Abraham Ishmael Ḥay Sanguinetti

Abraham Ishmael Ḥay Sanguinetti was the son of a wealthy family from Modena. In the summer of 1741, he set out on a voyage from Livorno to Palestine, with a group of students of Ḥayim Ibn Atar. Sanguinetti intended to study in the yeshiva founded by Ibn Atar, “Knesset Israel.” As a result of the plague in Jerusalem, Sanguinetti and his fellow travelers spent time in Acre and Safed before finally arriving in Jerusalem in the summer of 1742. Sanguinetti wrote four letters describing his journey and sojourns in Acre and Safed, including a meeting with Moses Luzzatto. Ibn Atar died in 1743, after which Sanguinetti may have returned to Italy. However, he was certainly in Jerusalem in the 1750s, as his signature appears on documents from that decade. Sanguinetti was a member of the group of kabbalists named Ahavat Shalom, established by Ḥayim Azulai; he also served as an emissary, traveling abroad to raise funds for Jews in Palestine. He died in Jerusalem.