IBN YA'ISH, BARUCH BEN ISAAC:

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By: Joseph Jacobs, M. Seligsohn

Philosopher and translator of the fifteenth century; apparently a native of Spain, though he lived in Italy. Ibn Ya'ish, in addition to being a master of Hebrew, had a thorough knowledge of Arabic and Latin. His only original work is a Hebrew commentary, in ten chapters, to Avicenna's "Medicamenta Cordialia," entitled "Bi'ur la-Sammim ha-Libbiyyim," taken from a Latin translation. He analyzes the functions of the heart, quoting Averroes and Aristotle (comp. Parma, De Rossi, MS. No. 1036). MS. (Hebr.) No. 1001 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, an anonymous commentary on Aristotle's "Ethics," bears the name of Ibn Ya'ish, but it is not clearly indicated whether he was the commentator or only the translator (see Steinschneider, "Hebr. Uebers." p. 218). He also translated from the Latin, at the request of Samuel Ẓarfati, Aristotle's "Metaphysics," under the title "Mah she-Aḥar ha-Ṭeba'" (c. 1485?). In the introduction he explains that he gave the preference to the Latin translation because the Arabic translation was very confused. While his Hebrew translation is literal, he divided each of the twelve books into chapters, a division not existing in the original. He prefaced the work with a minute table of contents. Another Baruch ben Isaac ibn Ya'ish, of Cordova, was the author of "Meḳor Baruk," a triple commentary on Canticles, Ecclesiastes,Proverbs, and Job (Constantinople, 1576). Carmoly (Jost's "Annalen," i. 302) identifies the two.

J. M. Sel.