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Benjamin HaKohen Vitale

Benjamin HaKohen Vitale

1651 CE–1730 CE · Acharonim · Mantua

Italian kabbalist (1651–1730), a leading disciple of R. Moshe Zacuto and one of the foremost exponents of Lurianic Kabbalah in Italy. Rabbi of Alessandria and then Reggio Emilia; author of Gevul Binyamin and Et HaZamir. Father-in-law and predecessor of R. Yeshayahu Bassan, the Ramchal's teacher. Like his close friend R. Avraham Rovigo, he was drawn to the moderate Sabbatean current of his day, engaging with both Lurianic and Sabbatean strands of Kabbalah.

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Stop 1 of 31670–1681Studying

MantuaמנטובהItaly

What they did here

Among the leading disciples of R. Moshe Zacuto (the RaMaZ) in Mantua, mastering Lurianic Kabbalah.

About Mantua

Mantua is a city in Lombardy, northern Italy, ringed by lakes formed from the Mincio River. The Roman poet Virgil was born in a village nearby. From 1328 to 1708 the Gonzaga family ruled it, and their court became a leading centre of Renaissance art, humanist schooling and music. Mantua also had one of Italy's notable Jewish communities: a Hebrew press was active there in the fifteenth century, and the city produced rabbis, physicians, kabbalists and scholars before a ghetto was imposed in 1612. In the nineteenth century Giuseppe Sarto, later Pope Pius X, was its bishop from 1884.

In Mantua at the same time

RaMaZ

See other sages who lived in Mantua→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Benjamin HaKohen Vitale’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

RaMaZ, Yeshayahu Bassan

Works(3)

Et HaZamirעת הזמיר

1707

A collection of kabbalistic poems (Venice, 1707).

Allon Bakhutאלון בכות

1712

A kabbalistic commentary on the book of Lamentations (Venice, 1712).

Gevul Binyaminגבול בנימין

1727

A collection of sermons by R. Benjamin HaKohen Vitale, published in Amsterdam in 1727.

Related figuresRaMaZSuggested by shared subject matter, not a documented teaching relationship.