The Andalusian Jewish poet and Neoplatonic philosopher whose Fountain of Life, read for centuries in Latin as the work of "Avicebron," shaped medieval Christian thought.
Life
Solomon ibn Gabirol (c. 1021–1058) was a brilliant, melancholy poet and philosopher of Muslim Spain. His Hebrew verse, both secular and sacred, ranks among the finest of the age, and some entered the Jewish liturgy. His philosophical Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae), written in Arabic and translated into Latin, expounded a Neoplatonic metaphysics so thoroughly that medieval Christian scholastics, knowing him as "Avicebron," long took him for a Muslim or Christian. Rediscovered as a Jewish thinker only in the 19th century, he stands as a bridge between Jewish, Islamic, and Christian philosophy.