Isaac Lampronti

Who was Isaac Lampronti?

Isaac Lampronti was an Italian rabbi and physician, best known as author of the rabbinic encyclopedia Paħad Yitzħak.

Lampronti was born at Ferrara. His great-grandfather, Samuel Lampronti, had emigrated from Constantinople to Ferrara in the sixteenth century. His father, a man of wealth, died when Isaac was six years of age. Isaac was sent to school in his eighth year, his teachers being Shabbethai Elhanan Recanati and S. E. Sanguineti. In his fourteenth year he went to Lugo, to the school of R. Manoah Provençal; thence he went to Padua to study medicine, attending at the same time lectures on philosophy. There he enjoyed especially the intercourse and instruction of the physician R. Isaac Cantarini.

On completing his medical studies he was employed as teacher for a time in various Italian cities, and on his return to his native city the yeshibah conferred upon him the title of ḥaber. Shortly afterward he went to Mantua to complete his rabbinical studies under R. Judah Brial and R. Joseph Cases, who also was a physician. Lampronti entered into especially close relations with R. Judah, whom he frequently mentions in his great work. When Mantua was threatened with war, in 1701, Lampronti, following the wishes of his family, returned to Ferrara, where he established himself as physician and teacher, delivering lectures for adults in his house both on week-days and on the Sabbath.