Tzemach David-Dittionario Novo Hebraico [trilingual lexicon]

POMIS, DAVID DE

Giovanni di Gara

Venice

1587

FIRST EDITION. Arms of Pope Sixtus V on f. 2r and heraldic crest of the de Pomis (“Min Hatapuchim”) Family on f.5v (Yaari Printers’ Marks no. 41).On opening blank Latin and English inscriptions. On rear blank, Italian inscription. On f.71v. a learned marginalium referring to Buxtorf

Vinograd, Venice 717; Habermann, di Gara 97a; Adams P-1823

Celebrated Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Italian dictionary presenting definitions from Kimchi’s Shorashim, Levita’s Tishbi, and Nathan benYechiel’s Aruch, within which are numerous historical and scientific observations and discourses. Trained as a medical doctor, de Pomis’s expositions of biblical and talmudic terms comprise a good deal of curious and interesting medieval scientific lore. The introductory pages embody the author’s genealogy and autobiography, and recount the remakable history of the ancient de Pomis family, brought in chains to Italy from the Land of Israel by Emperor Titus following his destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The work is dedicated to Pope Sextius V, in gratitude for the restoration of the concession permitting Jewish physicians to attend to Christian paitents for the years 1585-1590. See C. Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (1950), pp. 223-225. In his memoirs, the distinguished historian Arnaldo Momigliano recalls as a child having used daily the Hebrew-Latin-Italian dictionary Zemah David by the famous Renaissance Jewish doctor of Spoleto, David De Pomis. Arnaldo Momigliano, Essays on Ancient and Modern Judaism (Chicago, 1994), p. 124.