Abraham ben Solomon Conat

Abraham ben Solomon Conat, probably of Ashkenazi origin, was Italian physician and one of the earliest printers of Hebrew books. He lived in Mantua, where he may have been active as a printer as early as 1475. In two years he had been active as a printer he printed Jacob b. Asher’s “Tur Oraḥ Ḥayyim”; “Sefer Eldad ha-Dani”; Jedaiah Bedersi’s “Beḥinat Olam”; Mordecai Finzi’s “Luḥot”, astronomical tables; Judah Messer Leon’s “Nofet Ẓufim”; Levi b. Gershom’s Pentateuch commentary; and “Sefer Josippon”, the pseudo-Josephus. He also began to print “Yoreh De’ah” but this was completed in Ferrara by Abraham b. Ḥayyim of Pesaro, which suggests that Conat died about 1477.

Conat’s wife, Estellina Conat, was equally active in the printing of these books and is the first woman who is named as an editor in a printing house.