MORDECAI NATHAN, MAESTRO:

By: Richard Gottheil, S. Kahn

French physician; lived at Avignon in the middle of the fifteenth century. He corresponded with Joseph Colon, who highly praises his medical skill and addresses him by the title , a term which, according to some authorities (Carmoly, "Histoire des Médecins Juifs," p. 126), meant "master," but which, according to others (Gross, in "Monatsschrift," 1880, p. 518), was merely a title of respect.

Mordecai is doubtless identical with the mathematician Mordecai Nadi (Wolf, "Bibl. Hebr." iv. 904), with the astronomer Mordecai Nathan (Renan-Neubauer, "Les Ecrivains Juifs Français," p. 581), and with Maestro Mordecai Todros Nathan of Avignon, for whom Nathanael b. Nehemiah Caspi of Largentière copied in 1454 at Arles, France, Alfasi's book on casuistics and other Talmudic works. He has been erroneously confounded with Isaac Nathan, author of the celebrated concordance.

G. S. K.