Bernard, Jaques, ed. Nouvelles de la republique des lettres [“News from the Republic of Letters”] (Literary review). July-December 1702

The September issue of Nouvelles de la republique des lettres, contains on pp. 277-293 a review of David Nieto’s literary debut, Pascalogia or Discorso della Pasca (Cologne, 1702). In this work, divided into five Dialogues, Nieto discusses the differing dates of Easter in the Latin and Greek Orthodox Churches, and traces the development of the calendar since the Nicene Council through the Gregorian Reformation until the year 1700. The title derives from the fact that Nieto relates the date of the Christian Easter to that of the Jewish Passover. He exhibits a profound understanding of the workings of the Jewish calendar, and the various systems of the Talmudic sages Samuel and Rav Ada. At the time, Nieto, who studied medicine at the University of Padua, was acting as both a physician and as Dayan and preacher of the Jewish community of Livorno. In that same year of 1702, Nieto would take up the call to serve as Haham of the Sephardic community of London, in which capacity he would serve until his death in 1728. As a postscript, the production of Jewish calendars became a tradition in the Nieto family. Commencing with David Nieto, an astronomer of some note, whose calendar (1717) served the London community until the 19th century, the tradition was carried on by David’s son Isaac Nieto(1697-1773), grandson Phinehas Nieto (1739-1812), and great-grandson Abraham Chaim Nieto. The latter published “Nieto’s Jewish Almanac for One Hundred Years 1902-2002.” See JE, Vol. IX, pp. 302-3; EJ, Vol. XII, cols. 1152-3; David B. Ruderman, “Jewish Thought in Newtonian England: The Career and Writings of David Nieto,” PAAJR, LVIII (1992), pp. 193-219. Founded in 1684 by Bayle, Nouvelles de la republique des lettres was the most influential literary and philosophical review of the time