Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, di Candia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Solomon_Delmedigo

Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (or in Italian known as dottore Giuseppe Salomone di Candia Del Medigo), also known in Hebrew as ישר מקנדיא, Yashar Mi-Qandia) (16 June 1591 – 16 October 1655) was a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist.[1]

Born in Candia, Crete, a descendant of Elia del Medigo, he moved to Padua, Italy, studying medicine and taking classes with Galileo in astronomy. After graduating in 1613 he moved to Venice and spent a year in the company of Leon de Modena and Simone Luzzato. From Venice he went back to Candia and from there started traveling in the near East, reaching Alexandria and Cairo. There he went into a public contest in mathematics against a local mathematician. From Egypt he moved to Istanbul, there he observed the comet of 1619. After Istanbul he wandered along the Karaite communities in Eastern Europe, finally arriving at Amsterdam in 1623. He died in Prague. Yet in his lifetime wherever he sojourned he earned his living as a physician and or teacher. His only known works are Elim (Palms), dealing with mathematics, astronomy, the natural sciences, and metaphysics, as well as some letters and essays.

As Delmedigo writes in his book, he followed the lectures by Galileo Galilei, during the academic year 1609–1610, and was accorded the rare privilege of using Galileo's own telescope. In the following years he often refers to Galilei as "rabbi Galileo," an ambiguous phrase which may simply mean "my master, Galileo." (Delmedigo never calls him "our teacher and master, Rabbi Galileo," which would be the typical way of referring to an actual rabbi.) Elijah Montalto, physician of Maria de Medici, is also mentioned as one of his teachers.

Contents [show] Works[edit]

Sefer Elim Elim (1629, published by Menasseh ben Israel, Amsterdam) is written in Hebrew, in response to 12 general and 70 specific religious and scientific questions sent to Delmedigo by a Karaite Jew, Zerach ben Natan from Troki (Lithuania). The format of the book is taken from the number of fountains and palm trees at Elim in the Sinai Peninsula, as given in Numbers, xxxiii, 9: since there are 12 fountains and 70 palm trees at Elim, Delmedigo divided his book into twelve major problems and seventy minor problems. The book, however, was heavily censored, so only four of the original twelve major problems appeared in the published work.[2] The subjects discussed include astronomy, physics, mathematics, medicine, and music theory. In the area of music, Delmedigo discusses the physics of music including string resonance, intervals and their proportions, consonance and dissonance. Delmedigo argued that the Jews did not take part in the Scientific Revolution because of Ashkenazi exclusive intellectual interest in the Talmud, whereas the Sepharadim and the Karaites were more interested in natural philosophy and philosophy in general. He called the Jews to reclaim their prominence in philosophy and to incorporate into the non-Jewish surrounding via the exploration of natural sciences.

Some parts of the book were as follows:

Ma'ayan Chatum (Closed or Sealed Fountain - Heb. מעין חתום) is the second part of Sefer Elim, containing the 70 questions and answers. Ma'ayan Ganim (Fountain of the Gardens - Heb. מעין גנים) is a continuation of Sefer Elim, consisting of the following short treatises: on trigonometry, on the first two books of the Almagest, on astronomy, on astronomical instruments, on Kabbalah (mainly the Ari) and the supernatural, on astrology, on algebra, on chemistry, on the aphorisms of Hippocrates, on the opinion of the ancients concerning the substance of the heavens, on the astronomy of the ancients, who considered the motion of the higher spheres due to spirits (Delmedigo shows that their motion is similar to that of the earth), on the principles of religion, and mathematical paradoxes. Chukkot Shamayim is a part of Mayan Ganim dealing with the first two books of the Almagest. Gevurot Hashem is a treatise on astronomy. He also wrote a defense of the Kabbalah called Matzreif LaChachma (Heb. מצרף לחכמה) against the attack upon it by his great grandfather Eliyahu Delmedigo. In the preface of the book the publisher writes that the author himself admitted once that when he was young (18 years old when he went to study in the university of Padua) he used to mock the Kabbalah and fiercely opposed those who studied it, but when he turned twenty seven he had a change of heart when he met two great philosophers, R' Yaakov ibn Nachmias and R' Shlomo Aravi, who were also firm adherents of the Kabbalah and they showed him how closely it resembles the philosophy of Plato, since then there was a renewed spirit within him[3].

Descendants[edit] Some of Delmedigo's descendants settled in Byelorussia and took on the Surname Gorodinsky (after the town of Gorodin). A member of this family, Mordechai Gorodinsky (later hebraized to Nachmani) was one of the founders of the Israeli city of Rehovot.[citation needed]

Notes[edit] Jump up ^ Yashar is an acronym that includes both his two Hebrew initials, Yosef Shlomo and his profession, rofe, i.e. physician. Yashar from Candia (יש"ר מקנדיה) is also a Hebrew pun, since Yashar means straight, as in "the straight [man] from Candia". The drawing (reproduced above to the right) on the frontispiece of his only printed work gives his name simply as "Ioseph Del Medico 'Cretensis'," or "Joseph [of] the Physician, from Crete, Philosopher and Physician." It is hard to determine which of the two, the family name Delmedigo on the one hand or the profession (physician), existed in the first place, giving origin to the other. The Hebrew title page to Sefer Elim gives his occupations specifically as a "complete" rabbi (shalem; this may mean that he had some sort of official smicha), philosopher, physician, and "nobleman" (aluf). Jump up ^ J. d'Ancona, "Delmedigo, Menasseh ben Israel en Spinoza," Bijdragen en Mededeelingin van het Genootschap voor de Joodsche Wetenschap in Nederland 5 (1940): 105-152. Jump up ^ The early Acahronim, The Artscroll history series, p. 157 References[edit] Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972), Vol. 5, 1477-8 Barzilay, Isaac, Yoseph Shlomoh Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia): His Life, Work and Times, Leiden, 1974 Langermann, Tzvi, An Alchemical Treatise Attributed to Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism Volume 13, Number 1, 2013, pp. 77-94 [1] Don Harrán. "Joseph Solomon Delmedigo", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed February 5, 2005), grovemusic.com (subscription access). Ben-Zaken, Avner (2010). "Transcending Time in the Scribal East". Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean 1560-1660. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 76–103.

DELMEDIGO ( = "Del Medico"):

By: Gotthard Deutsch, Max Schloessinger A family of German descent. About the end of the fourteenth century its founder, Judah Delmedigo, emigrated to the island of Crete, whose inhabitants were mostly of German origin (compare Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, "Elim," p. 30, Amsterdam, 1629). Judah had three sons: (1) Abba ha-Zaḳen (I.), who, at his own expense, erected a German synagogue (ib. ); (2) Mejuhas, who died childless; and (3) Shemariah, with the surname Cretensis (). The last wrote a philosophical work, "Heber Ish we-Ishto" (compare Geiger, "Wiss. Zeit. Jüd. Theol." iii. 447), and many grammatical treatises (compare Wolf, "Bibl. Hebr." ii. 597, No. 33; Zunz, in "Catalogus Lib. Manuscript. Bibl. Senat. Lips." 324). His son Moses was the father of Elijah Cretensis ben Moses Abba Delmedigo (see next column). Elijah left two sons: Moses, a philosopher, and Judah, a rabbi (see Jew. Encyc. iv. 509). One of Judah's daughters, Rachel, married Joseph of Constantinople, a descendant of Mordecai b. Eleazar Comtino (compare Grätz, "Gesch." viii. 274, 438, note), in whose library his (Comtino's) commentary on Ibn Ezra was studied by a later descendant of the family, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo.

Casta (: idem, "Elim," p. 29), the only daughter of Joseph of Constantinople and Rachel, married her relative Elijah, whose genealogy, on his father's side, is as follows: The above-mentioned Abba ha-Zaḳen (I.) had three sons: Elijah, Moses, and Elkanah—all Talmudists—who, together with other rabbis, defended—"with flaming swords"—their countryman Moses Capsali against the charges of Joseph Colon (Grätz, "Gesch." viii. 253). Elkanah's son Samuel, also a rabbi, had a son Samuel Menahem, who was born after his father's death. This Samuel Menahem, physician and teacher of philosophy, the head of a yeshibah in Padua, was made a prisoner of war, was ransomed by his countrymen, and was recalled as rabbi to Candia. His son Abba (II.) had a son Eliezer, who presided over a Talmudic school for many years, and was a zealous opponent, of the Cabala. His son Elijah, also a Talmudist, his father's successor as rabbi in Candia, and husband of the above-mentioned Casta, was the father of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (See Jew. Encyc. iv. 508) the most illustrious member of the family (compare Steinschneider, "Cat. Bodl." 1510). It is not reported that children were born to him on the island of Candia (see his lament in his "Ta'alumot Ḥokmah," ii. 3b, Preface). His remarks ("Elim,"p. 32), "that he had a little daughter at home," and "that he needed much money for his daughter's dowry," are explained by Moses Metz as humorous references to his work "Bosmat bat Shelomoh" (Geiger, "Melo Chofnajim," p. xlv.) and to the expenses of its printing. He was married in Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he held the position of communal physician, and where his two daughters were born. One died young (Carmoly, in "Allg. Zeit. des Jud." 1856, Jahrg. 20, No. 20, with inexact statement of sources). The other, Sarah, married the physician Solomon Bing, and after his death (1680) Isai Oppenheim, who died, according to her tombstone (No. 3009 in the old cemetery of the Israelitic community in Frankfort), Feb. 9, 1691 (M. Horwitz, in Berliner's "Magazin," x. 113).

Bibliography: Geiger, Melo Chofnajim, pp. xii. et seq.: Nachgel. Schriften, iii, 1 et seq.; Grätz, Gesch. viii. 244, 252, 254, 281, 282; ix. 8, 36, 147; Carmoly, Histoire des Médccins Juifs, pp. 137, 192.

See "Wo und wann ist Joseph Delmedigo gestorben?" von B. Weinryb in Breslau

Published in Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, Vol. 74 (1930), Issue 1, page 41-43 Published 1930 Language German