LUZZATTO, ISAAC

LUZZATTO, ISAAC (Isacco ) (1730–1802), Italian poet and physician. Born in San Daniele del Friuli (Italy), Isaac, like his brother Ephraim *Luzzatto, graduated in medicine at Padua (1747). Upon the expulsion of the Jews from San Daniele, as from other rural localities in the Venetian Republic (September 1777), he alone was allowed to remain with his family and practice there. In the summer of 1779, Luzzatto traveled to Vienna and successfully petitioned Maria Theresa to authorize his fellow townsmen to continue living in the rural districts of Austria where they had established themselves. His Toledot Yiẓḥak, a collection of poetry, was published in 1944 by D.J. Eckert and M. Wilensky, with a biography and notes. It includes Hebrew poems, mostly sonnets, on religious and ethical themes, conundrums, and a parody of a mishnaic treatise satirizing the customs of his community (Mishnayyot San Daniele, or Massekhet Derekh Ereẓ). Luzzatto also translated into Hebrew La Libertà a Nice, by the Italian poet Metastasio, at the latter's request. Isaac Luzzatto's second wife, Tamar, was a sister of Hezekiah, father of Samuel David *Luzzatto.

bibliography:

S.D. Luzzatto, Autobiografia… (1882), 22, 23; F. Luzzatto, Cronache storiche della Università degli ebrei di San Daniele del Friuli (1964), index. add. bibliography: P.C. Ioly Zorattini, in: Gli ebrei a Gorizia e a Trieste (1984), 113–16; idem, rmi (1999), 39, 65, 73; M. Del Bianco Cotrozzi, in: Mondo Ebraico (1991), 184, 196, 198, 210.