Joseph Tsarfati

Joseph ben Samuel Tsarfati, also known as Giuseppe Gallo, was a physician, poet, mathematician, and linguist. Tsarfati lived in Rome and attended to a highly fashionable clientele, including cardinals. The pope extended to Tsarfati the same privileges that his father had been accorded, including the right to treat Christian patients, an exemption from wearing the Jewish badge, and papal protection. Tsarfati hosted David ha-Reuveni during the latter’s stay in Rome (1524–1525). Tsarfati wrote many poems, three of which were published in his lifetime, as well as a translation of Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina into Hebrew, of which only his introductory poem has survived. He died during the Sack of Rome in 1527.