Creator Bio

Benedetto Frizzi

1756–1844

A physician and analytical scholar who published prolifically on a variety of topics from law, to medicine, to music, Benedetto Frizzi (Benzion Raphael Kohen) championed and critiqued Jewish life in Italy. Born in Ostiano, he was the first Jew to attend the local Jesuit public school. After receiving his medical degree in Pavia, he opened a practice in Trieste. It was there that he wrote Difesa in response to antisemitic attacks in Giovanni Battista d’Arco’s writing. In 1790, Frizzi founded the first medical journal in Italy. His works on Jewish history, rabbinical practice, and Talmudic scholarship sought to arouse respect for the Torah while advocating modernization within the Jewish community.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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Defense against the Attacks Leveled against the Jewish Nation in the Book Entitled "On the Ghetto’s Influence on the State"

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Primary Source

Dissertation on Medical Policy Concerning Certain Foods Which Are Prohibited in the Pentateuch

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All nations have been subject, in their authors, as in all other things, to significant important changes. Inclinations, needs, and the relations of their subjects change, as do the passions of the…
Painting of two men seated at a table with another man standing behind them, and woman in doorway carrying tray of tea.
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Related Guide

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