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Rh manuel. Messer Leon, a physician of Mantua, wrote a treatise on Biblical rhetoric (1480). Again, the only important writer of dramas in Hebrew was, as we shall see, an Italian Jew, who copied Italian models. Though, therefore, the Hebrew poetry of Italy scarcely reaches the front rank, it is historically of first-rate importance. It represents the only effects of the Renaissance on Jewish literature. In other countries, the condition of the Jews was such that they were shut off from external influences. Their literature suffered as their lives did from imprisonment within the Ghettos, which were erected both by the Jews themselves and by the governments of Europe.

S. Morais.—Italian Jewish Literature (Publications of the Gratz College, Vol. I).


 * Graetz.—IV, p. 61 [66].
 * J. Chotzner.—Immanuel di Romi, J. Q. R., IV, p. 64.