Isaac ben Mordecai, known as Maestro Gajo, was an Italian Jewish physician. He acted as physician to Pope Nicholas IV or

Pope Boniface VIII Pope Boniface VIII ( la, Bonifatius PP. VIII; born Benedetto Caetani, c. 1230 – 11 October 1303) was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 to his death in 1303. The Caetani, Caetani family was of b ...

, at the end of the thirteenth century. For him

Nathan of Cento Nathan ben Eliezer ha-Me'ati was an Italian Jewish translator, the earliest known member of the Ha-Me'ati family that flourished at Rome in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He was called the "Prince of Translators" and the "Italian Tibbonide ...

translated into Hebrew an Arabic work by 'Ammar ibn Ali al-Mauṣili, on the cure of diseases of the eye. Gajo was held in great esteem by the physicians

Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Ḥen Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Ḥen, also called Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Gracian or Serachja ben Isaac Ben Shealtiel Halevi (fl. 1270-1290s) was a Spanish Jewish physician, philosopher, translator, and Hebraist. He flourished about the end of the thirteenth ...

and

Hillel ben Samuel of Verona Hillel ben Samuel (c. 1220 – Forlì, c. 1295) was an Italian physician, philosopher, and Talmudist. He was the grandson of the Talmudic scholar Eliezer ben Samuel of Verona. Life He spent his youth at Barcelona, where he studied the Talmud a ...

. From

Forlì Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna. The city is situated along the Via E ...

, the latter wrote to Gajo two long letters (see "Ḥemdah Genuzah," pp. 18-22) on the dispute concerning

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...

's doctrines, which Gajo followed with interest.

References

* Grätz, ''Geschichte'' 3d ed., vii. 160, 165; *

Vogelstein Vogelstein is the surname of: * Bert Vogelstein (born 1949), an American Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at The Johns Hopkins University * Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein (1788–1868), German painter * Rabbi Heinemann Vogelstein ( ...

and

Rieger Rieger and de Reiger are surnames. Notable people with the surname include: *August Rieger *Bernhard Rieger, German Prelate of the Roman Catholic Church * Durhane Wong-Rieger, Canadian physician *Erich Rieger, German astrophysicist * František Lad ...

, ''Geschichte der Juden in Rom'', i. 252-254

External links

Source
{{JewishEncyclopedia 13th-century Italian Jews Papal physicians 13th-century Italian physicians Medieval Jewish physicians