Sepher Yuchasin [“Book of Genealogies”: onomasticon and history]. With printed glosses by Moses Isserles (RaM”A). * Appended: Seder Olam Zuta

ZACUTO, ABRAHAM

Isaac Prostitz

Cracow

1580-1

Second Edition. First edition with Isserles’ notes. The Salman Schocken copy

Vinograd, Cracow 63; Adams A-46

The astronomer Abraham Zacuto (1452-c.1515) served at the court of Salamanca and following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, became court astronomer in the service of King John II of Portugal. Zacuto’s astrolabe, tables and maritime charts were instrumental in Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s 1496 voyage to India. Upon the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497, Zacuto took up residence in Tunis. There, he worked on his history, Sepher ha-Yuchasin. Zacuto often differs with the findings of his predecessors, R. Sherira Gaon, Abraham ibn Daud Halevi (author Sepher ha-Kabbalah), and Maimonides. Though the work takes the reader from Adam to the author’s day, scholars have noted that the main contribution of the author are his original - and at times controversial - interpretations of several events during the Second Temple and Talmudic eras. See EJ, Vol. XVI, cols. 903-906