ROSSI or RUBEIS, AZZARIAH (=BONANTO) DE, was born, 1513, in Mantua, of the celebrated family called in Hebrew rpnritin in=--De Rossi, who, like the families coninnri in-= De Fomis, nvoprs in, and n+13,:r1 in, traced their origin to those Jews who were led into captivity after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian. Naturally endowed with extraordinary powers of mind, keenness of perception, refinement of taste, and with an insatiable desire for the acquisition of knowledge, De Rossi, or Azarlak Min Ha-ild °ming, as the Jews call him, devoted himself from his very youth with unwearied assiduity and zeal to the study of Hebrew literature, and of medicine as his profession. His exclusive application to the acquisition of Talmuclic lore was, however, provi dentially interrupted. The infamous edict of Pope Julius III. 0553) for the destruction of the Talmud and the Rabbinic writings, in consequence of which numerous volumes of Hebrew works were com mitted to the flames in Rome, Bologna, Venice, Ancona, Padua, etc.—in Cremona alone ro,000 volumes of the Talmud, and moo copies of a com mentary on the Pentateuch being destroyed—De Rossi was led to study archmology, history, and the writings of ancient Greece and Rome, and the Fathers, as this wholesale exterminadon made Hebrew books scarce. These acquisitions were of great use to him afterwards, when he devoted him self more especially to the archmology of the He brews, and to the criticism of the Hebrew language and sacred text. Having prosecuted his studies in Mantua, Ferrara, Ancona, Sabionetta, Bologna, etc., he went back to Ferrara with the accumulated learning of more than half a century, the results of which he now communicated to the world in his celebrated work entitled M4),17 -ow:, The Light of the Eyes, which appeared in Mantua 1574-75. This remarkable work, which is an encyclopmdia of Biblical literature, consists of three parts, sub divided into chapters as follows—Part I., entitled, 1:147.6N '11'), The Voice of the Lora', which was occa sioned by the terrible earthquake at Ferrara, Nov. 18 and 19, 1570, and which De Rossi witnessed, contains a dissertation on the theory of earthquakes according to the Bible and the Talmudic writings, giving also at the same time the opinions of Plu tarch, Seneca, Pliny, and other ancients, as well as of modenas, on this subject. Nearly the whole of this part has been translated into Latin by Hot tinger in his dissertation on earthquakes. Part II., entitled npt Mir), The Glory of Ola' Men, gives an account of the origin of the Septuagint and is a Hebrew translation of Aristeas' History of this Greek Version. This part was published separately, Vilna at& Part III. is entitled Words of Understanding ; it consists of four sec tions (n"1/:Nn), subdivided into sixty chapters (n4r1D), as follows :—The first section (N embracing cap. i. -xiii., treats on the use of the Fa thers and heathen writings, Philo, the Jewish sects, especially the Essenes, the Septuagint and the Ara maic versions, the history of the Jews in Alexandria and Cyrene, the Bar Kochba revolts, the ten tribes, the Talmudic story about Alexander the Great's entry into Jerusalem, and on the Talmudic theory of nature. The second section ("2 nnNn), em bracing cap. xiv.-xxviii., contains treatises on the explanation of Scripture by ancient sages, on the Midrash and Hagadic exegesis, on sundry striking differences between Christian and Jewish writers, the old Persian list of kings, on the different eras of the Jewish chronology, Josephus, on the ancient chronicle entitled Seder Olam, on the series of high priests during the second temple, etc. etc. The
third section (') inzw), embracing cap. xxix. -xliv., contains treatises on the Biblical chronology and the Jewish calendar, on old Persian kings, extracts from and criticisms on Philo, Josephus, etc. etc. Whilst the fourth section (1 nnNn), embracing cap. xlv. lx., contains treatises on the difference between Onkelos and Aquila, on the sacerdotal vestments, on the prayers used by the Jews, on the literature and chronology of the Samaritans, on the antiquity of Hebrew language, on the history of the Hebrew text, on the use of the Aramaic among the Jews, on the antiquity of the letters and the vowel points, on Hebrew poetry. The following chapters of this part have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci : cap. ix. and xxii., in his Bibliotheca Magna Rab binica, i. 680, 800 ; by Bochart, cap. xvi. and x.xi. in his Hierozoicon ; Buxtorf, cap. ix., xlii., lix., in his Tractatus de Antiquitate Punctorum, Basel 1648 ; cap. 1. and lx. in his translation of Kiesarz, Basel 1660 ; cap. lvi. and lviii. in his Di s ser t a tio nes , etc., Basel 1662 ; by Meyer, cap. viii., xiv., and xix. in his version of the 613, 1110, Amst. 1699 ; by Morin, cap. iii., v., vii., ix., xix., xx., in his Exercitationes Biblica, Paris 1638, 1699 ; and by Vorst, cap. xxiii., xxv., xxxiii., xxxv., in his version of the 1)1 nns., Leyden 1644. There are English translations of cap. xvi. by Raphel, Hebrew Review, vol. ii., London 1837 ; and of cap. lx. by Bishop Lowth in the preliminary dissertation to his translation of Isaiah, p. xxviii., etc., ed. London 1835. This brief analysis of its contents will show, to some extent, the great im portance of this work to the student of the Bible, and to the critic of the O. T. text. De Rossi has brought together in the Meor Enajim a mass of ancient Jewish information bearing on the sacred text and on Biblical literature which can hardly be found elsewhere. One chapter of this remarkable cyclopmdia of Biblical literature sufficed to suggest the idea of Hebrew poetry to the erudite Bishop Lowth [LowTH]. De Rossi has criticised his material in so liberal a manner that many of the Jews proscribed the work, whilst others wrote in refutation of some of his liberal criticisms. Promi nent amongst these were R. Moses Provencale of Mantua, and R Isaac Finzi of Pisari. De Rossi subjoined to some copies of the Meor Enafim itself a reply to the former, and wrote a separate work, entitled rt=9 ran mo, The RI:fining-pot for Silver, after Prov. xvii. 3. This work, which is an essential supplement to the Hear Enajim, has only recently been published by Filipowski, Edin burgh 1854. Dr. Ginsburg possesses De Rossi's own copy of the Meor Enajim with the author's autograph emendations and extensive additions, which are of great importance to Biblical literature, and which will shortly be published. De Rossi died Nov. 1577, in the neighbourhood of Mantua.
Comp. Zunz, Biography of De Rossi in the Hebrew Annual, entitled Kerem Chemed, vol. v. p. 131, etc., Prague 1841 ; Rappaport's Additions to this Biography, ibid. 159, etc. ; Stipp/molt to the Bio graphy of De Rossi, by Zunz, in the same annual, vol. vii. p. 119, etc., Prague 1843 ; the biography by the same author prefixed to De Rossi's ran DE) ; Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bbliotheca Bodleiana, col. 747 ; Fiirst, Bibliotheca Yudaica, 17 -174.—C. D. G.