LOBATO:

By: Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling

Marano family, several of whose members lived at Amsterdam. The best-known members of the family are:

Diego Gomez Lobato (called also Abraham Cohen Lobato):

Portuguese Marano; born at Lisbon, where he was living in 1599; cousin and countryman of the poet Paul de Pina (Rehuel Jeshurun). When the latter was going to Rome, intending to enter a monastery there, Lobato gave him a letter, dated April 3, 1599, addressed to Elijah Montalto (subsequently physician to Maria de Medici), who was then living at Leghorn, asking Elijah to dissuade Paul from his purpose. Paul de Pina was in fact induced by Montalto to desist from carrying out his intention. He became an enthusiastic follower of Judaism, and lived, like Diego Gomez Lobato, at Amsterdam.

Isaac Cohen Lobato:

Portuguese Marano; born at Lisbon; died at an advanced age in Amsterdam; a relation of Diego Gomez Lobato. At the performance in the first synagogue of Amsterdam of Rehuel Jeashurun's antiphonal poem "Dialogo delos Siete Montes" (composed in 1624), in which the mountains of the Holy Land are introduced as speakers, Lobato took the leading part of Mt. Zion. In 1678 he, together with David Mendes Coutinho, founded the philanthropic society Sha'are Ẓedeḳ at Amsterdam.

Rehuel Cohen Lobato:

Sephardic author; lived at Amsterdam; father of Isaac Cohen Lobato. Together with Moses Belmonte he issued a new Spanish translation of the Pirḳe Abot, entitled "Perakym" (Amsterdam, 1644).

G. M. K.