Judah Moscato ( 1530 – 1593) was an Italian rabbi, poet, and philosopher of the sixteenth century; born at

Osimo Osimo is a town and ''comune'' of the Marche region of Italy, in the province of Ancona. The municipality covers a hilly area located approximately south of the port city of Ancona and the Adriatic Sea. , Osimo had a total population of 35,037. ...

, near

Ancona Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic ...

; died at

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

. As harassment of Jews in the

Pontifical States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct Sovereignty, sovereign rule of t ...

worsened under

Paul IV Pope Paul IV, born Gian Pietro Carafa, C.R. ( la, Paulus IV; it, Paolo IV; 28 June 1476 – 18 August 1559) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 May 1555 to his death in August 1559. While serving as pap ...

from 1555, Judah went to the home of his kinsman Minzi Beretaro at Mantua, where he enjoyed the society and instruction of the foremost Jews of his time, the brothers Moses, David, and Judah Provençal and

Azariah dei Rossi Azariah ben Moses dei Rossi (Hebrew: עזריה מן האדומים) was an Italian-Jewish physician and scholar. He was born at Mantua in 1511; and died in 1578. He was descended from an old Jewish family which, according to a tradition, was b ...

. In 1587 he became chief rabbi of Mantua. Moscato was a true child of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, well versed in the classical languages and literatures and in sympathy with their spirit. Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that the ancient civilization and all the languages of culture were derived from

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

and that it was the duty of the Jews to acquire these branches of knowledge, of which they had once been masters. He was widely read, especially in philosophy; and again like his contemporaries, although an admirer of Judah ha-Levi and

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

, he was an enthusiastic student of the Cabala. Moscato published, under the title ''Nefuẓot Yehudah'' (Venice, 1588; Lemberg, 1859), fifty-two sermons,which inaugurated a new epoch in homiletic literature. Most of these were delivered in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

or in Italian; and while they observe the rules of rhetoric they deal with their subjects naturally and without forced exegesis. His other printed work, ''Ḳol Yehuda'' (Venice, 1594), was the first commentary on the "Cuzari" of Judah ha-Levi. Since this fact would at once secure for it a wide circulation, the rabbis Cividali and Saraval of Mantua urged him to publish it. It appeared posthumously, and since then has always been printed together with the "Cuzari." Moscato wrote poetry also, especially elegies on the deaths of friends and scholars, including one on the death of Joseph Caro. Three of his

elegies An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

, on the death of Duchess

Margherita of Savoy Margherita of Savoy (''Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna''; 20 November 1851 – 4 January 1926) was Queen of Italy by marriage to Umberto I. Life Early life Margherita was born to Prince Ferdinand of Savoy, Duke of Genoa and Princess Elisabe ...

(d. 1574), have recently become known. Here is an excerpt from Rabbi Moscato's book Kol Yehuda:

References

* *Zunz, G. V. p. 446; *idem, Literaturgesch. p. 419; *Abba Apfelbaum, ''Sefer Toledot R. Yehudah Moscato,'' Drohobicz, 1900.

References

Further reading