Joseph Almanzi, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Joseph Almanzi

Italian poet

Date of Birth: 25-Mar-1801

Place of Birth: Padua, Veneto, Italy

Date of Death: 07-Mar-1860

Profession: writer, poet, translator, author, linguist

Zodiac Sign: Aries


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About Joseph Almanzi

  • Joseph Almanzi (March 25, 1801, Padua – March 7, 1860, Trieste) was an Italian Jewish bibliophile and poet.
  • The eldest son of Baruch Hayyim Almanzi, a wealthy merchant; he received a good education by private tutors, one of whom was Israel Conian.
  • According to the Italian custom, he began at an early age to write Hebrew poems on special occasions.
  • At the age of twenty he was a devoted student of Jewish literature and an ardent collector of Hebrew books.
  • Rare books and manuscripts that he could not purchase he copied.
  • He had a good command over the Hebrew, Italian, Latin, German, and French languages, and is said also to have known Syriac.
  • His tastes as a bibliophile were fed by the large and well-selected library formerly belonging to Chaim Joseph David Azulai, which his father had bought from Azulai's son, Raphael Isaiah, at Ancona.
  • This library was largely increased by Joseph Almanzi, its rare editions and manuscripts making it one of the most important in private possession.
  • Its treasures were freely used by Luzzatto, Steinschneider, Zunz, etc.
  • During the last few years of his life Almanzi lived at Trieste, where he took a lively interest in all communal affairs.
  • Here he died unmarried. Few of Almanzi's poems have been published.
  • He was a graceful writer, and, above all, a clever translator into pure Biblical Hebrew of the poems of the great Italian authors.
  • After his death S.
  • D.
  • Luzzatto published a number of his Hebrew letters and of his poems, in a collection entitled Yad Yosef (The Hand of Joseph), Cracow and Triest, 1889. Almanzi was the author of: (1) Me'il ?inah (The Robe of Mourning—a play on Isa.
  • iix.
  • 17), an elegy on Israel Conian (Reggio, 1824); (2) a biography of Moses ?ayyim Luzzatto in Kerem ?emed, vol.
  • iii., reprinted by M.
  • Wolf, Lemberg, 1879, together with Luzzatto's La-Yesharim Tehillah; (3) Higgayon be-Kinnor (A Reverie upon the Harp), a collection of poems on Judah di Modena and Isaac Abravanel and of translations from Savioli, Tasso, Phædrus, Petrarch, Vitorelli, etc.
  • (Vienna, 1839); (4) an elegy on the death of Jacob Vita Pardo, printed together with S.
  • D.
  • Luzzatto's Abne Zikkaron (Prague, 1841; the copy of the inscriptions published by Luzzatto was made by Almanzi); and (5) Nezem Zahab (A Golden Ring), Hebrew poetry (Padua, 1858).
  • He left a number of Hebrew poems in manuscript, among them translations from Horace (see Bikkure ha-'Ittim, Vienna, 1845).
  • Almanzi's family published in his honor a catalogue of his Hebrew library, which was compiled by his lifelong friend Luzzatto, who also wrote a preface.
  • Luzzatto had already described the manuscripts of the collection in the Hebräische Bibliographie of Steinschneider (iv.
  • 52, 121, 145; v.
  • 20, 43, 101, 128, 144; vi.
  • 49, 85, 141).
  • The greater part of the manuscripts were bought by the British Museum; the collection of rare books found its way to the bookseller Frederik MĂĽller in Amsterdam, and was bought in 1868 by the trustees of Temple Emanu-El in New York City, who in 1893 presented it to the library of Columbia University.

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