The Great Rabbi of the Italian Renaissance

Few rabbinic figures have had so great an impact on both Jewish and non-Jewish intellectual history as Obadiah Sforno, who was born around 1475 in the northern Italian city of Cesena and died around 1550 in Bologna. His commentary on much of the Tanakh—a standard feature of rabbinic Bibles since the 18th century—is characterized, as Tamar Marvin writes, by a search for the text’s “spiritual-ethical” meaning combined with “humanist ideals.” In addition, Sforno wrote philosophical treatises and cultivated relationships with leading Christian intellectuals—which included teaching Hebrew to the pioneering Hebraist and humanist Johannes Reuchlin.