Miguel de Barrios

Miguel Barrios (Hebrew: Daniel ha-Levi‎‎; c. 1625 – February 1701) was a Spanish poet and historian from a converso family. He was born in Montilla, Spain and died in Amsterdam. Miguel was the son of a converso, Simon de Barrios—who also called himself Jacob Levi Caniso—and Sarah Valle. His grandfather was Abraham Levi Caniso. To escape the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition, Simon fled to Portugal, and remained for a time at Marialva, and also in the vicinity of Villa-Flor. Not feeling safe in Portugal, he went to Algeria.

Miguel went to Italy and dwelt for a time at Nice, France, where his paternal aunt was married to the otherwise unknown Abraham de Torres. He then stayed for a longer time at Livorno, where another sister of his father, wife of Isaac Cohen de Sosa, prevailed upon him to declare himself publicly a Jew. Soon after this he married Deborah Vaez, a relative of his brother-in-law, Eliahu Vaez, from Algeria, and afterward determined to leave Europe. On 20 July 1660, he with 152 coreligionists and fellow-sufferers set sail for the West Indies. Soon after his arrival at Tobago his young wife died, and he returned to Europe. He went to Brussels and there entered the military service of Spain.

De Barrios, who in the course of his long life had to undergo a hard struggle against fate, spent his happiest years in Brussels, where he came much in contact with Spanish and Portuguese knights, and where he was soon advanced to the rank of captain. Here he wrote his best poetical work—his "Flor de Apolo" (see below)—his dramas, and "Coro de las Musas," in which he sang the praises of the reigning princes of Europe and of the then most flourishing cities, Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, London, Rome, Amsterdam, and others. Here also he planned his greatest poetical work, which was to deal with the Pentateuch, and which was to be divided into twelve parts, each part to be dedicated to a European ruler. He intended to call it the "Imperio de Dios" or "Harmonia del Mundo." Several potentates had already sent the poet their likenesses, their genealogies, and their coats of arms, and had promised the means for the production of the work, when the board of wardens ("ma'amad") and the rabbis of the Amsterdam community refused to give the necessary "approbation" for the publication of the work, through which, they held, the law of God might be profaned.

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