ABRAMO di BALMES (BEN MEIR). — Hebrew grammarian, b. at Lecce in the 15th century, d. at Venice in 1523. A noted physician trained at the University of Padua, he rendered distinguished service to Western culture by translating into Latin philosophical and scientific works from the Arabic, especially those of Averroes, basing his versions on medieval Hebrew renderings.
His original work is the Hebrew grammar Miquneh Abram («Abram’s Possession»), completed and published posthumously in 1523 at Venice by R. Calonimos ben David, printed by Bornberg in Hebrew and Latin. In it A. displays great erudition and critical acumen, though the method he advocated—applying the categories of Latin grammar to a Semitic language—rightly met with no success.