w home in Fermo, where he was cordially welcomed in 1328. The date of
his death is uncertain, but he died in about 1330.

His works were versatile rather than profound. He wrote grammatical
treatises and commentaries, which display learning more than
originality. But his poetical writings are of great interest in the
history of Jewish literature. He lived in the dawn-flush of the
Renaissance in Italy. The Italian language was just evolving itself,
under the genius of Dante, from a mere jumble of dialects into a
literary language. Dante did for Italy what Chaucer was soon after to do
for England. On the one side influenced by the Renaissance and the birth
of the new Italian language, on the other by the Jewish revival of
letters in Spain and Provence, the Italian Jews alone combined the
Jewish spirit with the spirit of the classical Renaissance. Immanuel was
the incarnation of this complex soul.

This may be seen from the form of Immanuel's _Machberoth_, or
"Collection." The latter portion of it, named separately "Hell and
Eden," was imitated from the Christian Dante; the poem as a whole was
planned on Charizi's _Tachkemoni_, a Hebrew development of the Arabic
Divan. The poet is not the hero of his own song, but like the Arabic
poets of the divan, conceives a personage who fills the centre of the
canvas--a personage really identical with the author, yet in a sense
other than he. Much quaintness of effect is produced by this double part
played by the poet, who, as it were, satirizes his own doings. In
Immanuel's _Machberoth_ there is much variety of romantic incident. But
it is in satire that he reaches his highest level. Love and wine are the
frequent burdens of his song, as they are in the Provencal and Italian
poetry of his day. Immanuel was something of a Voltaire in his jocose
treatment of sacred things, and pietists like Joseph Karo inhibited the
study of the _Machberoth_. Others, too, described his songs as sensuous
and his satires as blasphemous. But the devout and earnest piety of
some of Immanuel's prayers,--some of them to be found in the
_Machberoth_ themselves--proves that Immanuel's licentiousness and
levity were due, not to lack of reverence, but to the attempt to
reconcile the ideals of Italian society of the period of the Renaissance
with the ideals of Judaism.

Immanuel owed his rhymed prose to Charizi, but again he shows his
devotion to two masters by writing Hebrew sonnets. The sonnet was new
then t