Abraham de Balmes

Who was Abraham de Balmes?

Abraham de Balmes ben Meir was Italian Jewish physician and translator of the early 16th century.

A short time before his death he was physician in ordinary to the cardinal Dominico Grimani at Padua. See Steinschneider, "Hebr. Bibl." xxi. 7 and 67; "Hebr. Uebers." p. 62; Perles, "Beiträge," pp. 193, 197, etc.

Through his Latin translations of many Hebrew works on philosophy and astronomy he attained a great reputation in the Christian world. He dedicated to Cardinal Grimani two of these translations: of an astronomical work in Arabic by Ibn al-Heitham, which had been translated into Hebrew by Jacob ben Machir, in 1372, under the title "Liber de Mundo"; of the "Farewell Letter" of the Arabic philosopher Ibn Bajjah, which he translated from the Hebrew under the title "Epistolæ Expeditionis". In Padua Abraham delivered philosophical addresses to Christian audiences.

He also compiled a Hebrew grammar, in which he attempted to treat philosophically the construction of the Hebrew language and to refute the opinions of the eminent grammarian David Kimhi. In this work Abraham was the first to treat the syntax as a special part of the grammar. The book was published, with a Latin translation and a supplementary treatise on the Hebrew accents, under the title "Miḳneh Abram," by Maestro Ḳalonymos ben David, a well-known translator. Grätz suggests, without evidence, that the printer Daniel Bomberg translated this grammar.