Lattes, Isaac Joshua

views updated

LATTES, ISAAC JOSHUA

LATTES, ISAAC JOSHUA (d. c. 1570), Italian rabbi, son of Bonet *Lattes, physician to Pope Leo x. Lattes was born in Provence where he studied and was ordained, later immigrating to Italy and becoming a peripatetic rabbi there. He passed most of his life in Rome, Bologna, Mantua, Venice, and Ferrara, where he lived in the house of Isaac *Abrabanel, serving as tutor to his sons. Lattes wrote many responsa, of which only a part were published (Vienna, 1860), an unpublished commentary to the Behinat Olam of Jedaiah Bedersi, and several poems. He was involved in the famous dispute known as the "Tamari-Venturozzo Divorce." He was also a printer and was associated with the printing of the Mantua edition of the Zohar (1558–60).

bibliography:

Gross, Gal Jud, 267; Fuerst, Bibliotheca, 2 (1863), 225; S. Simonsohn, Toledot ha-Yehudim be-Dukkasut Mantovah, 2 (1964), 523; Vogelstein-Rieger, 2 (1895), 99.

[Daniel Carpi]