His Works
Reggio was a voluminous writer. He published:
- Ma'amar Torah min ha-Shamayim (Vienna, 1818), on the divine authority of the Jewish law, an introduction to his Italian translation of the Pentateuch
- Sefer Torat Elohim (ib. 1821), the Pentateuch, with an Italian language translation and a Hebrew commentary
- Ha-Torah weha-Pilusufiah (ib. 1827)
- Beḥinat ha-Dat 'im Perush we-He'arot (ib. 1833), an edition of Elijah Delmedigo's Beḥinat ha-Dat, with a commentary and notes
- Iggerot Yashar (ib. 1834-36), a collection of exegetical, philosophical, and historical treatises in the form of letters to a friend
- Ma'amar ha-Tiglaḥat (ib. 1835), a decision ("pesaḳ") permitting the shaving of the beard on semi-holy days ("ḥol ha-mo'ed"; this work called forth two protests, one by Jacob Ezekiel ha-Levi, entitled Tisporet Lulyanit, Berlin, 1839, and one by Reggio's father, entitled Tiglaḥat ha-Ma'amar, Leghorn, 1844)
- Mafteaḥ el Megillat Ester (Vienna, 1841)
- Mazkeret Yashar (ib. 1849), a bibliographical sketch (presented to his friends in his sixty-fifth year) in which he enumerates 103 works
- Beḥinat ha-Ḳabbalah (Göritz, 1852)
- Yalḳuṭ Yashar (ib. 1854), collectanea, including a defense by Reggio of the opinion which attributes Isa. xl.-lxvi, to an author who lived after the Captivity.
He wrote also a metrical Italian translation of the Book of Isaiah (Udine, 1831), and translated into Italian prose the books of Joshua, Ruth, and Lamentations, the treatise Pirḳe Abot, and M. Mendelssohn's correspondence with Lavater on religion. In the notes to Elijah Delmedigo's Beḥinat ha-Dat Reggio often supplements or criticizes this work; he, moreover, refutes Aaron Chorin in notes 8, 15-19, and attacks the Kabbalah in notes 9-13. It may be noticed that thirteen years previously Moses Kunitzer printed, in his Sefer ha-Meẓaref, Reggio's letter in defense of the Kabbalah.
Reggio was an indefatigable contributor to most of the Jewish journals of his time and an able apologist. He was also the editor of Bikkure 'Ittim ha-Ḥadashim, the Hebrew part of Busch's Jahrbücher (Vienna, 1845), and Meged Geresh Yeraḥim, a supplement to the Central-Organ für Jüdische Interessen (ib. 1849). It may be added that Reggio was a painter of considerable ability. There are more than two hundred drawings and paintings by him, including portraits of many Jewish celebrities, and a map drawn by him is preserved in the library of Triest. In 1812 he inscribed the whole Book of Esther on a small piece of parchment one and a half handbreadths long. He left also a great number of unpublished writings, among which are sermons and poems in Hebrew and Italian.
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