Isaac Chayyim Cantarini - His Poems

His Poems

The following poems were published by Cantarini; they are nearly all occasional: Pi Sefarim (Mouth of Books), festal songs written when the teachers of the yeshivah decided to include the study of the treatise of Chullin (Venice, 1669). A poem in the form of a psalm, on the delivery of the community from the hands of the populace August 20, 1684, is printed in the Pachad Yitzchaq (p. 51b), which was formerly read every year in the synagogue on the anniversary of the attack (10 Elul). Other poems are printed in his works ‘Eqeb Rab and ‘Et Qetz (see below), and in the prefaces to the Kebunnat Abraham of Abraham Cohen, and the Ma'aseh Tobiah of Tobias Cohen.

Cantarini also wrote a paraphrase of the majority of the Psalms. Many of his poems in manuscript were in Ghirondi's possession. Some of his poems have also been inscribed on the walls of the large Ashkenazic synagogue of Padua, which was built during his life. His ‘Et Qetz (Time of the End) deals with the time of the advent of the Messiah (Amsterdam, 1710), while the ‘Eqeb Rab (Great Consequence), is a collection of responsa in Hebrew and Italian, concerning the oath which the tax-collectors of the community of Padua took before the wardens (Venice, 1711). The manuscript of his Leb Chakam (Heart of the Wise) was in Ghirondi's possession. His Chayye Besarim (Physical Life), Leb Marpeh (Healing Heart), and Shibat Tishbi (Reply to the Tishbite), a polemic against Elijah Levita's Tishbi were not printed before the twentieth century. Cantarini's Hebrew letters, addressed to the Christian scholar Unger of Silesia, are interesting as containing notices on the Jewish writers of Italy. Halakic responsa of his are printed in Isaac Lampronti's Pachad Yitzchaq and in Simson Morpurgo's Shemesh Tzedaqah.