Joseph Shalit Riqueti

Who is Joseph Shalit Riqueti?

Joseph Shalit ben Eliezer Riqueti was a Jewish-Italian scholar born at Safed, and who lived in the second half of the 17th century at Verona, where he directed a Talmudical school. He was the author of Ḥokmat ha-Mishkan or Iggeret Meleket ha-Mishkan, on the construction of the First Temple. He also published a map of Palestine which Zunz supposes to have been prepared as one of the illustrations of a Passover Haggadah.

Besides his own works Joseph edited Ḥibbur Ma'asiyyot, a collection of moral tales, and Gershon ben Asher's Yiḥus ha-Ẓaddiḳim, to which he added notes of his own. He is possibly the earliest author to mention the Midrash ha-Gadol, although it is not clear whether he was referring to the Yemenite work currently known by that title.