Vidal of Tolosa

Vidal of Tolosa (Hebrew: וידאל די טולושא) was a Spanish rabbi and scholar of the latter half of the fourteenth century.

Vidal resided in Catalonia, where he prepared his most important work, Maggid Mishneh, a commentary on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. This work covered the entire contents of the Mishneh Torah, but by 1906 only those parts were extant which cover the following books: iii., iv., v. (ch. i.-ix. only), xi., xii. (ch. i.-iii. only), and xiii. Before the twentieth century, the commentary was never published separately, but only together with the Mishneh Torah (first at Constantinople, 1509). Vidal's second work was a commentary in Arabic on a work by Al-Ghazali that is known in Hebrew as To'elet ha-Higgayon. This commentary was translated into Hebrew by Moses ben Joshua of Narbonne, and as of 1906 was extant in manuscript in the Library of the Vatican. From Joseph Caro's preface to his Kesef Mishneh it appears that Vidal was a personal friend of Nissim of Gerona.

Vidal's son Isaac was also a prominent scholar. He lived in Alcala and corresponded with Isaac ben Sheshet, according to Isaac's responsa number 473.

Sources

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906.  That text cites the following sources:

• Giulio Bartolocci. Ḳiryat Sefer (Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica). Four folio volumes, 1675-93. ii. 804a-805b.
• Isaac Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, Thesaurus Librorum Hebræorum tam Impressorum quam Manuscriptorum. Wilna, 1880. p. 384.
• David Conforte. Ḳore ha-Dorot. ed. David Cassel (Berlin, 1846), pp. 26a, 27a.
• Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi. Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei e delle Loro Opere (Parma, 1802; German translation by Hamberger, Leipsic, 1839). p. 328.
• Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya. Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah. ed. Amsterdam, p. 45.
• Heimann Joseph Michael. Or ha-Ḥayyim. Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1891. pp. 360-361.
• David Rosin. Ein Compendium der Jüdischen Gesetzeskunde aus dem 14. Jahrhundert. Breslau, 1871. p. 115, Breslau, 1871.
• Moritz Steinschneider. Die Hebräischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die-Juden als Dolmetscher, etc. Berlin, 1893. i. 315, note 353.
• Moritz Steinschneider. Jüdische Literatur, p. 388, note 17.
• Moritz Steinschneider. Catalogus librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana. Berlin, 1852-1860. cols. 2707-2708.
• Johann Christoph Wolf. Bibliotheca Hebræa (4 vols., Hamburg, 1715-33). i. 563, iii. 562.
• Abraham Zacuto. Sefer Yuḥasin ha-Shalem. ed. Hirsch Filipowski (London, 1857). p. 225a.