Porchetus Salvagus°

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PORCHETUS SALVAGUS°

PORCHETUS SALVAGUS ° (Victor Porchetto de Salvatici ; d. c. 1315), Italian Carthusian of Genoa. Porchetus wrote an anti-Jewish work entitled Victoria adversus impios Hebraeos, in qua tum ex sacris litteris tum ex dictis Talmud ac cabbilistarum et aliorum omnium authorum quos hebraei recipiunt monstratur veritas catholicae fidei.

The first part (24 chapters) enumerates proofs to demonstrate the truth of Christianity from the Holy Scriptures, and the second part (16 chapters) similarly instances proofs from the Kabbalah and rabbinic sources. Porchetus' material was not original, being copied mostly from the Pugio fidei of Raymond *Martini. His book in turn was copied by later writers such as Pietro *Galatinus Columna and others. The book by Porchetus appeared in Paris in 1520. Its introduction (prologus) was reprinted by J.C. Wolf in his Bibliotheca Hebraea (vol. 2, 1124–27).

bibliography:

P. Browe, Die Judenmission im Mittelalter und die Juden (1942), 104, 108; A. Posnanski, Schilo (1904), 370–8; H. Merhavia, Ha-Talmud bi-Re'i ha-Naẓrut (1970), index.

[Judah M. Rosenthal]