Abraham Zacuto

Zacuto of Salamanca, actually Abraham ben Shmuel Zacuth (* 1450 in Salamanca, Spain, † 1510 in Damascus ) was a Sephardic astronomer, who worked as a royal astronomer of King Dom João II of Portugal.

Life

Zacuto fled to Portugal in 1492, when the Jews were expelled by the Alhambra Decree from Spain. There he became astronomer royal, but the Jews were in 1496 on the occasion of the marriage of King Manuel I. banished with the Spanish king's daughter also from Portugal. Zacuto first moved to Tunis and then in the Ottoman Empire.

Work

He developed the " Almanach Perpetuum ", so-called tables of the planets, with which one could predict the positions of the planets. His student José Vizinho translated it from the Hebrew. The " Almanac Perpetuum " was an important tool for navigation, it is one of the first four books that were printed in Portugal after the Gutenberg method with movable metal type.

Christopher Columbus, who was standing with Zacuto and Vizinho in close contact, used to live long a copy.

Zacuto was a rabbi and his congregation wrote in 1504 in Tunis Sefer Hayuhasin, a history of the Jews from the Creation to the year 1500.