Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 6.djvu/72

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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
42

Oomez Gompertz

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

42

left Madrid early in the seventeenth century and went to Bordeaux, whence his son Lewis removed to London and, later, to New York. His descend- ants have intermarried with most of the old-time American Jewish families. For the genealogical tree of the Gomez family see page 41. J. E. N. S.

GOMEZ, ANTONIO ENBiaiTEZ (called at the Spanish court Enrique Enriquez de Paz) :

Spanish poet ; born in Segovia toward the end of the sixteenth century ; died in 1663. He was a son of tlie Marano Diego Enriquez de Villanueva. Of excep- tional abilities, Antonio devoted himself to study while very young. At the age of twenty he entered upon a military career, in which he distinguished himself so greatly that he was soon advanced to the rank of captain, was decorated with the Order of St. Michael, and received the title of " Royal Counselor. " Later, however, he was suspected by the Inquisi- tion, and fled to France. For several years he re- mained in Bordeaux, Rouen, or Paris, and then settled in Amsterdam, where he openly professed Judaism. In April, 1660, he was publicly burned in effigy in Seville.

Gomez cultivated almost every branch of litera- ture. He distinguished himself as philosopher, poet, theologian, statistician, and author. In the pro- logue to his heroic poem, " El Samson Nazareno," he gives a list of )iis works which had appeared up to that time, as follows:

Academiaa Morales de las Musas. Bordeaux, 1643; Madrid, 1660 ; Barcelona, 1704.

La Culpa del Primer Peregrino. Rouen, 1644 ; Madrid, 1735.

La Poliilca Angelica, divided into Ave dialogues. Eouen, 1647.

Luis Dado de Dios & Luis y Ana, Samuel Dado de DIos d El- cana y Ana, dedicated to liOuis XIV. Paris, 1645.

El siglo Pitigorico y Vlda de D. Gregurio Guadatla. Rouen, 1647 ; 2a ed., 1682.

La Torre de Babilonia. Part i., a. 1649 ; Madrid, 1670 ; Am- sterdam, 1726.

El Samson Nazareno : Poema Heroico. Rouen, 1658.

Romance al Diviu Martyr Juda Creyente, Martirizado em Valladolid por la Inquisiclon, an account of the martyrdom of Juda Creyente or D. Lope de Vera y Alarcon, who was burned to death at Valladolid July 25, 1644. See Daniel Levi de Bar- rios, "Relacion de los Poetas," p. 57; Neubauer, "Oat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 2481, 5.

Gomez was also a prolific dramatist, as he himself has stated in the prologue to his " Samson Nazareno " ; up to the year 1643 he had written twenty-two dramas, some historical and some heroic. Many of them show a strong similarity to those of Calderon, who was twenty years his junior; indeed, his plays were often passed off as Calderon's productions.

Of his dramas there appeared; "A lo que Obliga el Honor," together with "Academias Morales," Bordeaux, 1642; Valladolid, n.d. ; Barcelona, 1704; "La Prudente Abigail," Bordeaux, 1643; Barcelona, 1704; Valencia, 17G3; Amsterdam, 1726. " A lo que Obligan los Celos " was falsely attributed to D. Fer- nando de Zarate. Gomez is also said to be the au- thor of "Triunfo Lusitano, Acclama<,-ao do Sr. Rei D. Joao IV.," Paris, 1614, and of the " Lamentacionesde Jeremias" ("Re vista de Gerona," xii. 76 et seq.).

Gomez's lyric poems are especially praiseworthy for their purity of form, beauty of expression, wealth of thought, and depth of feeling. He was

less successful with his heroic poems, which, in the opinion of Ticknor, are full of Gongorisms.

Bibliography : Ticknor, Hist, of Spanish Literature, II. 442 etseq., ill. 68 (Spanish translation, 11. 459 et seQ.); Rlos, Entu- dins, pp. 569 et seq.; Kayserling, Sephardim, p. 216, adopted In Annualre des Archives Israelites, 5646 (1885) ; Idem, Bihl. Bsp.-Port.-Jud. pp. 49 et seq. a M. K.

GOMEZ, DTJARTE. See Usqde, Solomon.

GOMEZ, MANUEL: Physician; born about 1580 of Portuguese parentage at Antwerp. After studying medicine at Evora he settled as a physician at Amsterdam. He wrote "De PestilentiiE Cura- tione " (Antwerp, 1603; 3d ed., ib. 1643), and is said to have been one of the first to call attention to the uselessness of milk as a specific in the treatment of confirmed phthisis.

This "Doctor Antwerpiensis," who was highly esteemed by Amato Lusitano, was also a poet. Sev- eral of his poems — on tlie spider, the ant, and the bee — were added to his metrical commentary on the aphorism of Hippocrates, "Vita brevis, ars longa." The commentary, written in Spanish and published in 1643, was eulogized in a Latin ode by his coun- tryman Manuel Rodriguez of Antwerp.

BiBLiofiRAPnY : Barbosa Machado, Bibliiiteca LvMtana, III. 277; Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. III. 875; Lindo, The Higtm-y nf Ihe Jews in Spain and Portugal, p. 3(38 ; KayserUng, Sephar- dim, pp. 209, 347. G. M. K.

GOMEZ DE SOSA (SOSSA), ABRAHAM: Spanish physician; died at an advanced age Elul 21 (= Sept. 10), 1667. He was ph3'sician in ordinary to the infante Ferdinand (son of Philip III. of Spain), governor of the Netherlands. His epitaph is recorded in D. H. de Castro's " Keur van Grafsteenen," p. 83.

G. M. K.

GOMEZ DE SOSA (SOSSA), ISAAC : Latin poet ("famoso poeta Latino," according to De Bar- rios); son of Abraham Gomez de Sosa. He was arbiter at the academy of poetry founded by Don Manuel de Belmonte in 1677. Gomez wrote the Latin epitaph on his father's tomb, a Latin poem in honor of Jacob Judah Leon's " Las Alabangas de Santitad," and two other poems in honor of a work by Joseph Pen^o de la Vega. He also caused a translation to be made of the work " Divinidad de la Ley."

BiBLTOGRAPHT : D. H. de Castro, Keur van Grafsteenen, p. 84 ; Kayserling, Bibi. Esp.-Port.-Jud. pp. 13, 22, 59, 74, 94, 104. G. M. K.

GOMORRAH : One of the destroyed cities of the Pentapolis. Comp. Sodgji and Zoar.

GOMPERS, SAMUEL: American labor-leader; born in London Jan. 37, 1850. At ten years of age he became a wage-earner, working in a shoe-fac- tory ; later he was apprenticed to a cigar-maker. In 1863 he emigrated to America, where a year later he helped to organize the Cigar-JIakers' International Union, becoming its first registered member. For a number of years Gompers was the secretary and president of this organization and lielped to make it the most successful of American trade-unions.

In 1881 he became a delegate to the firist conven- tion of the American Federation of Labor. His nat- ural abilities as a leader were soon recognized; in