Lattes, Isaac ben Jacob

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LATTES, ISAAC BEN JACOB

LATTES, ISAAC BEN JACOB (14th century), rabbi and physician in Provence. Lattes studied under Nissim *Gerondi. His main work, apparently entitled Kiryat Sefer (1885), consists of two parts: Sha'arei Ẓiyyon and Toledot Yiẓḥak. In it, Lattes explains passages of the Oral Law, the manner in which the oral tradition was transmitted to the tannaim and amoraim, and the basis of the Mishnah and Tosefta. He enumerates the 613 traditional biblical commandments in the order of their appearance in the Pentateuch and explains them according to Maimonides. He comments on the laws of the public Torah reading and explains passages from the works of Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. Lattes also mentions many rabbis especially those of France. Lattes also wrote a book on medicine in which he enumerates different classes of diseases ("fevers") and gives advice on how to treat them.

bibliography:

Isaac b. Jacob de Lattes, Sha'arei Ẓiyyon, ed. by S. Buber (1885), 1–4 (introd.); Renan, Ecrivains, 336–46; Zunz, Gesch, 478–9; Fuerst, Bibliotheca, 2 (1863), 224–5.

[Daniel Carpi]