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Moses da Rieti

Moses da Rieti (Moshe ben Yitzḥak, Mosè di Gaio) (1388–1466) was an Italian-Jewish poet, philosopher, and physician from Rieti who composed works in Hebrew and Italian.[1]

Moses da Rieti
Born1388 Edit this on Wikidata
Died1466 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 77–78)
Title page of the Miqdash Me‘at (Vienna, 1851)

Miqdash me‘at (Little Sanctuary), his major work, is a transitionally post-medieval and philosophical Hebrew poem explicitly inspired by the Divine Comedy in both plot and structure, and also includes an encyclopedia of sciences, a Jewish paradise fantasy and a post-biblical history of Jewish literature.[2] Miqdash me‘at makes explicit metaphor in its structure as an homage to the Temple of Jerusalem.[1] Rieti was influenced by Yehuda Romano.[2] Rieti's style is complex and he speaks on behalf of the Jewish people, with Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism especially in the tradition of Maimonides, and follows the terza rima of Dante Alighieri, the first Hebrew poet to do so. [3] Called a Hebrew Dante, he also authored a poetic dialogue between the Daughters of Zelophehad called Iggeret Ya‘ar ha-Levanon (Forest of Lebanon).[4] Rieti's work exhibits a deep familiarity with the Tannaim, Geonim, and Amoraim, including contemporary philosophy in Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. It is said he later abandoned philosophy for kabbalah. Deborah Ascarelli and Lazaro da Viterbo translated his hymns into Italian.[5]

Biography

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Moses was born in Rieti in 1388 to Isaac (Gaio), probably a banker. He left Rieti to study medicine but returned in 1422 to practice medicine and banking there. He had at least three sons by his wife, Sella: Gaio, the firstborn, Leone, and Bonaiuto, and all three followed him into the trade. He was rabbi in Rome from 1431 and filled various community roles around the Papal States throughout his life, also maintaining a yeshiva in Narni.[6] He died in Rome in 1466.[7]

Works

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Poetry

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  • Miqdash Me‘at, begun in 1415 according to its text. Apparently incomplete. Sometimes cited by its sections Heikhal and Ulam, by its subsection Me‘on haShoalim, or by the name Shalshelet haQabbalah. The subsection Me‘on haShoalim was printed in Venice, c. 1585 with translation into Italian by Lazzaro da Viterbo, again in Venice, c. 1601 with translation into Italian by Deborah Ascarelli (dedication by David della Rocca dated 20 October, 1601), and again in Venice, 1609, with a translation into Judeo-Italian by(?) Samuel de Castelnuovo. Two anonymous translations of Me‘on HaShoalim into Italian are extant in manuscript, including MS Bod. Quo. 197 f. 19r-24r and MS Bod. Mich. 486. There are at least 59 MSS of Midqash Me‘at, 17 complete. According to Joseph Almanzi (also Samuel David Luzzatto) there was a partial holograph MS in the possession of Mordecai Ghirondi,[8][9] which survives in the critical edition (MS BL Add. 27001) Almanzi prepared based on 5 manuscripts in 1836-1838, including some commentary. According to Moshe Hillel,[10] the "holograph" manuscript is now Cambridge Add. 1193, which Stefan Reif dates 16-17c in his catalog.[11] Jacob Goldenthal printed a text edited from 3 manuscripts in Vienna, 1851. A modern critical edition was in progress as of 2003.[3]
  • Nine stanzas not included in Goldenthal's edition of Miqdash Me‘at (MS Cambridge Add. 1193 f. 39v-40r)
  • Iggeret (or Melitzat) Ya‘ar haLevanon. In heavily poetic prose. Apparently incomplete. Many MSS, but especially Joseph Almanzi's redaction in MS BL Add. 27001. Edited and translated into Italian by Alessandro Guetta in REJ 164, "Ya'ar Ha-Levanon, ou la quête de la connaissance perdue" (2005).
  • Elegy for his wife, Sella (צילה). Various MSS; printed in Gli ebrei a Perugia (1975) pp. 273-275, and edited by Alessandro Guetta in Teuda vol. XIX pp. 309-327.
  • A poem beginning Begodel erekh hahigayon (MS Bod. Mich. 746, f. 114r)

Prose

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Further reading

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  • Rieti, Moses ben Isaac da. Mosè da Rieti, Filosofia naturale ; e, Fatti de Dio: testo ineditodel secolo XV (in Italian). Brill Archive. ISBN 978-90-04-09087-3.
  • Rieti, Moses ben Isaac da (1851). מקדש מעט: ... [שיר דידקתי כתבנית השיר של דנטי] (in Hebrew). דפוס אלמנת י"פ זולינגער.

References

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  1. ^ a b Guetta, Alessandro (2003). "Moses da Rieti and His Miqdash meat". Prooftexts. 23 (1): 4–17. doi:10.2979/pft.2003.23.1.4. ISSN 0272-9601.
  2. ^ a b Guetta, Alessandro (2019), Sgarbi, Marco (ed.), "Moses of Rieti", Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–3, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1113-1, ISBN 978-3-319-02848-4, retrieved 2024-09-05
  3. ^ a b Bregman, Devora (2003). "A Note on the Style and Prosody of Miqdash meat". Prooftexts. 23 (1): 18–24. doi:10.2979/pft.2003.23.1.18. ISSN 0272-9601.
  4. ^ "MOSES BEN ISAAC (GAJO) OF RIETI - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  5. ^ Rhine, A. B. (1911). "The Secular Hebrew Poetry of Italy". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 1 (3): 341–402. doi:10.2307/1451119. ISSN 0021-6682.
  6. ^ See colophon to MS Vat. ebr. 260, which was written in Moses' academy in 1452.
  7. ^ "Mosè da rieti - Enciclopedia". Treccani (in Italian). Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  8. ^ Luzzatto, Samuel David; לוצטו, שמואל דוד בן חזקיה (1882). אגרות שד"ל (in Hebrew). דפוס זופניק עט קנאללער. p. 224. The original letter is bound into MS INV 170536 at the Jewish Museum of Prague.
  9. ^ Almanzi, Giuseppe (1889). יד יוסף: ספר כולל זמירות ושירים, אגרות ומצבות (in Hebrew). Tipogr. Morterra. p. 42. The original letter, with Almanzi’s scribal flourishes, is bound into MS INV 170536 at the Jewish Museum of Prague.
  10. ^ הלל, משה (2021). מסכת תמורות: תולדות רבי מרדכי שמואל גירונדי מפאדובה, לקורות הרבנות והקהילות באיטליה בתקופת האמנציפציה וההשכלה (in Hebrew). Ḳehilot Yiśraʼel, ha-merkaz le-moreshet ha-ʻam ha-Yehudi. p. 155. ISBN 978-965-92731-3-3.
  11. ^ Library, Cambridge University; Reif, Stefan C.; Reif, Shulamit (1997-01-09). Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library: A Description and Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 365. ISBN 978-0-521-58339-8.
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