This was the man who created modern Jewish “science”--to use the term so beloved of our Continental brethren. De Rossi’s great work appeared as a quarto in November, 1573 (some date it 1574). It was well printed in the pretty square Hebrew type for which Mantua is famous. The author called it _Meor ‘Enayim_, that is, “Light of the Eyes.” It was, indeed, an illuminant. Graetz summarily asserts that “the actual results of this historical investigation, for the most part, have proved unsound.” Assuredly many of De Rossi’s statements are no longer accepted. He was the father of criticism, yet he was often himself uncritical. In his chapter on the antiquity of the Hebrew language, for instance, he remarks: “I have seen among many ancient coins, belonging to David Finzi of Mantua, a silver coin on which, on the obverse, is a man’s head round which is inscribed ‘King Solomon’ in Hebrew square letters, while the reverse bears a figure of the temple with the Hebrew legend ‘Temple of Solomon.’” As Zunz observes, this coin must have been a modern fabrication. In many other points De Rossi erred. But some of the “mistakes” for which he is blamed are not his but his critics’. Zunz, like Graetz, had little patience with the Zohar. The literature of the Kabbalah was to both these great scholars “false and corrupt.” At this date we are much more inclined to treat the Kabbalah with respect. De Rossi has been justified by later research. Then, again, Zunz categorically includes among De Rossi’s blunders his acceptance of the Letter of Aristeas as genuine. But in the year 1904 Mr. H. St. J. Thackeray, in the preface to his new English translation of the Letter, asserts “recent criticism has set in the direction of rehabilitating the story, or at any rate part of it.” Here, one can have no hesitation in claiming, De Rossi was right, and his critics wrong.