Bookstore Glossary Library Links News Publications Timeline Virtual Israel Experience
Anti-Semitism Biography History Holocaust Israel Israel Education Myths & Facts Politics Religion Travel US & Israel Vital Stats Women
donate subscribe Contact About Home

Avtalyon Modena

(da; 1529 – 1611)

Avtalyon Modena. was an Italian scholar, and son of Mordecai (Angelo da) Modena, the eminent physician. After studying in Padua, Avtalyon settled in Ferrara, where he became noted as a talmudist and scholar; Azariah dei *Rossi mentions him with deference in his Me'or Einayim. He took part in the famous controversy on the ritual propriety of the mikveh constructed at *Rovigo. When the papal attack on Jewish literature was renewed in 1581, he went to Rome as a delegate of the Italian Jewish communities and is said to have made a two-hour oration in Latin before the assembled Curia, as the result of which the edict was modified. He was known also as a writer of verse. Letters addressed to him are preserved among the correspondence of his nephew, Leone Modena.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

L. Blau, Leo Modenas Briefe und Schriftstuecke… (1905), 41, 81 (Heb.); Ghirondi-Neppi, 26–29.


Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.