Rabbi David ibn Yahya רבי דוד אבן יחיא
rabbi of Lisbon sentenced to the stake; grammarian, author of the Leshon Limmudim
Of the house of ibn Yahya, an old Portuguese family that gave physicians, courtiers and rabbis. He was born about 1455; from 1476 he was rabbi of Lisbon.
He was accused of bringing Marranos back to the faith of their fathers, and King João II sentenced him to be burned. He fled with his family to Naples but was seized on the way, and to buy his freedom he sold his library—for a man of books, a price worth naming aloud. After his release he took refuge at Corfu with Don Isaac Abarbanel, and spent the end of his life at Larta in extreme poverty; there he died about 1528.
He wrote the Leshon Limmudim, a Hebrew grammar printed at Constantinople in 1506 and reissued there and at Venice; commentaries on the Mishnah and on books of the Tanakh and a work on the rules of Hebrew poetry are also ascribed to him. The years of his life differ in the reference works: 1455–1528 is the commoner reading, but 1440–1524 is also met with. The first stands here, and the second is named.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- The Leshon Limmudim, Constantinople 1506 — the grammar and its printings
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Lisbon, the sentence of João II, the sale of the library, Corfu and Larta; the two readings of the years
Basis: documents and evidence.