Consigli(O), Avtalyon (Ottavio) ben Solomon
CONSIGLI(O), AVTALYON (Ottavio) BEN SOLOMON
CONSIGLI(O), AVTALYON (Ottavio) BEN SOLOMON (c. 1540–1616), rabbi and financier of Rovigo, northern Italy. Consiglio studied under Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen at Padua. To demonstrate his profound respect for his teacher, he commissioned an artist to paint his portrait and this was hung prominently in his bet ha-midrash. Like his teacher, Consiglio opposed *pilpul in talmudic studies. Consiglio caused a heated controversy by disqualifying a mikveh in the house of his brother Jekuthiel, with whom he also had a financial dispute. The Italian rabbinate was divided on the matter. The rabbinate of Venice, headed by Hezekiah Finzi of Ferrara, strongly defended the halakhic fitness of the ritual bath in question. The matter became a cause célèbre, and several collections of responsa on the subject were published between 1606 and 1617, e.g., Mashbit Nilḥamot (Venice, 1606), Mikveh Yisrael (ibid., 1607), and Palgei Mayyim (ibid., 1608).
bibliography:
Blau, in: Jahresbericht der Landes-Rabbinerschule in Budapest, 28 (1905), 119–20; 29 (1906), 129ff.; S. Bernstein (ed.), Divan Leo de Modenas (1932), 242 (epitaph); M. Szulwass, in: Sinai, 20 (1947), 198–205; I. Sonne, in: ks, 10 (1933), 360–4; A. Yaari, Meḥkerei Sefer (1958), 420–9; idem, in: Sinai, 34 (1954), 367–74.