Yashar of Candia

R. Joseph Solomon Delmedigo — Yashar of Candia (1591-1655) — was the most polymathic Jewish scientist-philosopher of the early 17th century. Born in Candia (Crete), he studied medicine at Padua (1606-1613) under Galileo — whom he cites approvingly in his cosmological writings — and then served as community physician across Cairo, Constantinople, Vilna (as physician to the magnate Radziwill), Hamburg, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Prague, and finally Prague where he died.

His Sefer Elim (Amsterdam 1629) is a 700-page collection of scientific essays in Hebrew, covering astronomy, mathematics, physics, music theory, and medicine — the first major Hebrew engagement with the new Galilean science. His Matzref la-Chochmah is a sympathetic-critical exposition of Kabbalah.