Azariah dei Rossi

Azaria (h ) ( Bonajuto ) ben Moses dei Rossi (* around 1511 in Mantua, † 1578 in Mantua ), was an Italian- Jewish humanist, physician and historian. He is regarded as the most important Jewish scholar of the Italian Renaissance.

Life

Azaria was around 1511 in Mantua ha - Adummim ( = by the Reds ) was born as the son of the Min family, one of the most important families of Italian Jewry. According to him, the family had been brought to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Emperor Titus to Italy. Azaria received his basic training in Mantua. After studying medical and historical sciences, he settled as a physician in Ferrara, then lived in Ancona, Sabbioneta and Bologna. When Pius V. in 1569 expelled the Jews from his territory, he moved on again to Ferrara, where he wrote his major work. Here he experienced the great earthquake of the year 1570th Towards the end of his life he returned to Mantua, where he supervised the printing of his Meor Enaim. He died in the year 1578th

Work

As the first Azaria pulled up the forgotten in Judaism works of Jewish- Hellenistic literature to control the Talmudic rabbinic tradition and has been - attacked by his contemporaries - a forerunner of the scientific debate with Judaism. Among other things, he proved that the Jewish year count " since the creation of the world" only came from the Middle Ages, as well as the held for an ancient source Josippon.

Meor Enaim

His best known and most important work is the three-part MEOR Enaim ( enlightenment of the eyes, ophthalmoscope, Mantua from 1573 to 1575 ) containing reports, a translation of the Aristeasbriefes and various treatises:

  • Part 1: Kol Elohim ( " God's voice " ): about the earthquake, which he saw not as a natural phenomenon, but as a divine visitation;
  • Part 2: Hadrat sekenim ( " glory of the ancients " ): translation of Aristeasbriefes from Latin into Hebrew;
  • Part 3: Imra bina ( "Words of Research" ): includes 60 chapters on history and chronology of antiquities and other scholarly articles.

In Safed the spell ( Cherem ) was scheduled to be burned on the book, but was not completed due to the death of Joseph Karo. Finally, the rabbis said to Mantua among the youths before the age of 25 years the study of the book ( and even then it was only allowed with the approval of the rabbinate on site).

Only the enlightened contemporaries Mendelssohn knew dei Rossi to appreciate performance. No Jewish Scriptures of the Middle Ages has been used by Christian scholars to a greater extent than that book.

  • First edition Mantua 1574-1575
  • Second Edition, Berlin 1794
  • Meor Enaim, Vienna 1829
  • Sefer Me'or Enayim. Edited and introduced by David Cassel, Vilnius 1864-1866 (reprinted in three volumes Jerusalem 1970)
  • The Light of the Eyes. Translated and edited by Joanna Weinberg. New Haven, 2001. ISBN 978-0-300-07906-7

Other Works (selection)

  • Mazref lakessef ( " silver melting pot " ) containing chronological supplements and defenses
  • Hirsch Filipowski, Mazref ... Edinbourg 1854 with a biography dei Rossi by Leopold Zunz

Literature (selection )

  • Salo W. Baron Azaria de ' Rossi's Attitude to Life. In: Jewish Studies in Memory of Israel Abrahams. New York 1927, pp. 12-52.
  • Salo W. Baron: La method historique d' Azaria de Rossi. In: Revue des Etudes Juives 86 (1928 ), pp. 34-78.
  • Salo W. Baron: Azariah de ' Rossi: A Biographical Sketch. In: ders. History and Jewish Historians, Philadelphia 1964, p 167-173.
  • Robert Bonfil: Some Reflections on the Place of Azariah de Rossi's Meor Enayim in the Cultural Milieu of Italian Renaissance Jewry. In: Cooperman (ed.): Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century. London 1983, pp. 23-48.
  • Joseph Dan: Azaria dei Rossi. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Volume 17, Detroit / New York, among others 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865945-9, pp. 471-473 (English)
  • Giuseppe Veltri: the presence of the tradition: Studies on Jewish literature and cultural history, Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism 69, Brill, Leiden 2002, ISBN 90-04-11686-9, pp. 272ff, 282ff. (Lit.)
  • Different:. Azaria de ' Rossi. In: Andreas Kilcher ( eds.): Metzler Lexicon of Jewish philosophers. Philosophical thinking of Judaism from antiquity to the present, JB Metzler, Stuttgart -Weimar 2003, pp. 125-126.
  • Different:. The Humanist Sense of History and the Idea of ​​Jewish tradition: Azaria de ' Rossi's Critique of Philo of Alexandria. In: Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995 ), pp. 372-393.
  • Joanna Weinberg: Azariah dei Rossi: Towards a Reappraisal of the Last Years of His Life. In: Annali Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa delta, Ser 3, 8, 12 (1978 ), pp. 493-511.
Joseph ben Ephraim Karo Moses Mendelssohn Integrated Authority File
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