CONEGLIANO

CONEGLIANO , Italian family, many prominent members of which were physicians; the name comes from the small Italian town of *Conegliano. Some members of the family called themselves Conian, according to the pronunciation in the local dialect. abraham joel conegliano (17^th–18^th centuries), mathematician, lived in Ceneda and Verona. He wrote a reply to the polemical book by L.M. Benetelli, Le saette di Gionata ("The Arrows of Jonathan," Venice, 1703), to which the latter replied in I dardi Rabbinici infranti ("The Broken Rabbinical Arrows," Venice, 1705). israel conegliano (c. 1650–c. 1717), of Padua, was a physician and politician. In 1675 he settled in Constantinople where he was consulted by the sultan and the grand vizier. In 1682 he was appointed physician to the embassy of Venice, but when Venice joined the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire, Israel had to limit himself to his private medical practice. He succeeded, however, in keeping the senate of Venice informed of political happenings in Constantinople through his elder brother solomon (see below). Between 1687 and 1690 he was again in Venice and then returned to Constantinople, where he made the arrangements under which the protection of Venetians who had remained in the Ottoman Empire was assumed by Holland, instead of France. Israel had to leave for Venice after the expulsion of all Venetians from the Ottoman Empire in 1694. He was able to continue supplying useful reports to Venice through a third brother judah who had remained in Constantinople. In 1698 Israel attended the Congress of Karlowitz, at which peace was negotiated between the European powers and the Ottoman Empire; the following year, as physician and secretary to the Venetian envoy Carlo Ruzzini he took a direct part in the delimitation of the borders between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. He was honored by the Venetian senate and, with his brothers Solomon and Judah, was given Venetian citizenship and exempted from wearing the Jewish badge. solomon (1642–1719), born in Padua, practiced as a physician in Venice. He acted as intermediary in the exchange of correspondence between his brother Israel and the senate of Venice. He organized preparatory courses for young students, mainly Jews, who attended the medical university of Padua. He wrote the preface to the book Maʾaseh Tuviyyah (1709), by Tobias b. Moses *Cohn who was his student. Another member of the family was emanuel conegliano (1749–1833) who assumed the name lorenzo da ponte. A man of letters, he lived in New York and was a well-known author of libretti for Mozart's operas. carlo angelo conegliano (1868–1901) of Modena was an economist and professor of financial sciences at the University of Modena. He founded the Italian Zionist review Lidea sionnista (1901–10).

bibliography:

D. Kaufmann, Dr. Israel Conegliano (1895); F. Luzzatto, La communità ebraica di Conegliano Veneto ed i suoi monumenti (1957), 27–31; C. Roth, Venice (1930), index; Roth, Italy, index; Milano, Italia, index. add. bibliography: A. Fabris, "Le famiglie ebraiche di Conegliano tra Sei e Settecento," in Zakhor, 6 (2003), 147–81.

[Attilio Milano /

Federica Francesconi (2^nd ed.)]