The Universe of Shabbetai Donnolo

Shabbetai Donnolo was a Jewish doctor born in Southern Italy in 913 AD when it was part of the Byzantine Empire. He is best known as the author of a herbal and traditionally as one of the founders of Europe's first medical school at Salerno. However, his medical reputation has overshadowed his cosmological writings, the most important of which is his Sefer Hakhmoni , a title implying Wisdom. As pharmacy and medicine in the tenth century were inextricably interwoven with astrology and cosmology Donnolo sets out his idea of a divinely created universe, with man in the image of God, based on a synthesis of contemporary thought. Professor Sharf shows how Donnolo's cosmology is a striking blend of his mystical inheritance from the Judaism of his birth, the Christian culture of his homeland and the Islamic astronomy which he studied, with the down-to-earth, plain and practical mind of the doctor.