Ishtori Haparchi
Rabbi Ishtori Haparchi (1280-1366, Hebrew: אשתורי הפרחי) was a 14th century Jewish scholar.
He was the author of the 1322 travelogue Sefer Kaftor Vaferech (Hebrew: ספר כפתור ופרח, "Book of Bulb and Flower"). Kaftor Vaferech ("Bulb and Flower") is an idiomatic expression alluding to the structure of the menorah in Exodus 37:17 and denotes something of aesthetic design. The book was the first in the Hebrew language to describe the topography of the Land of Israel.
Ishtori Haparchi was born in France in 1306. His family originally came from Florence and the surname Haparchi means "the Florentine" in Hebrew (perech being the Hebrew for flower). He is commonly known by the title Kaftor Vaferech taken from the name of his work, the expression being additionally a pun on his surname.
After the 1306 French expulsion of Jews forced him to leave, he travelled to Spain and Egypt, and arrived in the Mamluk-controlled Land of Israel and worked as a physician in Bet She'an, where he died in 1355.
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