Daniel da Pisa

Daniel da Pisa was a scion of the well-known Italian Jewish da Pisa family of bankers, merchants, and financiers; he himself lived in Pisa, Florence, and Rome. In the last city, he became a close associate of Pope Clement VII, who entrusted him with drawing up new regulations (takkanot or capitoli) for the Jews of Rome. These were designed to reconcile, mainly economically and politically, Rome’s various Jewish communities: the Italian community, groups of Jews from France and Germany, and Iberian Jews who arrived following the expulsions in 1492. Da Pisa’s regulations, which involved the newcomers in communal management, were approved by the pope in 1524. David Reuveni, who aroused messianic fervor in the 1520s, approached da Pisa when seeking an audience with the pope. Da Pisa described Reuveni in his letters and acted as a translator at Reuveni’s meetings with church figures.