Eith Ketz [The Advent of the Messiah]

CANTARINI, ISAAC

Solomon Proops

Amsterdam

1710

FIRST EDITION. Engraved frontispiece of the Binding of the Isaac

Vinograd, Amsterdam 921; Roest 251

The author, known by the Hebrew acrostic of his name “YeCHKaM” (Yitzchak Chaim Kohen Min ha-chazanim), was one of the Paduan physician-poets who had some influence upon young Moses Chaim Luzzatto (RaMCHaL). “Min ha-Chazanim” is the Hebrew equivalent of the Italian surname “Cantarini.” (See “R. Abraham Hakohen of Zante and the circle of physician-poets in Padua,” Ha-Sifrut, 26 (1978):115; Meir Benayahu, Kabbalistic Writings of R. Moses Chaim Luzzatto (1979), p. 239. The late President of the State of Israel, Shlomo Zalman Shazar (Rubashov), whose scholarly reputation rests upon his monographs on the history of the Sabbatian movement, published an analysis of Cantarini’s work entitled, “Ha-Tikvah li-Shenath T”K [The Hope for the Year 1740]