Sforno (family)

Sforno is the name of a prominent Jewish Italian family, many members of which distinguished themselves as rabbis and scholars. The most prominent of these were the following:

Scholar of Talmud. He lived at Bologna in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and was the brother of Obadiah Sforno, who mentions him in the introduction to his commentary on the Pentateuch. Obadiah also writes that Hananeel was a financier, and at one point, supported Obadiah financially. A responsum of Hananeel's was inserted by Shabbethai Baer in his Beer Eshek.

Talmudist; lived at Viadano in the sixteenth century. A halakhic decision of his is quoted in a manuscript collection of 260 responsa of the Italian rabbis (No. 235).

Venetian scholar of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Shabbethai Bass, and, after him, Wolf, attributed to Jacob a work entitled Iggeret ha-Ṭe'amim (Venice, 1600), containing mystic explanations of the accents. The correctness of the ascription is, however, doubted by Steinschneider, who believes that this work is identical with one of the same title by Aaron Abraham ben Baruch.

A rabbi at Mantua in the sixteenth century. He was the author of an epistle on the Kuzari. A responsum (legal novella) of his is quoted in the above-mentioned collection.

Venetian Talmudist of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He edited Menahem Azariah di Fano's Yemin Adonai Romemah (Venice, n.d.); and a responsum of his is inserted in Di Fano's collection of Responsa (Venice, n.d., p. 83).

Italian exegete, philosopher, and physician; born at Cesena about 1475; died at Bologna in 1550. See the main article on him, Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno.

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