ZIFRONI, ISRAEL BEN DANIEL

ZIFRONI, ISRAEL BEN DANIEL (16th century), Hebrew printer. Zifroni was a native of Guastalla, near Padua, Italy, and lived in Gazzuolo. In 1567 he worked as corrector in sabbioneta for Vicenzo Conti, who produced three works, among them Menahem b. Zeraḥ's halakhic compendium Ẓeidah la-Derekh. The period of his finest achievements was 1578–83, when among other works he printed a fine edition of the Talmud (1578–80) for Ambrosius Froben in basle , and a Pentateuch with haftarot, the Five Scrolls, etc. (1583) for Th. Guarin. Because of difficulties with the Basle city fathers, Froben and Zifroni printed some of their works in freiburg-im-breisgau , such as Aaron of Pesaro's Toledot Aharon, Benjamin of Tudela's Masot, and a Judeo-German paraphrase of Berechiah ha-Nakdan's Mishlei Shu'alim (1584). Zifroni eventually returned to Italy, where he worked for Di Gara of Venice as corrector (from 1588). Zifroni's son MOSES ELISHAMA also became a Hebrew printer and was active in mantua for T. Ruffinelli and the brothers I. and S. Norzi (1593–97), after which he joined his father in Venice. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: D.W. Amram, Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909), index; M. Steinschneider, Juedische Typographie (19382), 2ff.; J. Prijs, Baseler hebraeische Drucke (1964), index.