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Rabbi Avraham Zacuto

Rabbi Avraham Zacuto

1452 CE1515 CE · Acharonim · Tunis

Rabbi Avraham ben Shmuel Zacuto was a Sephardic astronomer, mathematician, and historian who served as Royal Astronomer to King John II of Portugal. His major astronomical treatise, *Ha-Chibbur ha-Gadol*, written in Hebrew while in Salamanca, established him as a leading scholar of his era. In 1504, while in Tunis, he completed the *Sefer ha-Yuḥasin*, a comprehensive chronological history of the Jewish people from Creation to 1500, which became a foundational work in Jewish historiography.

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Stop 1 of 31452–1480Born

Salamanca

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Born in Castile to a family of French Jewish exiles. He studied biblical and talmudic texts under his father and Rabbi Yitzchak Aboab II, and later attended the University of Salamanca, where he specialized in astronomy and astrology.

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