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The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2002) 299-302 Joanna Weinberg. Azariah de' Rossi: The Light of the Eyes. Translated from the Hebrew with an introduction and annotations by Joanna Weinberg . Yale Judaica Series XXXI. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. xlix + 802. The innovative character of Azariah de' Rossi (ca. 151 1-ca. 1577) in the history of Jewish thought and scholarship has often been highlighted, first of all by the maskilim, the champions of the "Jewish Enlightenment" and then by the founders of 19th-century Wissenschaft des Judentums. Therefore it might seem surprising that his landmark work MeDor cEinayim ("Light of the Eyes"), a kind of prolegomena to any further attempt of critical Jewish historiography, still is only (fully) available in the 1866 edition by David Casse] ' and so far has never been completely translated. The latter may be the case since anybody considering the awesome task of rendering MeDor cEinayim in a modern language will not only have felt challenged by the obscure style of the original, but also by the vast erudition needed to explain de' Rossi's numerous allusions, ranging from late antique to 1 6th-century literature. One of the few people equal to the task is Joanna Weinberg, who in a number of highly acclaimed studies has shown deep insights into the work of this outstanding Italian Jewish polymath. Weinberg's annotated translation of Me°or cEinayim is preceded by an introduction, which in its condensed character and relative brevity of sixtyfive pages manages to summarize the scholarship on de' Rossi. After a short discussion of the scanty available data about de' Rossi's life, Weinberg draws attention to the unique place of Me1Or cEinayim in contemporary Jewish literature. In regard to the specific character of 16th-century Jewish historical productions,2 she points out that Light of the Eyes does not follow the literary genre of the chronicle—such as Yosef ha-Kohen's 'Azariah de' Rossi, Me'or cEinayim, ed. David Cassel (Vilna, 1864-66. Repr. Jerusalem, 1970). Several chapters of Me3orcEnayim have also been published and annotated by R. Bonfìl, Azaria de' Rossi: Selected Chaptersfrom Sefer Me^or cEinayim and Matsrefla-Kessef (in Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1991). 2 For some additional bibliography, see A. A. Neuman, "The Shebet Yehuda and Sixteenth Century Historiography," in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, English Section (New York, 1945), pp. 253-273, repr. idem, Landmarks and Goals (Philadelphia , 1953), pp. 82-104; R. Bonfil, "Esiste une storiografia ebraica medioevale?," in Aspetti della storiografia ebraica: Atti del IV Congresso internazionale dell'Associazione Italiana per lo Studio del Guidaismo, S. Miniato, 7-10 Novembre 1983 (Rome, 1987), pp. 227-247; idem, "Jewish Attitudes Toward History and Historical Writing in Pre-Modern Times," Jewish History 11 (1997) 7-40; A. Melamed, "The Perception of Jewish History in Italian Jewish Thought of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 300THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Divre ha-Yamim, to mention a contemporary Hebrew chronicle written in Italy. In contrast, de' Rossi does not reflect on history in the form of a narration of events (narrado rerum), but chooses, instead, the genre of the miscellanea used by encyclopaedists, philologists, and antiquarians of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Weinberg provides an overview of the content of Light of the Eyes (pp. xxiii-xxv) which is divided into three essays : a reflection on the earthquake of Ferrara (1570), which has also been described by a number of Christian contemporaries; a Hebrew translation of the Letter of Aristeas; and studies on Jewish history, chronology, and other antiquarian topics, this third part being the main body of the book. Weinberg's pointed discussion of the "cultural context and purpose" of Light ofthe Eyes is especially insightful (pp. xxv-xxxiii). She stresses that while de' Rossi shared many topics of interest with contemporary Christian scholars, he provided a Jewish dimension to these matters. At the same time, he was aware that his critical approach towards rabbinic literature and his use of non-Jewish sources would not find approval among some of his coreligionists, as Weinberg shows. Nonetheless committed to his faith, de' Rossi argued that non-normative matters discussed in the Talmud...

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