Sforno

Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno was an Italian rabbi of the Renaissance — a physician and philosopher as well as a biblical commentator. His commentary on the Torah is prized for its clear, restrained pursuit of the plain meaning of the text, free of mystical speculation. Learned in the wider culture of his day, he taught Hebrew in Rome to the great Christian humanist Johann Reuchlin, and spent his later life in Bologna, where he founded a house of study.