Abraham Usque
Abraham Usque · Printing Pioneers
Printer of the Ferrara Bible (1553), the first complete Spanish translation of the Hebrew Bible
Lisbonne, Portugal (date inconnue)
Lisbonne, Ferrare
Abraham Usque is recognized among Jewish contributors to Printing Pioneers — Printer of the Ferrara Bible (1553), the first complete Spanish translation of the Hebrew Bible
Origins and early life
Abraham Usque was born in Lisbon under the Christian name Duarte Pinhel, a converso — a Jew forcibly converted — in the Portugal of the Inquisition.
Work and career
Around 1543, as the Holy Office tightened its grip, he fled to Ferrara in Italy, whose dukes sheltered Portuguese refugees, and there he returned openly to Judaism and took back a Jewish name. In Ferrara he became a printer, and in 1553 he brought out, with the converso partner Yom-Tob Athias, the work that carries his name through history: the Ferrara Bible, the first complete translation of the Hebrew Bible into Spanish — printed in one press run with two dedications, one to Duke Ercole II for Christian readers, the other to Doña Gracia Nasi, the great patroness of the Sephardi diaspora, for Jewish ones.
His press also printed prayer books for the exiles and the Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel of Samuel Usque — a near kinsman, though not his brother, as the reference works are careful to note. His activity is documented until about 1557; the Bible he printed nourished Spanish-speaking Jewry for centuries.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrara_Bible
This page is published in seven languages from an English source. The translations are reviewed, but a mistake can still slip through. If you spot one on this profile — a wrong word, a lost date, a sentence that says something the English does not — please tell us.
Printer of the Ferrara Bible (1553), the first complete Spanish translation of the Hebrew Bible
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrara_Bible
