Roman, Jacob ben Isaac
ROMAN, JACOB BEN ISAAC
ROMAN, JACOB BEN ISAAC (c. 1570–1650), bibliographer and writer; born in Constantinople of Spanish descent. While in Basle, Roman met Johannes *Buxtorf the Younger, who utilized the former's bibliographical knowledge for the appendix to his father's Bibliotheca Rabbinica, which he had edited. For a short while the two maintained correspondence, and the two extant letters by Roman were published in the Revue des Etudes Juives (8 (1844), 87–94). His plan to reestablish a Hebrew press in Constantinople did not reach fruition.
Roman compiled an Arabic-Turkish and an Arabic-Hebrew dictionary and composed a Hebrew prosody, "Mozenei Mishkal." He also translated some of Jonah ibn Janah's works from Arabic into Hebrew: none, however, was published.
bibliography:
Zunz, Gesch, 233–4; Steinschneider, Cat. Bod, 1254 no. 5008; Steinschneider, Uebersetzungen, 377; idem, in: zdmg, 9 (1855), 840.
[Victor A. Mirelman]