DEL MEDIGO, GIUSEPPE SALOMONE. - Jewish astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher, b. in Candia (Crete) on 16 June 1591, d. in Prague on 16 Oct. 1655. He practised the profession of physician and, on occasion, that of rabbi. He studied at the University of Padua, where Galileo Galilei was also among his teachers. Having returned to his homeland around 1613, he soon began a continual peregrination through the countries of western Asia and much of Europe, especially northern Europe, simultaneously gaining honour and contempt among his coreligionists.
A restless spirit, he often wavered between antithetical positions: at times he appears a freethinker, at others an orthodox believer; at times a cool critic, at others an ardent mystic. For fear of being declared a heretic, he frequently concealed his true thought; but in religion he generally inclined toward the sect of the Karaites and sympathized with the Cabala. It seems that he never composed many of the works mentioned in the three principal writings that have come down to us. Of his works there are: 1) a treatise of general learning, entitled 'Elim, in which 70 doubts concerning various subjects are resolved; 2) Ta'alumàth Hòkmàh; 3) a letter to the Karaite Zeraḥ ben Nàthān. Angelo Penna