David de Pomis

Born in Spoleto, David de Pomis was descended from a distinguished Roman family, traditionally recognized as one of four Jewish families brought to Italy by Titus. After studying medicine and philosophy in Perugia, de Pomis settled in Magliano, where he became a rabbi and a physician. However, following the decree of Pope Paul IV in 1555 forbidding Jewish physicians to attend Christians, he embarked on a period of wandering. De Pomis finally settled in Venice in 1569. He became the most famous Jewish physician in the city at the time and was granted permission to attend Christians by Pope Pius IV. De Pomis’s De medico Hebraico enarratio apologica (1588) is a defense of the Jewish physician. De Pomis was also a linguist and is most famous for his Tsemaḥ David (The Sprout of David; 1587), a trilingual dictionary (Hebrew, Latin, and Italian), which he dedicated to Pope Sixtus V (1521–1590). De Pomis translated Ecclesiastes into Italian and wrote numerous medical treatises. Other works (such as his commentaries on Job and Daniel) were never printed.