ר׳ משה בן יהושע נרבוני

ר׳ משה בן יהושע נרבוני (c.1300–1362), also called Mestre Vidal Bellshom, was a Catalan Jewish physician and one of the fourteenth century’s most important Averroist philosophers. Born at Perpignan, he began philosophy with his father at thirteen, studied medicine and learned from members of the Caslari family. He travelled widely through Catalonia and Castile, practising medicine while commenting on Arabic and Jewish philosophical classics. During the Black Death persecutions of 1348–49, a mob attacked the Jews of Cervera; he escaped but lost his property and books. He later worked in Barcelona, Toledo and Soria. Narboni wrote commentaries on al-Ghazali, Ibn Tufayl, Avicenna and Averroes, alongside medical, ethical and polemical treatises. His crowning work was an extensive commentary on the Rambam’s מורה נבוכים, composed over roughly seven years and completed at Soria. Its uncompromising rationalism made him a central figure in medieval Jewish Averroism and influenced later interpreters of Maimonides. He died around 1362, apparently while attempting to return north from Soria toward his native region; the exact place remains uncertain.