Leon da Modena was the most famous Venetian rabbi of the seventeenth century. An eclectic spirit, a skilled preacher, author of many books in Hebrew and Italian, he taught in the Old Ghetto in the beth midrash (school) that still bears his name and today is the new Bookshop of the Ghetto.
He was head of a music Academy and had contact with many intellectuals of that period and always strived to defend Judaism from all forms of prejudice. He tried to diffuse knowledge of Jewish life in his famous Historia de riti ebraici (History of Jewish Rites, 1638) and of Biblical language in his dictionary Galuth Jehudah (The Exile of Yehudah). His autobiography is a tormented self-portrait.
