Shabbethai Donnolo
Shabbethai Donnolo (913 – c. 982, Hebrew: שבתי דונולו) was a Graeco-Italian[1] Jewish physician and writer on medicine and astrology.
Biography
Donnolo was born in
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-Yaqar "Precious Book", was published by Moritz Steinschneider in 1867, from MS. 37, Plut. 88, in the Medicean Library in Florence, and contains an "antidotarium," or book of practical directions for preparing medicinal roots. Donnolo's medical science is based on Greco-Latin sources;[2] 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 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 of the year 946. The treatise published by Adolf Neubauer[3] is part of a religio-astrological commentary on the Book of 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 Adolf Jellinek.[4]
Donnolo's style is worthy of note; many Hebrew forms and words are here found for the first time. He uses the
References
- ^ Magdalino, P. and Mavroudi, M. "The Occult Sciences in Byzantium", p. 293, 2006
- ^ Tamani G. L'opera medica di Shabbetay Donnolo [Shabbetay Donnolo's medical work]. Med Secoli. 1999;11(3):547-58. Italian. PMID: 11624560.
- ^ Rev. Et. Juives, xxii.214
- ^ Der Mensch als Ebenbild Gottes, Leipzig, 1845
- ^ Rashi to Eruvin 56a
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Richard Gottheil (1901–1906). "Shabbethai Donnolo". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Its bibliography:
- Preface to Ḥakemani, published by D. Castelli;
- Il Commenti di Sabb. Donnolo sul Libro della Creazione, Florence, 1880 (reprinted in Sefer Yeẓirah, pp. 121–148, Warsaw, 1884).
- Text of medical fragments, edited by M. Steinschneider — Donnolo, Fragment des Aeltesten Med. Werkes, etc., 1867;
- translation in idem, Donnolo (Berlin, 1868; from Archiv für Pathologische Anatomic, vols. xxxviii-xlii)
- See, also, Biography of Nilus, in Acta Sanctorum, vii.313;
- Leopold Zunz, G.V. 2d ed., p. 375;
- Moritz Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 2231 et seq.;
- idem, Hebr. Uebers. p. 446;
- idem, in Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, xlii.121;
- A. Epstein, in ib. xxxvii.75 et seq.;
- Heinrich Graetz, Gesch. 3d ed., v.292;
- Buber, Lekah Tob, p. 22;
- Berliner's Magazin, 1892, p. 79;
- Isaac Hirsch Weiss, Dor, iv.227, Vienna, 1887.