Aaron Afia (, ''Aharōn Afia''), also known as Affius, was a sixteenth-century

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

ex-''

converso A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert" (), was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of their descendants. To safeguard the Old Christian popula ...

'' scientist, mathematician, philosopher, and physician living in

Salonika Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

. He was the teacher of Daniel ben Perachiah, whom he assisted in the translation from the Spanish into Hebrew of

Abraham Zacuto Abraham Zacuto (, ; 12 August 1452 – ) was a Sephardic Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian. Born in Castile, he served as Royal Astronomer to King John II of Portugal before fleeing to Tunis. His astrolabe of cop ...

's ''Almanach perpetuum'' (1543), and

Moses Almosnino Moses ben Baruch Almosnino ( – ) was a distinguished rabbi; born at Thessaloniki about 1515, and died in Constantinople about 1580. Rabbinical work He was elected rabbi of the Neveh Shalom community of Spanish Jews in that city in 1553, and of ...

, whom he assisted in his (unpublished) Hebrew translation of

Johannes de Sacrobosco Johannes de Sacrobosco, also written Ioannes de Sacro Bosco, later called John of Holywood or John of Holybush ( 1195 – 1256), was a scholar, Catholic monk, and astronomer who taught at the University of Paris. He wrote a short introductio ...

's '' De sphaera mundi''. Almosnino's ''Bet Elokim''—an astronomical work which draws on

Georg von Peuerbach Georg von Peuerbach (also Purbach, Peurbach; ; 30 May 1423 – 8 April 1461) was an Austrian astronomer, poet, mathematician and instrument maker, best known for his streamlined presentation of Ptolemaic astronomy in the ''Theoricae Novae Planetar ...

's ''Theorica planetarium''—also contains work by Afia at the end. Affia main work is the ''Opiniones Sacadas de los mas Auténticos y Antiguos Philósophos que Sobre la Alma Escrivieron, y sus Definiciones'' ("Selected Opinions of the most Authentic and Ancient Philosophers on the Soul, and their Definitions"), published in Venice in 1568. It was appended to ''Los dialogos de Amor'', the Spanish translation of Judah Abravanel's ''Dialoghi d'amore''. A treatise on the nature of the soul, the work contains summaries and philosophical discussions of various definitions of the soul, most notably that of

Johann Reuchlin Johann Reuchlin (; 29 January 1455 – 30 June 1522), sometimes called Johannes, was a German Catholic humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew, whose work also took him to modern-day Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France. Most of Reuchlin's c ...

in '' De Arte Cabalistica''. As a physician, Afia was friendly with Amato Lusitano, who records how they discussed together the source of laughter, which Afia placed in the heart.

References

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Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Afia, Aaron 16th-century Jewish physicians 16th-century Jewish theologians 16th-century Sephardi Jews 16th-century Greek mathematicians 16th-century Greek philosophers Jews from Thessaloniki Medieval Jewish philosophers 16th-century Greek scientists