TEIXEIRA, PEDRO:
Portuguese traveler; born at Lisbon of Marano parents; died about the middle of the seventeenth century either at Verona (according to De Barrios, who is followed by Wolf, Zunz, and others) or at Antwerp (according to Barbosa Machado), whither he had removed from Venice. A man of education and a close observer, he traveled for eighteen months through the Philippines, China, and parts of America, and, after spending two years at Lisbon, undertook a scientific journey to India, Persia, and other countries. As a result he published "Relaciones de Pedro Teixeira d'el Origen, Descendencia, y Sucesion de los Reyes de Persia, y de Hormuz, y de un Viage Hecho por el Mismo Autor Dende la India Oriental Hasta Italia pot Tierra" (Antwerp, 1610), containing a history of the kings of Persia according to Persian sources, as well as a fund of information on the Jews of Aleppo, Bagdad, and other cities, with notes on Jewish monuments. It served as a guide for Thomas de Pinedo and others, and has been translated into English by W. J. Sinclair, and edited by D. Fergeson; the latter also supplied the edition with an introduction.
- Barrios, Relacion de los Poetas Españoles, p. 58;
- Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. iii. 922;
- Zunz, G. S. i. 188;
- Barbosa Machado, Biblioteca Lusitana, iii. 622;
- Kayserling, Pedro Teixeira: Eine Reiseskizze als Einleitung zu J. J. Benjamin, Acht Jahre in Asien und Africa, Hanover, 1858 (English transl. ib. 1859);
- idem, Bibl. Esp.-Port.-Jud. p. 105.
