It cannot be maintained that Del Medigo suggested novel trains of thought in his work. In general, the Italians were not destined to endow Judaism with new ideas. Moreover, he occupied the standpoint of belief rather than of inquiry, and his aim was to defend, not to cut new paths. Standing alone in the mental barrenness of his age, Del Medigo's sound views are like an oasis in the desert. He must be credited, too, with having recognized as deformities, and with desiring to remove, the additions to Judaism by Kabbalists and pseudo-philosophers. Unfortunately, the rabbis who emigrated from Germany to Italy assumed an attitude distinctly hostile to philosophical investigation and its promoters, Elias del Medigo and Messer Leon. With their honest, but one-sided, exaggerated piety, they cast a gloomy shadow wherever their hard fate had scattered them. Fresh storms breaking over the German communities had driven many German Jews, the most unhappy of their race, into transalpine lands. Under Emperor Frederick III, who for half a century had with astounding equanimity beheld most shameless insults to his authority on the part of an ambitious nobility, a plundering squire-archy, a demoralized clergy, and the self-seeking patricians of the smaller towns, the Jewish communities but too often saw their cup of bitterness overflow. Frederick himself was by no means hostile to them. On the contrary, he frequently issued decrees in their favor. Unhappily, his commands remained for the most part a dead letter, and his laxity of rule encouraged the evil-minded to the commission of the most shameful misdeeds. It was dangerous for the German Jews to go beyond the walls of their cities. Every man was their foe, and waylaid them to satisfy either his fanaticism or his cupidity. Every feud that broke out in the decaying German empire brought misery to them. Among exiles from Mayence were two profound Talmudic scholars. They were cousins, by name Judah and Moses Menz. The former emigrated to Padua, and there received the office of rabbi, while the latter at first remained in Germany, and then passed over to Posen. As the result of expulsion or oppression, many rabbis were emigrating from all parts of Germany, and on account of their superior Talmudic knowledge these German emigrants were elected to the most distinguished rabbinical positions in Italy. They re-indoctrinated with their prejudice and narrowness of vision the Italian Jews, who were making determined efforts to free themselves from the bonds of the Middle Ages.