ABSTRACT
Like that of Luis de Carvajal the Younger, the life of crypto-Jewish poet and playwright Miguel Levi de Barrios was consumed by contradiction. He was born in Montilla, near Cordova. Little is known of his childhood until 1650, when the Inquisition arrested a relative and the family fled to northern Africa. Eventually he moved to Leghorn, Italy, where he had himself circumcised and acknowledged his Jewishness. But then de Barrios moved elsewhere in Europe. For years he divided his time between Brussels and Amsterdam, leading a double life. In Brussels, as Miguel Levi de Barrios, he was a captain of horse in the Spanish Army and a declared Christian. Under that identity, he enjoyed the support of prominent political figures. In Brussels he published the volumes of poetry Flor de Apolo (1665) and Coro de las Musas (1672), in which his Jewish self is tangential. In Amsterdam, on the other hand, de Barrios, as Daniel Leví de Barrios, he was a member of the Jewish community, married Abigail de Pina, and raised Jewish children. Eventually, he gave up his Brussels side and settled permanently in Amsterdam. But he clashed with the Jewish community and also suffered mental illness. He was a strong supporter of the pseudo-Messiah Shabbetai Zevi. De Barrios also wrote plays such as Truth Triumphs in the End. The last line in the following poem—"he lives secure who puts his trust in you"—from the anthology Marrano Poets of the Seventeenth Century (1982), edited by Timothy Oelman, might hold a key to his conflicted identity.
