Don Isaac Abravanel – An Intellectual Biography

Don Isaac Abravanel – An Intellectual Biography by Cedric Cohen-skalli explores the life of Don Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508), a pivotal figure in Jewish history. Known as one of the great inventors of Jewish modernity, Abravanel was a multi-faceted personality — a merchant, banker, and court financier, as well as a scholar versed in both Jewish and Christian writings. He was also a preacher, exegete, and a prominent political actor in royal entourages and Jewish communities.

Abravanel became one of the greatest leaders and thinkers of Iberian Jewry in the aftermath of the expulsion of 1492. This book is the first new intellectual biography of Abravanel in twenty years, offering a depiction of his life in three cultural milieus—Portugal, Castile, and post-expulsion Italy. It also analyses his major literary accomplishments during each period.

A traditionalist with innovative ideas, Abravanel stood with one foot in the Middle Ages and the other in the Renaissance. As an erudite scholar and the author of a monumental exegetical opus still studied today, he was an avid book collector and transitional figure. Defined by an age of contradictions, it is these very contradictions that make him such an important personality for understanding the dawn of Jewish modernity.