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.
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Salamanca
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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.
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