Lost Maamar Zikhron ha-Shemadot of Profiat Duran

This article describes an entity that is not directly attested in a surviving complete copy. It is an inference from the evidence listed below.

Epistemic status

Source-backed draft for a lost text. The work is not reconstructed as a surviving book; only its reported title, genre, chronological scope, lost status, and later historiographical use are asserted.

Summary

Maamar Zikhron ha-Shemadot is treated here as a lost historical work associated with Profiat Duran. The strongest current evidence is secondary and bibliographic: reference entries report a history of persecutions and expulsions, now lost, and connect it with later sixteenth-century Jewish historians. This is enough for a bounded Inferpedia article because the object is specific and the claim is conservative.

What is being inferred

The inferred object is the absent textual object behind those reports: a lost Duran work on persecutions and expulsions, available at least indirectly to later historiographical tradition but not extant as a readable witness in the present source ledger.

What is attested

The read reference evidence names Duran, identifies Maamar Zikhron ha-Shemadot as a history of persecutions and expulsions, says it is now lost, and reports later use by sixteenth-century Jewish historians. Older Jewish Encyclopedia material independently places a Zikron ha-Shemadot under Profiat Duran and describes it as a history of Jewish martyrs.

Why infer this entity

The argument does not infer a new author or a recoverable text. It infers a lost textual object because the title, authorial association, subject matter, loss statement, and downstream use are reported together. Those features make a narrower entity more appropriate than the earlier broad Hebrew commentary-transmission cluster.

Evidence ledger

• Encyclopedia.com, Duran Profiat: reports Maamar Zikhron ha-Shemadot as a lost history of persecutions and expulsions and notes later historiographical use.
• Jewish Encyclopedia, Duran family entry: older reference control for Profiat Duran and the Zikron ha-Shemadot title.
• NLI manuscript metadata for Duran-related material: supports the broader point that Duran's works and reception moved through manuscript/commentary routes, but it is not direct evidence for the lost persecution history.

Counterarguments

The current evidence is still mediated through reference scholarship, not a direct reading of Abrabanel, Ibn Verga, Joseph ha-Kohen, or Usque. The title spelling and exact relationship between later historians and the lost work may need refinement. A manuscript catalogue or primary citation could change both specificity and dependence scores.

Confidence scores

Direct attestation: 52. Existence warrant: 74. Specificity: 72. Reconstruction dependence: 36. Counterevidence pressure: 18.

What would change the score

The score would rise if a primary citation in Abrabanel or a later sixteenth-century historian were read directly, or if a manuscript/catalogue record identified a witness. It would fall if specialist work showed that the reference tradition conflates Duran's lost work with another persecution chronicle.

Related lacunae

• The Jewish response dossier behind the Tortosa disputation is a sibling case from the same persecution generation: working texts produced under coercive conditions that did not survive intact.