narrowest kind. The Italian Jewish communities, thanks to the more
bearable conditions prevailing around them, were in a position to carry
on the literary traditions of Jewish Spain. In Italy thinkers arose, and
writers, and poets. There was Azariah dei Rossi, the father of
historical criticism; Messer Leon, the subtle philosopher; Elijah
Levita, the grammarian; Leon of Modena, the keen-witted rationalist;
Joseph Delmedigo, of encyclopedic mind; the Frances brothers, both
poets, who combated mysticism; and many others too numerous to mention.
[Footnote: For the greater part of these writers, see Gustav Karpeles,
_Geschichte der judischen Literatur_, 2 vols., Berlin, 1886.]
These, together with a few stray writers in Turkey and the Netherlands,
imparted a certain degree of distinction to the Hebrew literature of the
sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Heirs to the Spanish traditions,
they nevertheless were inclined to oppose the spirit and particularly
the rules of Arabic prosody, which had put manacles upon Hebrew poetry.
Their efforts were directed to the end of introducing new literary forms
and new concepts into Hebrew literature.

They did not meet with notable success. The greater number of Jewish men
of letters, whose knowledge of foreign literatures was meagre, were
destined to remain in the thrall of the Middle Ages until a much later
time. As to the unlettered, they preferred to make use of the
vernacular, which presented fewer difficulties than the Hebrew.

The task of tearing asunder the chains that hampered the evolution of
Hebrew in a modern sense devolved upon an Italian Jew of amazing talent.
He became the true, the sovereign inaugurator of the Hebrew Renascence.

Moses Hayyim Luzzatto was born at Padua, in 1707. He was descended from
a family celebrated for the Rabbinic scholars and the writers it had