Sefer ha-Arukh with reference notations by R. Smauel b. Elhanan Isaac Archevolti (c.1530-1611), Italian grammarian, and poet of the sixteenth century. Many of his piyyuṭim were embodied in the Italian liturgy, notably his "Song on Circumcision." He was an excellent Talmudist, and, when quite young, reedited or rather supplied with extensive textual references, the 'Aruk of Nathan b. Jehiel under the title "Sefer ha-'Aruk" (Venice, 1553). His book "Degel Ahavah" (The Banner of Love), an ethical work with commentaries, was printed in Venice (1551). The most notable of his works are (1) "'Arugat ha-Bosem" (The Bed of Spices), a Hebrew grammar (Venice, 1602; reprinted, Amsterdam, 1730), and (2) "Ma'yan Gannim" (A Fountain of Gardens), fifty metrical letters, designed to be models for students of this form of composition (Venice, 1553). Of these two books the more important is the Hebrew grammar, because the subject is exhaustively and originally treated. Twenty-five out of the thirty-two chapters are devoted to the rudiments of the language. Chapters twenty-six and twenty-seven treat of Hebrew accentuation; chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine discuss perfect style; chapter thirty treats of steganography and Biblical cryptography, and chapters thirty-one and thirty-two treat of the neo-Hebraic meter, with original models of style and method. The last chapter pleased John Buxtorf the younger to such an extent that he translated it into Latin, appending it to his translation of the Kuzari (1660). Archevolti, who loved the Hebrew language and delighted in its poetical phrasing and shading, was disinclined to uphold the ideas advanced by Judah ha-Levi, who, though one of the greatest Hebrew poets, did not care to treat Biblical subjects poetically, maintaining that they did not readily lend themselves to such treatment. Archevolti held the opposite view, and in respectful terms wrote against his famous predecessor, employing the Talmudic bit of satire, "The dough must be bad indeed if the baker says it is."

 

Sefer ha-Arukh - A lexicon of the Talmud and the Midrashim, containing all the talmudic terms in need of explanation by R. Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome (1035–c. 1110), Italian lexicographer, also called Ba'al he-Arukh ("the author of the Arukh") after the title of his lexicon. Few biographical details are known of him. Some state that he belonged to the De Pomis or Delli Mansi family, but the view is widespread that he actually belonged to the famous Anau (Anav) family. He was taught in his youth by his father, a paytan and the head of the yeshivah of Rome, and may as a young man have studied in Sicily under R. Mazli'ah b. Elijah ibn al-Bazak, a pupil of R. Hai Gaon. However, there is reason to believe that the scanty references to Mazli'ah's name in Nathan's work are the addenda of an earlier copyist named Mevorakh, some of whose marginal notes, in which he also mentions that he was Al-Bazak's pupil, were later incorporated in the text of the Arukh. R. Nathan also studied under R. Moses ha-Darshan of Narbonne, as well as, in the view of some scholars, under R. Moses Kalfo of Bari and R. Moses of Pavia. When his father died immediately after Nathan's return to Rome about 1070, he and his two brothers Daniel and Abraham succeeded him as the heads of the yeshiva of Rome. With them he wrote responsa to halakhic questions addressed to him by various scholars, among whom was a R. Solomon Yizhaki, identified by some as Rashi. Noted for his charitable acts, Nathan built a magnificent synagogue and a ritual bathhouse for his community. It was while serving as head of the Rome yeshiva that he wrote his classical work (which he completed in 1101) the Arukh. At the end of the Arukh there is a poem written in particularly difficult language and therefore of somewhat obscure meaning; in it the poet, lamenting his bitter lot, tells of the death of four out of his five sons during his lifetime.