Immanuel Aboab ( 1555 – 1628) was a Portuguese Jewish scholar. He was a great-grandson of

Isaac Aboab of Castile Isaac Aboab of Castile (1433 – January 1493), also known as Isaac Aboab II, was a Spanish-Jewish Rabbi, Posek and Torah commentator. Biography Born at Toledo, the great-great-grandson of Isaac Aboab I. He was the pupil and successor of Isa ...

(died 1493).

Life

Born at

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

, he early became an orphan and was reared by his grandfather Abraham Aboab. He emigrated to Italy, and after living some time at

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

he moved to

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

, where he became acquainted with Orazio del Monte, a nephew of the

duke of Urbino The Duchy of Urbino () was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1631. It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the ea ...

. In

Reggio Emilia Reggio nell'Emilia (; ), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until Unification of Italy, 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 172,51 ...

he became acquainted with

Menahem Azariah da Fano Menahem Azariah da Fano (also called Immanuel da Fano, and Rema MiPano () (1548 – 1620) was an Italian rabbi, Talmudist, and Kabbalist. Life He was a disciple of Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, to whose widow he offered 1,000 sequins for ...

; thence he went to

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; ) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is south of Trevi, north of Terni, southeast of Perugia; southeast of Florence; and north of Rome. H ...

and elsewhere in Italy, and finally settled at Venice. Here he had occasion, in 1603, to defend his correligionists. He died in Venice in 1628.

Works

Aboab had the intention of going to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

and publishing there his works, ''The Kingdom of the Intellect'' and ''The Foundations of Truth'', which he had written in defense of the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

. He was the author of a defense of the traditional law and of a chronological list of that law's exponents. He worked at this treatise, which was much prized by the pious, for ten years, and completed it in 1625. It was published by his heirs at

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, in 1629 (2d ed., ibid., 1727), under the title ''Nomologia o Discursos Legales, Compuestos por el Virtuose Hakam Rabi Imanuel Aboab de Buena Memoria''. A manuscript of this work exists in the library of the Historical Academy in Madrid.

References

De Rossi De Rossi () is an Italian surname, and may refer to: Academics * Azariah dei Rossi, an Italian-Jewish physician and scholar * Bernardo de Rossi, (1687–1775), Italian theologian and historian * Elena De Rossi Filibeck (20th century), Italian wr ...

, ''Dizionario Storico'', Germ. transl. by Hamberger, pp. 12–13 * Kayserling, ''Immanuel Aboab'', in Jeschurun, iv. 572 et seq., v. 643 et seq.; * idem, Gesch. d. Juden in Port. pp. 271 et seq. * Orfali, Moises, ''Imanuel Aboab's Nomologia o discursos legales - The Struggle over the Authority of the Law'': Jerusalem 1997 * Roth, Cecil. “Immanuel Aboab’s Proselytization of the Marranos.” JQR 23(1932-33): pg. 121-62.

External links

Link to digitised text of ''Nomologia''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aboab, Immanuel Aboab family 1550s births 1628 deaths Jewish Portuguese writers 16th-century Portuguese rabbis 16th-century Italian rabbis Clergy from Porto 17th-century Italian rabbis