(Italian rabbi, grammarian and poet, 1515-1611). Autograph Responsum Signed, written in Hebrew. Addressed to: “The finest of sages, S.L.”

ARCHIVOLTI, SAMUEL

1st Ellul

Padua

1607

This responsum discusses the Halachic category of “chaticha hareuyah lehitchabed,” meat that is fitting to be considered as food.

Well known as a grammarian Rabbi Shmuel Archivolti was born in Cesena and in his youth studied with R. Meir Katzenellenbogen. In 1563 Archivolti is known to have lived in Bologna; he visited Venice occasionally between 1565 and 1602, where he worked as a proof corrector. From 1568 he lived in Padua, where he served as principal of the yeshivah and Av Beth Din. Leone Modena was his pupil and so was Cardinal Marco Marini, who studied Hebrew with him. Modena and Archivolti contributed laudatory poems to Marini's Arca Noae (1593). Archivolti's most important works are He'aroth LeSepher He’Aruch, supplying textual references on midrashic and talmudic passages cited in the Aruch of Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome (first printed in Venice, 1553); Degel Ahavah, an ethical work (Venice, 1551); Ma'yan Ganim (Venice, 1553); and his major work, a Hebrew grammar, Arugath HaBosem (Venice, 1602). Archivolti used his own poems as models to demonstrate 22 varying metrical forms.