Elia Levita (M / Germany, Italy, 1469-1549), scholar
Elia Levita (1469-1549) was a German Italian Jewish scholar, grammarian and poet. Born at Neustadt near Nuremberg, in his early adulthood he settled in Italy which would remain his home. While in Padua, in 1507-08 he composed the Bovo-Bukh, the most popular chivalric romance in Yiddish that in 1541 would become the first non-religious book to be printed in that language. In 1514 he moved to Rome where he remained until 1527 as a librarian at the service of Cardinal Giles (Egidio) of Viterbo. Back to Venice, he continued his work as a grammarian, visiting for some years (1540-44) Isny and Constance in Germany, to superintend the Hebrew printing-press there at the invitation of Paul Fagius. Levita died in Venice in 1849. Many Italian humanists would call him their teacher.