Azariah de’ Rossi

Very little is known about the early years of Azariah de’ Rossi, but the breadth of knowledge manifested in his writings suggests that he received a classical Renaissance Jewish education. Born in Mantua, he later lived in Bologna and Ferrara, where the experience of an earthquake in 1570 led him to write. He then proceeded to write his magnum opus, Me’or ‘enayim (Light of the Eyes), which caught the attention of the public. In this book, de’ Rossi questions the validity of some of the traditional chronology and sayings of the sages while using non-Jewish sources—notably Christian authorities such as Aristeas, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, and Eusebius—to construct Jewish history. In 1574, while defending his book in Venice, he added an appendix and altered some passages.