Immanuel Benevento

Immanuel Benevento, a student of the Italian kabbalist Moses Basola (1480–1560), was a kabbalist and grammarian. In addition to composing his own work on Hebrew grammar, Livyat ḥen (Ornament of Grace), Benevento worked as corrector for the press in Mantua and had connections to other Hebrew printers in Italy, where he prepared kabbalistic works for printing. Benevento arranged and annotated the first printed edition of the Zohar (published in Mantua between 1558 and 1560), employing ten different manuscript versions. As part of this endeavor, he traveled to the Ottoman Empire in search of further manuscripts.