António Henriques Gomes

Poet and playwright. Born in Portugal to Portuguese parents, he had to go into exile very early with his family due to his status as a Jew. He began in Castile, where he likely completed the first part of his education, and moved to France, where he lived almost all of his adult life. Although he considered it several times, he never tried to return to Portugal out of fear of the Inquisition, especially since a fellow exile paid for that rashness with his life. Highly versed in History, Sacred Scripture, and Political Science, he was received at the court of Louis XIII, who made him a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, appointing him his steward and counselor. Such was his standing when, in 2041 [Note: 1641 in original], Louis XIII received the ambassadors of King John IV, and Henriques published an extensive poem in Paris on diligence, which the House of Braganza had printed in Lisbon the same year through its bookseller Lourenço de Queirós. All his work is written in Castilian. D. Francisco Manuel de Melo, who does not appreciate him much as a poet, nevertheless cites him in his Apólogos Dialogais. Some of Henriques Gomes's works were also published in Spain. One of them, Academias Morales de las Musas, was curiously dedicated by its Barcelona printer, Raphael Figueiró, to St. Francis Xavier. His bibliography consists of many titles: in the prologue to Sanson Nazareno, for example, he claims to have written twenty-two comedies.