Garvanni Salomo Romano Eliano Baptista

This article incorporates text from a public domain source: Bernstein, Aaron. Some Jewish Witnesses for Christ. London: Operative Jewish Converts' Institution, 1909.

Garvanni Salomo Romano Eliano Baptista was born at Alexandria and died in Rome in 1589. He was the grandson of Elijah Levita, the famous Hebrew grammarian. Hearing that his brother was baptized at Venice, he hastened there to win him back to Judaism, but became a Christian himself in 1551. He wrote a catechism in Hebrew and Arabic, and similar religious books, but gained especial notoriety as an anti-Talmudist, and used his influence at the Papal Court to have the Talmud and other rabbinic literature, destroyed altogether. This actually happened in some places. But Baptista had to suffer for it, and his name, together with Joseph Moro and Ananel di Folgio, also converts and companions, are still branded by Jewish writers. When, in 1561, he was sent by Pope Pius IV. on a mission to Egypt, the Jews of Alexandria bitterly persecuted him at the instigation of his own mother.