ABRAMO di BALMES (BEN MEIR). – Hebrew grammarian, b. in Lecce in the 15th century, d. in Venice in 1523. A celebrated physician, educated at the University of Padua, he rendered valuable service to Western culture by translating philosophical and scientific Arabic works into Latin, especially those of Averroes, deriving them from medieval Hebrew versions.
His original work is the Hebrew grammar Miqnèh Abram (“Possession of Abraham”), completed and published posthumously under the care of R. Calonimos ben David (1523) in Venice, by Bomberg’s press, in Hebrew and Latin. In it A. displays great erudition and critical spirit, but the method he advocated of applying the categories of Latin grammar to a Semitic language did not, rightly, meet with success. Enrico Galbiati