Luzzatto was born in Trieste on 22 August 1800 (Rosh Hodesh, 1 Elul, 5560), and died at Padua on 30 September 1865 (Yom Kippur, 10 Tishrei 5626).

Nevertheless, by the end of 1815 he had composed thirty-seven poems, which form a part of his "Kinnor Na'im," and in 1817 had finished his Ma'amar ha-Niqqud, a treatise on the vowels.

In 1818 he began to write his Torah Nidreshet, a philosophico-theological work of which he composed only twenty-four chapters, the first twelve being published in the Kokhve Yitzḥak [he] (vols.

In spite of his father's desire that he should learn a trade, Luzzatto had no inclination for one, and to earn his livelihood he was obliged to give private lessons, finding pupils with great difficulty on account of his timidity.

Until 1829 he earned a livelihood by giving lessons and by writing for the Bikkure ha-Ittim; in that year he was appointed professor at the rabbinical college of Padua.

He was also one of the first Jews who permitted themselves to amend the text of the Hebrew Bible (others, though with a lesser degree of originality, include Samson Cohen Modon[3][4] and Manassa of Ilya[5]); many of his emendations met with the approval of critical scholars of the day.

Through a careful examination of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Luzzatto came to the conclusion that its author was not Solomon,[6] but someone who lived several centuries later and whose name was "Kohelet".

He felt that one of the factors that pushed scholars to post-date the latter portion of the book stemmed from a denial of the possibility of prophetic prediction of distant future events, and therefore was a heretical position.

Another reason for the interruption of his relations with the chief rabbi of Prague was that Luzzatto, though otherwise on good terms with Jost, could not endure the latter's extreme rationalism.

During his literary career of more than fifty years, Luzzatto wrote a great number of works and scholarly correspondences in Hebrew, Italian, German and French.