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Rabbi Moses da Rieti
Miqdash Me‘at (1851)
Native name	משה בר' יצחק מריאיטי Mosè di Gaio da Rieti
Born	1388
Died	1466
Notable works	Miqdash Me‘at Iggeret Ya‘ar haLevanon
Signature

Moses da Rieti^[a] (1388–1466) was a prolific Italian-Jewish poet, philosopher, and physician from Rieti who composed works in Hebrew and Judeo-Italian.^[1]

Miqdash Me‘at (Little Sanctuary), his major work, is a transitionally post-medieval and philosophical Hebrew poem explicitly inspired by the Divine Comedy in both plot and structure, and also includes an encyclopedia of sciences, a Jewish paradise fantasy and a post-biblical history of Jewish literature.^[2] Miqdash Me‘at makes explicit metaphor in its structure as an homage to the Temple of Jerusalem.^[1] Rieti was influenced by Yehuda Romano.^[2] Rieti's style is complex and he speaks on behalf of the Jewish people, with Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism especially in the tradition of Maimonides, and follows the terza rima of Dante Alighieri, the first Hebrew poet to do so.^[3] Called a Hebrew Dante, Rieti's work exhibits a deep familiarity with the Tannaim, Geonim, and Amoraim, including contemporary philosophy in Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew.

He also authored a poetic dialogue between the Daughters of Zelophehad called Iggeret Ya‘ar ha-Levanon (Forest of Lebanon). Deborah Ascarelli translated his Me‘on haSho‘alim into Italian.

Moses was born in Rieti in 1388^[4] to a certain Rabbi Isaac (Gaio), probably a banker. He left Rieti to study medicine but returned in 1422 to practice medicine and banking there, although maintaining philosophical interests.^[b] He had at least three sons: Isaac (Gaio), the firstborn, Leone, and Bonaiuto, and all three followed him into the trade. He was rabbi in Rome from 1431 and filled various community roles around the Papal States throughout his life, also maintaining a yeshiva in Narni.^[5] He died in Rome in 1466.^[6]

His great grandson, Elijah ben Raphael ben Isaac ben Moses, copied manuscripts of his work (BL Add. 27012, NLI Fr. 81.3) and another manuscript on his instructions (Milan J 105 Sup.), praising him as "the greatest of doctors" and including a tribute in verse which calls him "the third Moses".^[c] Prominent 16th-17th century members of the Rieti family were possibly his descendants as well.^[7]

Begun in 1415 according to its text. Apparently unfinished. Sometimes cited by its sections Ulam and Heikhal, by its subsection Me‘on haSho‘alim (Tempio), or by the name Shalshelet haQabbalah.^[8] In rhyming decasyllabic tercets.

There are more than 60^[10] manuscripts of Midqash Me‘at, and 17 complete. A holograph manuscript which once belonged to Mordecai Ghirondi^[11][12] is now Cambridge Add. 1193, containing many revisions by the author.^[13] A different manuscript (BL Add. 27012) was copied by Moses' great-grandson from a holograph, according to its colophon.

Joseph Almanzi prepared a critical edition (MS BL Add. 27001) in 1836-1838 based on these, MS Prague 229 (then "Reggio"), a manuscript held by S. D. Luzzatto (MS Trinity College, Cambridge F 12.40), and another copy, including some commentary. Jacob Goldenthal printed a text edited from 3 manuscripts (MSS Trin. Cam. F 12.40, Vienna 102, Vienna 108) in Vienna, 1851.

A modern critical edition was in progress as of 2003.^[3] Silvia Negri was preparing a dissertation on Midqash Me‘at as of 2022.^[14][10] In March 2021, the Agence nationale de la recherche awarded Alessandro Guetta, Elizabeth Hollender, and Silvia Negri €240,624 for a 36-month project to produce an "English prose-translation and a critical edition with extensive notes and an in-depth research of the cultural context and reception."^[15][16]

MSS Cambridge Add. 1193 and BL Add. 17012 (inter alia) end abruptly with the words בא סנחריב, although a continuation ומחריב עירי (ממזרח שמש עד מבואו מהולל שם ה' אמן) is found in later hands in MS Kaufman A 532 f. 93r and MS Trinity College, Cambridge F 12.40 f. 109r, the latter being apparently the same mentioned by Goldenthal^[17] as owned by Meir Mintz of Lviv ben Alexander Ziskind Mintz of Brody (1813-1866).^[18] Other MSS (e.g. Bod. Canonici Or. 97 f. 53r) end without even בא סנחריב. Goldenthal, Luzzatto, and Isaac Samuel Reggio believed that ומחריב עירי was not original,^[17] and Almanzi also does not include it, but Steinschneider disagreed.^[19] In MS Paris 993 f. 39v a different ending: בא סנחריב ונטל ספירי.

The subsection Me‘on HaShoalim was apparently adopted liturgically by Italian Jews, and according to Goldenthal was broken up into 7 daily recitations (MS Trin. Cam. F 12.40 preserves the division). Guetta claims that it was recited on Yom Kippur, pointing to יום תרועה^[20] and יום נורא and יום ענוי לב and יום כפור^[14] in the text, as well as Viterbo's description תפלה נוראה / מזמור לתודה / ודוי ליום נורא / המלבן עונות ישראל.^[20][14] The commentary (v.i.) explains each as either describing the author's personal struggle or the eschaton. There are at least 18 MSS of Me‘on HaShoalim by itself.^[14] The text differs widely across versions, and Goldenthal gives a list of variants.^[21]

The popularity of the work prompted "poetic competition" with "considerable aesthetic results".^[14] It was printed with Italian translation three times, all in hendecasyllabic tercets:

• Venice, c. 1585 with translation into Italian by Lazzaro da Viterbo (Elijah Maṣliaḥ), dedicated to "Donna, daughter of the great prince Solomon Corcos (קורקו"ש), long may he live." A certain Solomon ben David Corcos is known to have led the Roman community in the 16th century and is often conflated with Donna's father,^[22] but he died before 1558.^[23] She may be Deborah Ascarelli.^[14]
• Venice, c. 1602 with translation into Italian by Ascarelli (dedication by David della Rocca dated 20 October, 1601).
• Venice, 1609, with a translation into Judeo-Italian by(?) Samuel de Castelnuovo which strongly resembles Viterbo's.^[14]

Two further, anonymous translations into Italian are extant in manuscript, including:

• MS Bod. Quo. 197 ff. 19r-24r. Guetta dates this effort to roughly the same period as the printed versions (1585-1609) and calls it "among the more stylistically sophisticated of this group of translations, and clearly leans to a paraphrastic rendering of the Hebrew poem."^[14]
• Another found in several MSS, the earliest of which has a 1554 censor's mark: Bod. Mich. 11 (ff. 13r-32r), Casanatense 2728 (ff. 35r-42v), Milan X 157 (ff. 56v-77r) [Judeo-Italian], Trin. Cam. F 12 41 (ff. 1r-24r). Many variants are found between these four, and a fifth, MS Laurenziana Plut. II.29 (ff. 7r-13v), "can be considered as a systematic rewriting of the previous ones, as it follows them but is written in a more elegant Italian and with a total respect of the metric" according to Guetta.^[14] Steinschneider, by contrast, describes MS Plut. II.29 as similar to Castelnuovo's.^[24]

• There was a commentary to Me‘on haSho‘alim^[25] or perhaps to the whole of Miqdash Me‘at^[26] in Turin MS A.V. 27 by "Judah miNizza^[h] the Frenchman of House Trabot", which apparently perished in a 1904 fire.^[29]
• A different(?) anonymous commentary is known from many manuscripts, explaining the biographical references in the Heikhal section, and Goldenthal printed it in his 1851 edition. Some comments are attributed to Moses himself, with an honorific for the dead. This commentary serves as an important source for Gedaliah ibn Yahya's Shalshelet haQabbalah.^[30] Almanzi speculates that the author is Mordecai ben Abraham Finzi.^[12] MS Trin. Cam. F 12.40 contains a sparser version, but also further comments to the Heikhal in other hands and comments on the Ulam section quoted from Moses.
• MS Cambridge Add. 1193 contains only a few biographical comments, from the author himself.^[11]
• MSS BL 27,001 (the 16th-century base) and 27121 each (with differences) include an lengthy exegetical commentary on the the Ulam and Me‘on haSho‘alim.

A philosophical dialogue in rhymed prose,^[31] apparently unfinished.

Trin. Cam. F 12 40 claims to contain the Iggeret on its flyleaf, but not extant.

• Joseph Almanzi (MS BL Add. 27001 ff. 5r-7v) in 1836, based mostly on the holographs. Includes both continuations, although he considers מי האמין an imitation.
• Alessandro Guetta (REJ 164 (2005), "Ya'ar Ha-Levanon, ou la quête de la connaissance perdue") based on the marked manuscripts, which according to him presented only slight differences, and Almanzi's edition. Also includes translation into French. Includes neither מי האמין nor הנה מצאנו.

The incipit in MS Naples F 12, but other MSS only Urah Qol She‘oni. A ḳinah (elegy) for his wife, who died at the age of seventy after fifty-two years of married life. Rhymed prose composed c. 1460,^[33][34] making it the oldest known example of this genre.^[35]

The main text of the composition is 8 parts ending אזכיר את שמך כאיש נקשה / צפורה אשת משה I mention your name with difficulty / Tzipporah, wife of Moses, which gave rise to the assumption that his wife's name was Tzipporah. In MS Naples this is followed by an inscription "I, Moses son of the honored Isaac, your husband, the one that mourns you, have written these 8 passages in tears" but the same hand continues with a a 4-line poem beginning קולי^[j] אחותי צלה ברמתי, and a version of the continuation in rhymed prose is incorporated into MS Bod. Can. Or. 97 after a spacer. Both modern editions assume it is original and that her name was Cilla (also transliterated Zilla, Sella), the reference to "Tzipporah" being allegorical. Steinschneider gives "Sara".^[36] See Vogelstein and Rieger, vol. II p. 74.

• Printed by Ariel Toaff in Gli ebrei a Perugia (1975) pp. 273-275.
• Edited by Alessandro Guetta, "לב לבבי הנאהב' : הקינה של משה בן יצחק מריאטי על פטירת אשתו'" in Teuda vol. XIX pp. 309-327. Based on Naples F 12, with variants given from the other 3.

• Letter to Elia da Genazzano in rhymed prose, in which Rieti reflects on his youth as a poet and his transition to philosophy. Included in the many MSS of da Genazzano's Iggeret Ḥamudot and printed with that work ed. A. W. Greenup in London, 1912, and again ed. Fabrizio Lelli with a translation into Italian in Florence, 2002.
• (A poem beginning Begodel erekh hahigayon (MS Bod. Mich. 746, f. 114r) is ascribed to משה מריאטו. This is probably a successor of the same same; see Jacob Buchsenbaum, אגרות בית ריאטי (1988), "Introduction" for Moses ben Joab Rieti and others.)

• Commentary on Hippocrates' Aphorisms, in several manuscripts. Some comments in Frankfurt MS Oct. 103 perhaps by Rieti's own hand.
• Commentary to Avicenna's Canon, taken mostly from Joshua Lorki (MS Casanatense 2834 ff. 64r-186v). The copyist writes "Commentary of Joseph Lorki" and a second hand contributes "But this is not so. It is the commentary of the rabbi Rieti, who took most of it from Lorki".^[37]
• Diverse cures. One apparently unique MS of cures, of which only 2 folios remain (NLI Fr. 81.3), was described by Alexander Marx in Jewish Luminaries in Medical History (1946) p. 130-131, and published by Joshua Leibowitz and Solomon Marcus in Kiryat Sefer vol. XLII, pp. 246-251. It was copied by a certain Elijah, probably the author's great-grandson (cf. MSS BL Add. 27012 and Milan J 105 Sup.). Another set of cures is found MS Florence Magl. II.XI.27 f. 107r-119r (the last folio in a different hand), and others are scattered in collections.
• (Comments to Ali ibn Ridwan's commentary on Galen, under the name התלמיד "the Student", were tentatively ascribed to Rieti by Steinschneider.^[38] But this is impossible, as the manuscript was copied in 1384.)

• Notes to Averroes' commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry are quoted in the margins of MSS Parma 2762 (ff. 1r, 4v) and 3026 (ff. 11r-11v), including a mention of Levi ben Gershon's commentaries on Averroes.^[k] Rieti also compiled a breviary of Averroes's works for his sons, including original comments (holograph MS Conv. Soppr. 12, completed in 1456-7).
• Notes to Moses Narboni's commentary to Ghazali's Maḳaṣid al-Falasifah are found in the margins of MSS Munich 110, Munich 121, and Parma 2451.
• Aphorisms (Parma 2653 f. 59r, TK).
• An extensive work in Judaeo-Italian, apparently incomplete. The first part discusses the natural philosophy of Aristotle; the second is a treatise upon God; the third, of which only a fragment has been preserved, covers Jewish history from the beginning to the time of the author.^[39] Published as Filosofia Naturale e Fatti de Deo by Irene Hijmans-Tromp. Brill, 1989.^[40]

• Super-commentary to Rashi (AIU 174)
• Comment on the Solomonic books, explaining them as philosophical works and the ultimate source of Aristotle's thought (Parma 2653 f. 59v, Cambridge Add. 1182 f. 65v, TK). A similar idea appears in the Khazari and other medievals.
• Other scattered comments (TK)

• Polemic against John of Capistrano or Giannozzo Manetti (MS Bod. Mich. 291, f. 174v ff.)^[41]
• Letter concerning various astronomical and philosophical subjects, composed in 1459 (MS Munich 315 f. 83v-84v)
• Literary-biographical comments, some found in MS Cambridge Add. 1193 and others quoted by various MSS of commentary to the Heikhal section of his Miqdash Me‘at.
• He is possibly the author of an endorsement which is attributed to "Moses ben Isaac" of the totally obscure Sefer haMa‘alot by Moses ben Judah of Perugia (Casanatense 3114 f. 31r).
• (Moshe Hallamish [he] cites a comment from Rieti quoting Menahem Azariah da Fano about the ushpizin,^[l] but this is impossible, the result of a critical typographic error in his source. Da Fano (רמ"ע) was not born until a century after Rieti's death.)^[42]

• Rieti, Moses ben Isaac da (1989). Mosè da Rieti, Filosofia naturale ; e, Fatti de Dio: testo ineditodel secolo XV (in Italian). Brill Archive. ISBN 978-90-04-09087-3.
• Rieti, Moses ben Isaac da (1851). מקדש מעט: ... [שיר דידקתי כתבנית השיר של דנטי] (in Hebrew). דפוס אלמנת י"פ זולינגער.
• "Rieti, Moses ben Isaac da, 1388-1460? ריאיטי, משה - Hebrew and Judaica Manuscripts". hebrew.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-09-28.

• Zunz, in Geiger's Jüd. Zeit. ii. 321-322;
• Luzzatto, in Dukes' Ehrensäulen, p. 50;
• Carmoly, in Jost's Annalen, i. 55, 63;
• idem, in Orient, Lit. ii. 234;
• Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1984;
• idem, Hebr. Uebers. pp. 28, 76, 462, 660;
• Berliner, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, ii. 121;
• Güdemann, Gesch. ii. 127;
• Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, ii. 68 et seq.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "MOSES BEN ISAAC (GAJO) OF RIETI". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.