David Franco Mendes

David Franco Mendes was regarded as, next to Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and Naphtali Hirz Wessely, the most important Hebrew poet of his time.

Delitzsch describes his poems as traditional in subject, national in spirit, and artistic in form.

He followed Racine's Athalie in his historical drama Gemul 'Atalyah (Amsterdam, 1770; Vienna, 1800; Warsaw, 1860).

Under the title Teshu'at Yisrael bi-Yede Yehudit (Rödelheim, 1840) he translated into Hebrew Pietro Metastasio's Betulia liberata.

He was a frequent contributor to Ha-Meassef, in which he published some poems and short biographies of eminent Spanish-Portuguese Jewish.