Tuvia (or Tobias) ha-Kohen (Metz, 1652-Jerusalem, 1729) authored Ma'aseh Tuvia (first ed. Venice 1707). Although primarily remembered as a work written to bring "modern" medicine to Jews without access to learned practitioners, Tuvia's tome was, in fact, a feast of polymathic proportions. Its readers were exposed to a panoramic survey of the natural world, frequently enhanced by scientific images that ranged from anatomy to astronomy.

An oft-reproduced image in Tuvia's work—a demonstration that the world is round—shows a globe on the perimeter of which may be seen a large building and a ship connected by lines.

Tuvia's image (as well as its accompanying text) is based on one found in the influential De Sphaera Mundi of John Holywood, better known as Johannes de Sacrobosco (perhaps the 1550 edition). It is also possible that he used a derivative work that included the same image and explanation, such as Positiones suas physioastronomicas de sphaera coelesti, published in Napoli in 1682.

• Image from De Sphaera Mundi
• Bibliographic information about De Sphaera Mundi
• Positiones suas physioastronomicas de sphaera coelesti: facsimile
• Image from Positiones suas physioastronomicas de sphaera coelesti