ELIEZER ISAAC COHEN BEN ABRAHAM ASHKENAZI OF VITERBO:

Italian physician and Talmudic authority; born at Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century; died, probably at Sienna, Oct. 16, 1590. He was a brother-in-law of the physician and Talmudist David de Pomis, and, like him, distinguished in both medicine and rabbinical literature. A halakic decision of his on "Ḥaliẓah" is quoted by Isaac Lampronti ("Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ," s.v. ); and Moses Provençal, in his responsa, cites him as an authority and gives him the title "Ha-Kohen ha-Gadol." In 1587 the community of Bologna consulted Eliezer regarding an ignorant shoḥeṭ.

Eliezer is believed to be identical with Theodoro de Sacerdotibus, the physician of Pope Julius III. It is probable that the "Librum de Duello," credited to Isaac Viterbo by Bartolocci ("Bibl. Rabb." iii. 891) followed by Wolf ("Bibl. Hebr." i. 651, No. 1176), was the work of Eliezer. Late in life Eliezer settled at Sienna. The high esteem in which he was held is shown by the elegy composed at his death by Jacob of Tivoli (Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 1998).

Bibliography:
  • Marini, Degli Archiatri Pontificii, i. 417;
  • Carmoly, Histoire des Médecins Juifs, in Revue Orientale, ii. 134;
  • R. E. J. x. 185;
  • Allg. Zeit. des Jud. 1842, p. 631;
  • Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, ii. 144, 259, 262.
K. I. Br.
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