Moses Galina

Moses ben Elijah Galina (Hebrew: משה בן אליהו גלינו, romanized: Moshe ben Eliyahu Galino; fl. 15th century)^{[note 1]} was a Jewish pseudoscientific writer and translator from Candia.

He is best known for his work Toledot Adam, published in Constantinople in 1515, on chiromancy and physiognomy.^[1] The work draws primarily from 'Ali ibn 'Abbas' Kamil al-Ṣina'ah and the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum. It was later condensed and released with a translation into Yiddish under the title Ḥokhmat ha-yad.

Galina published several translations from Arabic into Hebrew, including Sefer mezuḳḳaḳ, an astronomical treatise by Omar ibn Mohammed Meṣuman; Mishpaṭ ha-mabbaṭim, an astrological treatise; and Sefer ha-goralot, a treatise on geomancy.^[2]

Notes

1. His name is sometimes erroneously given as Elijah ben Moses Galina.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Deutsch, Gotthard; Seligsohn, M. (1903). "Galina, Moses ben Elijah". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 554–555.

1. Akhiezer, Golda (2019). "The Intellectual Life and Cultural Milieu of Jewish Communities in Medieval Kaffa and Solkhat". AJS Review. 43 (1). Association for Jewish Studies: 17–18. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000776.
2. Steinschneider, Moritz (1893). Die Hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (in German). Berlin. pp. 253, 578, 595, 965.