Shabtai ben Abraham Donnolo

Shabbethai Donnolo (913 – c. 982, Hebrew: שבתי דונולו) was a Graeco-Italian Jewish physician, and writer on medicine and astrology.

Biography

He was born at Oria, Apulia. When twelve years of age, he was made prisoner by the Arabs under the leadership of the Fatimite Abu Ahmad Ja'far ibn 'Ubaid, but was ransomed by his relatives at Otranto, while the rest of his family was carried to Palermo and North Africa. He turned to medicine and astrology for a livelihood, studying the sciences of "the Greeks, Arabs, Babylonians, and Indians." As no Jews at that time busied themselves with these subjects, he traveled in Italy in search of learned non-Jews. His special teacher was an Arab from Baghdad. According to the biography of Nilus the Younger, abbot of Rossano, he practiced medicine for some time in that city. Later he would become the Byzantine court physician. The alleged gravestone of Donnolo, found by Abraham Firkovich in the Crimea, is evidently spurious.

Donnolo is one of the earliest Jewish writers on medicine, and one of the few Jewish scholars of Southern Italy at this early time. What remains of his medical work, Sefer ha-Yaḳar (Precious Book), was published by Moritz Steinschneider in 1867, from MS. 37, Plut. 88, in the Medicean Library at Florence, and contains an "antidotarium," or book of practical directions for preparing medicinal roots. Donnolo's medical science is based upon Greco-Latin sources; only one Arabic plant-name occurs. He cites Asaph the Jew.

In addition, he wrote a commentary to the Sefer Yetzirah, dealing almost wholly with astrology, and called Ḥakhmoni (in one manuscript, Taḥkemoni; see II Second Book of Samuel 23:8; I Chronicles 11:11). At the end of the preface is a table giving the position of the heavenly bodies in Elul 946. The treatise published by Adolf Neubauer[2] is part of a religio-astrological commentary on Genesis 1:26 (written in 982), which probably formed a sort of introduction to the Ḥakhmoni, in which the idea that man is a microcosm is worked out. Parts of this introduction are found word for word in the anonymous Orchot Tzaddikim (or Sefer Middot) and the Sheveṭ Musar of Elijah ben Solomon Abraham ha-Kohen. It was published separately by Jellinek.

Donnolo's style is worthy of note; many Hebrew forms and words are here found for the first time. He uses the acrostic freely, giving his own name not only in the poetic mosaic of passages from the Book of Proverbs in the Bodleian fragment, but also in the rimed prose introduction to the Ḥakemani. He is also the first to cite the Midrash Tehillim. In the Pseudo-Saadia commentary to the Sefer Yetzirah there are many citations from Donnolo, notably from a lost commentary of his on the Baraita of Samuel. Abraham Epstein has shown that extensive extracts from Donnolo are also to be found in Eleazar of Worms' Sefer Yetzirah commentary (ed. Przemysl, 1889), even to the extent of the tables and illustrations. He is also mentioned by Rashi, by Samuel of Acco (who calls the Ḥakemani the Sefer ha-Mazzalot), and by Solomon ben Judah of Lunel (1424) in his Ḥesheḳ Shelomoh to Judah Halevi's Kuzari.

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The earliest evidence for Jewish settlement in southern Italy dates from the fourth century C.E. Despite occasional episodes of persecution, the communities of Bari, Oria, Taranto, and Otranto flourished under Byzantine rule, which extended from the sixth to the tenth century. Their high level of learning is reflected in the saying of Rabbenu Tam(12th century): “From Bari shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Otranto.” Most of the information on Jews in the pre-Islamic period is gleaned from tomb inscriptions and Byzantine legislation.

After the Muslims gained a permanent base in Sicily around 827 to 831, they frequently raided Apulia, Calabria, and Campania in southern Italy. The breakup of the duchy of Benevento in the ninth century resulted in a state of war between the Lombard princes who ruled most of this area, formerly a Byzantine province. This facilitated the Muslim conquest of the ports of Taranto (846) and Bari (847). Other cities were raided and sacked but not occupied permanently.

The emirate of Bari (847–871) in Apulia was ruled by three emirs, Khalfūn, al-Mufarraj ibn Sallām, and Sawdān al-Mazarī (857–871), the latter of whom, around 864, obtained formal investiture from Caliph al-Mustʿīn of Baghdad. Sawdān al-Mazarī is mentioned in Megillat Aḥima‛aṣ (The Scroll of Ahimaaz). This Hebrew literary chronicle, also known as Sefer Yuḥasin (Book ofGenealogy), was compiled by Ahimaaz ben Paltiel in the eleventh century and is one of the few sources on the Jews in Muslim Bari. It recounts how one Aaron of Baghdad visited the Jewish communities of southern Italy, performed miracles, and argued with local Jews about their customs. Aaron served Sawdān for six months as a counselor before leaving for Egypt. It has been suggested that the saga of Aaron embodies a collective memory of the religious changes that took place in southern Italy in the ninth century, when the Babylonian rite was introduced and replaced the Palestinian tradition.

Another story in the chronicle tells how the city of Oria sent Shephatiah ben Amitay to negotiate with Sawdān. The emir kept Shephatiah so long that it looked as if he would be unable to leave for home before the Sabbath. Having learned that the emir planned to sack Oria, Shephatiah rode forth nonetheless and succeeded in warning the city. Both stories reflect the role of Jews as intermediaries between Christians and Muslims. The chronicle portrays Sawdān as knowing enough about Jews to be aware of the rules of Sabbath observance. Aaron’s embarking in Bari on a ship bound for Egypt reflects the ongoing commercial ties between the two countries, which are also attested by the itinerary of the monk Bernard, around 864 to 866, who took the same route on his way to the Holy Land. Bari fell in 871 to Emperor Louis II, and Taranto was recaptured by the Byzantines in 880. But the Muslim presence and occasional raids did not cease despite these defeats.

In the first half of the tenth century, Reggio, Brindisi, Taranto, and Oria were all sacked by troops sent by ʻUbayd Allāh al-Mahdī (909–934), the first Fatimid caliph of Ifrīqiya (medieval Tunisia). Ten rabbis and other Jews were killed in the raid on Oria in 925, and others were captured, including twelve-year-old Shabbetay Donnolo (b. 913), later renowned as a philosopher and physician. Donnolo was taken to Taranto and ransomed there. Other members of his family were taken to Palermo and Ifrīqiya. Donnolo relates the story of his capture and ransoming in the introduction to his SeferḤakhmoni (Commentary to the Book of Creation).

According to the Latin sources, Muslim raiders sacked Oria again in 977, destroying the city and transferring its inhabitants to Sicily. Muslim attacks continued even after the establishment of Norman rule. A Geniza letter from Alexandria around 1130 mentions that the corsair Ibn Maymūn sailed with seventeen ships from al-Mahdiyya, plundered cities on the Italian mainland, and returned with the booty. Muslim raids became less frequent in the later Middle Ages, and it was only in 1480, when the Ottoman Turks captured Otranto, that Jews were killed along with the Christian population.

Despite their frequent contacts with Muslims, the Jews in southern Italy did not use Arabic. Shabbetay Donnolo does not mention Arabic among the languages he knew. There was also no cultural exchange between Jews and Muslims, probably because the raiders who attacked and occupied parts of southern Italy were mostly uneducated soldiers of fortune, whereas the Jewish elite was still part of the Greek-speaking Byzantine world. Moreover, in its short existence, the emirate of Bari never became a cultural or political center.

Nadia Zeldes

Bibliography

Bonfil, Reuven. “Tra due mondi,” Italia Judaica 1 (1981): 135–158.

Colafemmina, Cesare. Sefer Yuḥasin: Libro delle discendenze (Bari: Messaggi, 2001).

Donnolo, Shabbetai. Sefer Ḥakhmoni, ed. D. Castelli (Florence, 1880).

Klar, Benjamin. Meghillat Aḥimaʿaṣ, new rev. ed. (Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1974).

Kreutz, Barbara. Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).

Musca, Giosuè. L’emirato di Bari 847–871 (Bari: Dedalo Liostampa, 1964).

Rizzitano, Umberto. “Īṭaliya,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1986), pp. 274-276.

Starr, Joshua. The Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641–1204 (Athens: Verlag der Byzantinisch-Neugriechischen Jahrbücher, 1939).

Zeldes, Nadia, and Miriam Frenkel. “The Sicilian Trade—Jewish Merchants in the Mediterranean in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” Michael 14 (1997): 89–137.