Skip to content
Wellsprings
Avraham Zacuto

Avraham Zacuto

1452 CE–1515 CE · Acharonim · Salamanca

Avraham ben Shmuel Zacuto (1452–c. 1515) was a Sephardic rabbi, astronomer, mathematician, and historian born in Salamanca, Castile. His principal astronomical work, Ha-Ḥibbur ha-Gadol ("The Great Composition"), was finished around 1478 and laid out sixty-five tables for calculating celestial positions; he also developed a copper astrolabe suited to fixing latitude at sea. Portuguese navigators drew on these tools, and Vasco da Gama took Zacuto's tables and instrument with him when he sailed for India in 1497. Zacuto served as court astronomer under John II of Portugal, continuing into the early reign of Manuel I. Exiled from Spain in the 1492 expulsion, he settled in Lisbon; when forced conversions began in Portugal, he fled to Tunis, where in 1504 he finished Sefer ha-Yuḥasin, a chronicle of Jewish history reaching from Creation to 1500. He afterward set out for the Land of Israel, dying around 1515 — by most accounts in Jerusalem, though some sources say Damascus.

See Avraham Zacuto’s journey on the map →

Did you know?

  • A rabbi's star tables saved a shipwrecked Columbus — with an eclipse

    Rabbi Avraham Zacuto was a Torah scholar and chronicler of the mesorah — author of Sefer Yuchasin, a history of the chain of Jewish tradition — and also the finest astronomer of his age, royal astronomer at the Portuguese court. His astronomical tables helped guide Vasco da Gama around Africa to India. And in 1503, when Columbus lay shipwrecked and starving on Jamaica and the islanders cut off his food, he used Zacuto's almanac to predict a total lunar eclipse to the very night — awing them into feeding his crew until rescue came. Columbus himself credited the rabbi's tables.

    How we know

    Avraham Zacuto (c. 1452–1515), Salamanca-trained astronomer, historian (Sefer Yuchasin) and rabbi; after the 1492 expulsion he became royal astronomer in Portugal. His Ha-Ḥibbur ha-Gadol / Almanach Perpetuum tables and copper astrolabe were used on Vasco da Gama's 1497–99 voyage to India. Columbus, beached on Jamaica (June 1503–1504), used Zacuto's almanac to predict the total lunar eclipse of the night of 29 February 1504 and pressed the islanders to resume provisioning his crew — attributing the prediction to Zacuto's Almanach. Late-15th/early-16th-century historical dates, so it holds under the mesorah.

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the orchard map →

Stop 1 of 41452–1480Born

Salamanca

What they did here

Birthplace.

About Salamanca

Salamanca, a city in Castile and León, western Spain, seat of a celebrated university. Its 16th-century theology faculty (the 'School of Salamanca') shaped Catholic thought; Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross were active in the region of Castile.

See other sages who lived in Salamanca→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Avraham Zacuto’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Avraham Zacuto’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Jewish world

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.