Salvatore de Benedetti

Salvatore de Benedetti (April 18, 1818 – August 4, 1891) was an Italian scholar of Hebrew and Jewish studies.

Biography Salvatore de Benedetti was born into a Jewish family in Novara, Piedmont. As Jewish students were barred from public schools in Italy, Benedetti attended the Collegio Foa in Vercelli, a Jewish boarding school which primarily trained rabbis. After finishing his studies there, Benedetti chose not to pursue a religious career and instead made a living through teaching and editorial work for newspapers in Piedmont and Milan. Around this time, he also translated Adolphe Franck's work on Kabbalah into Italian in an abridged version. In 1844, he was appointed superintendent of the Pie scuole israelitiche in Livorno.

During the 1848–49 revolts, he aligned himself with Giuseppe Mazzini's faction, and participated in the publication of the Corriere Livornese, a newspaper supporting Italian unification. When Austrian forces invaded Livorno, Benedetti relocated to Turin, where he continued his journalism career. There he joined the editorial team of the Progresso, founded by Cesare Correnti. Following the closure of that paper, he returned to Novara, where he gave public lectures on history and founded the newspaper La Vedetta, which acted as a link between free Piedmont and Austrian-controlled Lombardy.

With the changing political landscape in Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II and Prime Minister Camillo di Cavour, Benedetti shifted his focus to academics and literature. In 1862, he was appointed professor of Hebrew at the University of Pisa, a position he held until his death.

Work Among Benedetti's most notable work was Vita e morte di Mosè (1879), wherein he compiled and translated legends about Moses. His Canzoniere sacro di Giuda Levita (1871), a translation of the poems of Judah ha-Levi, introduced Italian audiences to medieval Hebrew poetry. He also dedicated several studies to Galileo, and applied his methods to philology.

Publications