ligure
Novi Ligure is a town and comune north of Genoa, in the Piedmont region of the province of Alessandria of northwest Italy.The town produces food, iron, steel, and textiles. It is an important junction for both road and railroad....
, but returned to Genoa in 1538, where Joseph practiced medicine for twelve years. On June 3, 1550, he and all his coreligionists were driven from Genoa as a consequence of the rivalry of the non-Jewish physicians. Joseph then settled at Voltaggio
Voltaggio
Voltaggio is a comune in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 100 km southeast of Turin and about 40 km southeast of Alessandria....
, at the request of the citizens of that small town, practicing there until 1567. When the Jews were driven out of the territory of Genoa, he went to Costeletto (Montferrat
Montferrat
Montferrat is part of the region of Piedmont in Northern Italy. It comprises roughly the modern provinces of Alessandria and Asti. Montferrat is one of the most important wine districts of Italy...
), where he was very well received. In 1571 he was again established at Genoa, where he died a few years later.
Joseph ha-Kohen had three sons (Joshua, Isaac, Judah) and two daughters. As for his brother Todros, he has tentatively been identified by Robert Bonfil with Ludovico Carretto, who is known to have converted from Judaism. Joseph ha-Kohen was highly regarded as a historian and physician. One of his chief concerns was also the release of the many Jewish captives taken by the vessels of the Italian republics and by the Corsairs; as in 1532, when Andrea Doria
Andrea Doria
Andrea Doria was an Italian condottiere and admiral from Genoa.-Early life:Doria was born at Oneglia from the ancient Genoese family, the Doria di Oneglia branch of the old Doria, de Oria or de Auria family. His parents were related: Ceva Doria, co-lord of Oneglia, and Caracosa Doria, of the...
captured many Jews on taking Coron
Coron
Coron can refer to the following things:* Coron, Palawan, a municipality in Palawan in the Philippines* Coron Island, under the jurisdiction of the municipality, Philippines* Coron, Maine-et-Loire, a commune in the Maine-et-Loire département in France...
, Patras
Patras
Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...
, and Zante; in 1535, when the emperor Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
took Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
; in 1542, when the galleys of Cegala Visconti had imprisoned a number of Jews.
Historical works
In Hebrew literature Joseph ha-Kohen achieved prominence by two historical works. His major work, Dibre ha-Yamim le-Malke Zarfat we-'Otoman (Chronicles of the Kings of France and Turkey), is in the nature of a history of the world, in the form of annals, in which he represents the sequence of events as a conflict between Asia and Europe, between IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, the protagonist for Islam being the mighty Turkish empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, and for Christianity, France. With these two great groups he connects European history, beginning with the downfall of the Roman empire
Decline of the Roman Empire
The decline of the Roman Empire refers to the gradual societal collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Many theories of causality prevail, but most concern the disintegration of political, economic, military, and other social institutions, in tandem with foreign invasions and usurpers from within the...
. In this he also includes narratives of persecutions of Jews during the first and second crusades, copied from eye-witness reports available to him in manuscript. The work was printed in 1554 at Venice but later put on index (Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin). It was reprinted in Amsterdam in 1733. Parts were translated into German and French; the entire work was issued in English, but badly translated, by Bialloblotzky. He continued, however, the work on it, as is evident from autographs preserved in British Library.
He undoubtedly tried to be a careful historian. He gathered his facts from all possible sources, made notes, kept registers, and conducted a wide correspondence. He added continually to the first redaction of his works, carefully dating each one. Of his second chronicle Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears) he thus made at least four updated editions. Yet his style is monotonous, although he tries to write in a biblical style. Having lived in Italy from his childhood and become acquainted with persons prominent politically, he is a valuable source for the history of his time; concerning many events, he had examined witnesses. He also mentions a number of important facts ignored by other historians. He is less accurate in the treatment of ancient history, for which he often was obliged to consult untrustworthy sources.
The Jewish Annals
His second chronicle is an extract from his world chronicle of items concerning persecutions of the Jews. To this he added material from Samuel UsqueSamuel Usque
Samuel Usque was a Portuguese marrano Jewish author who settled in Ferrara.His major work is the Consolação ás Tribulações de Israel , Ferrara, 1553...
's Consolaçam as Tribulaçoens de Ysrael (1557), the chronicle of Abraham ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian, and philosopher; born at Toledo, Spain about 1110; died, according to common report, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His mother belonged to a family famed for its learning...
as well as other material that had reached him, calling it Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears)). Its set purpose in the introduction to the book was to serve as reading on the fast of 9 Av. There he dwells upon the sorrows and sufferings the Jews endured in various countries in the course of centuries. The book, which is a martyrology from beginning to end, closes with the 24th of Tammuz, 5335 AM (1575 CE). The tenor of the book makes it an out-spoken representative of "the lachrymose conception of Jewish history" (Salo Baron).
Joseph ha-Kohen finished the first version of this work in 1558, at Voltaggio
Voltaggio
Voltaggio is a comune in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 100 km southeast of Turin and about 40 km southeast of Alessandria....
. Another version was finished in 1563, a third version ca 1565, and the fourth and final version in 1575. It circulated in Italy in manuscript and was edited for the first time by Samuel David Luzzatto
Samuel David Luzzatto
Samuel David Luzzatto was an Italian Jewish scholar, poet, and a member of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. He is also known by his Hebrew acronym, Shadal ....
and published in 1852 by Max Letteris
Max Letteris
Max Letteris was an Austrian Jewish scholar and the foremost poet of the Galician Haskala.-Life:...
. In 1858 M. Wiener published a German translation. A modern text-critical edition, edited by Karin Almbladh, appeared in 1981.
Joseph ha-Kohen wrote also a Hebrew version, with the title Meqitz Nirdamim, of Meïr Alguadez's Spanish medical work giving prescriptions for the healing of various diseases; to these prescriptions he added some of his own.
Other works
Less known is his work upon the New World. In his world-chronicle there is a reference to ColumbusChristopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
(whom, however, he confounds with Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. The Americas are generally believed to have derived their name from the feminized Latin version of his first name.-Expeditions:...
); the work is very meager in its information. After writing it he became acquainted with Francisco López de Gómara
Francisco López de Gómara
Francisco López de Gómara was a Spanish historian who worked in Seville, particularly noted for his works in which he described the early 16th century expedition undertaken by Hernán Cortés in the Spanish conquest of the New World...
's Historia General de las Indias and Joan Boemus's Omnium Gentium Mores Leges et Ritus. From these, in 1557, he compiled his Matztib Gebulot 'Ammim (Who Setteth the Boundaries of Nations), a history of the conquest of Mexico, to which he added a full account of the discoveries of Columbus. This work was published in 2002 by Moshe Lazar.
A small work of a different kind was his Peles ha-Shemot, written in 1561, containing an alphabetical list of Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
nouns, with scripture illustrations of their occurrence given for the purpose of fixing their gender — a matter in which (as he says) "many writers in Hebrew erred." He also compiled, in 1567, a book of polite formulas to be used in addressing letters, and a large number of verses, which are found, written in his own hand, at the end of his works. A large number of letters, evidently meant to serve as models, are found in the MSS. Rabbinowicz, No. 129 (now in Budapest and edited by Abraham David in 1985). Two-thirds of these are by Joseph ha-Kohen; they give a good insight into his private life.