Solomon Usque

Solomon Usque was a Portuguese printer and poet of Marrano descent who spent most of his life in Italy and later in Turkey.

In Italy, Usque achieved fame as a poet. He wrote, in collaboration with Lazzaro di Graziano Levi, the earliest known Jewish drama written in the vernacular – a Purim play in Spanish entitled Esther, first staged in the Venice ghetto in 1558. He made a Spanish translation of the final part of Petrarch’s sonnets and published it in Venice in 1567. The translation was dedicated to Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma and Piacenza. He also wrote an Italian ode on the six days of Creation and he collaborated with Lazaro Graziano in the composition of the Spanish drama “Esther”.

Usque acted as a business agent for Joseph Nasi, one of the most successful merchant and banker of his time settled in Turkey, and it might be the reason he moved to Constantinople. Once there, he engaged in in Hebrew printing in collaboration with Abraham Ashkenazi in 1560–61. Usque had access to Ottoman court, and in 1595 at the request of the English ambassador, Usque wrote a report on events in Turkey after the death of Sultan Murad III.