Joshua dei Cantori was a converted

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

who attacked the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

at Cremona in 1559. According to Moritz Steinschneider, he belonged to the family Cantarini. In consequence of a dispute with Joseph Ottolenghi, who was head of the Talmudical school of Cremona, Cantori, in order to avenge himself on his adversary, appeared with the converted Jew Baptista Vittorio Eliano and denounced the Talmud as containing blasphemies against the Christian faith. The result of this accusation was the public burning of 10,000 to 15,000 Hebrew books in 1559 at Cremona.

Joseph ha-Kohen Joseph ben Joshua ben Meïr ha-Kohen (also Joseph HaKohen, Joseph Hakohen or Joseph Hacohen) (20 December 1496 in Avignon, France – 1575 or shortly thereafter, Genoa, Italy) was a historian and physician of the 16th century. Life Joseph's p ...

records this incident, and adds that later Cantori was found assassinated in a street of Cremona, and was buried "behind the board" in the Jewish cemetery of that city as a mark of contumely. According to another source quoted by J. Wolf, Cantori was a convert to Christianity.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cantori, Joshua Dei 16th-century Italian Jews 16th-century Roman Catholics 1559 in Italy Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Italian Roman Catholics 16th-century deaths People from Cremona