GIUSEPPE SALOMONE DELL MEDIGO. — Jewish astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher, born in Candia (Creta) on 16 June 1591, died in Prague on 16 October 1655. He practiced medicine and, on occasion, served as a rabbi. He studied at the University of Padua, where one of his teachers was Galileo Galilei. Returning to his homeland around 1613, he soon began a continuous journey through the countries of Western Asia and much of Europe, especially the northern regions, earning both honor and contempt from his coreligionists.
A restless spirit, he often wavered between opposing positions: at times he appeared as a free thinker, at others as an orthodox believer, sometimes as a cold critic, and at others as a fervent mystic. Fearful of being declared a heretic, he often concealed his true thoughts; yet in matters of religion he generally inclined toward the Karaite sect and sympathized with the Kabbalah. It seems that many of the works mentioned in his three surviving major writings were never actually composed by him. His extant works include: 1) a general cultural treatise titled *Elim*, which resolves seventy doubts on various topics; 2) *Ta'almuth Hokmah*; and 3) a letter to the Karaite Zerah ben Náthán.