Elijah Montalto (1567 – 1616) was a
Marrano
''Marranos'' is a term for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as Navarrese jews, who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued t ...
physician and polemicist from Paris who became the personal physician of
Maria de Medici
Marie de' Medici (; ; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV. Marie served as regent of France between 1610 and 1617 during the minority of her son Louis XIII. Her mandate as regent ...
.
He had been reared as a Christian in Portugal and openly returned to Judaism on settling in Venice. His ''Suitable and Incontrovertible Propositions'' was an
anti-Christian polemic. He was one of the teachers of
Joseph Solomon Delmedigo
Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (or Del Medigo), also known as Yashar Mi-Qandia (; 16 June 1591 – 16 October 1655), was a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theory, music theorist.
Born in Heraklion, Candia, Crete, a descendant of E ...
.
[''Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo, Yashar of Candia: his life, works and times'' Page 45 Isaac Barzilay - 1974 "Besides Galileo, Yashar also mentions among his teachers Elijah Montalto (d. 1616), the famous Jewish physician, who at the end of the sixteenth century left Portugal and after short stays at the royal court of France, Livorno, Florence and Pisa, finally settled in Venice, where he openly returned to Judaism and ..]
When Montalto died,
Saul Levi Morteira
Saul Levi Morteira or Mortera ( 1596 – 10 February 1660) was a rabbi in Amsterdam. He was born in Venice, so he was neither a Sephardic or Ashkenazic Jew. He became a prominent figure in the city's community of exiled Portuguese Jews. H ...
went to Paris to recover his body for burial in
Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, one of the
Jewish cemeteries in Amsterdam.
Works
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Montalto, Elijah
1567 births
1616 deaths
17th-century French Sephardi Jews
Physicians from Paris
16th-century Italian physicians
Jewish apologists
16th-century Portuguese Jews
Portuguese critics of Christianity