FRIZZI, BENEDETTO. (Ha’Kohen, Benzion Raphael). Difesa contro gli attacchi fatti alia Nazione Ebrea nel Libro Intitolato “Della Influenza Del Ghetto Nello Stato” [response to the slanderous attack of Count G. B. D’Arco against the Jews of Italy]

Born in Ostiano in 1756, Benedetto Frizzi studied medicine at the University of Pavia. A man of great learning and wide renown, Frizzi was considered one of the most outstanding Jewish scholars of the Enlightenment in Western Europe. He became known as the champion of Italian Jewry against the attacks of Count d’Acro during the debate which took place in Austrian Lombardy with regard to the reformed position of Jews. In his anonymously penned Difesa contro gli attacchi, Frizzi sought to disprove the Count’s accusations that Jews hated Christians and that their economic activities tended to impoverish the countries they lived in. He describes Jewish theology, philosophy, and ethics and then analyzes in great detail and with many examples, the economic role of the Jews in Europe, particularly Italy. He outlines the valuable functions they fulfilled historically and attributes their success as merchants to quality, low prices, avoidance of borrowing at interest and their decision to trade in marketable products. The work serves as an important source on the economic situation of contemporary Italian Jewry. See: S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977), pp. 711-2