REGGIO, ISAAC SAMUEL, was born August is, 1784, at Giirz, in Illyria. His father, as the Rabbi of the place, gave him a thorough Jewish education, and Reggio, with his brilliant powers, soon became master of the literature of his nation, and acquired an extraordinary knowledge of He brew. His talents and fame secured for him the government appointment to the professorship of literature, history, and geography, at the Lyceum, when Elyria became a French province. At the death of his father Reggio succeeded to the Rab binate of his native place, when he conceived the plan of founding a Rabbinic college. The govern ment having sanctioned the plan (1825), the repre sentatives of the Jewish communities throughout Lombardy met at Venice (1826), drew up the con stitution, and the Rabbi nicum was opened at Padua in 1829. In the midst of all his profes sional duties Reggio devoted himself to the eluci dation of the Scriptures and the advancement of Hebrew literature. The results of his labours in these departments are—(I.) A treatise on the in spiration of the Mosaic law, entitled inNn I*, being an introduction to the Penta teuch, Vienna 1818 ; (2.) An Italian translation of
the Pentateuch, with a Hebrew commentary and a most elaborate introduction, in which he gives an account of one hundred and forty-eight Hebrew expositions of the Pentateuch, of various ages, Vienna 1821, 5 vols. Svo ; (3.) Il libro d'Isaia. Versione poetics fatta sull' original texte ebraico, Vienna 1831 ; (4.) A historico-critical introduction to the book of Esther, entitled, I-6)n nnt* inoN, Vienna 1841. Besides these Reggio wrote numerous treatises on various points connected with the Hebrew Scriptures and literature in the different Jewish periodicals. He died August 29, 1855, at the age of seventy-one. Comp. Stein schneider, Cala' logus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, col. 2135-2137 ; and Fiirst, Biblio theca yudaica, iii. 139-142, where a complete list of Reggio's various treatises is given. See also Geiger, Leo da Modena, Breslau 1856, pp. 57-63. —C. D. G.