Physician, linguist, scholar. Born in Mantua to an ancient Italian-Jewish family at the height of the Renaissance, Rossi was one of the first to apply scientific methods to the study of Jewish history. This he did in Me’or Enayim (Light of the Eyes), a scholarly work telling the history of the Jewish people from the destruction of the Temple onward. Jews and non-Jews thought it important, and parts of it were translated into Latin.