Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, the Chida, was born in Jerusalem in 1724, the son of Rabbi Refael Yitzchak Zerachia Azulai, a great-grandson of the kabbalist Rabbi Avraham Azulai; his mother, Sarah, of Ashkenazi origin, was the daughter of the kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Bialer. His principal teacher was Rabbi Yonah Navon, author of Nechpeh BaKesef, who trained him to write responsa. He also studied at the Knesset Yisrael yeshiva under the Or HaChaim, at the Beit Yaakov yeshiva under Rabbi Yitzchak HaKohen Rapoport, and at the Beit El kabbalists' yeshiva with Rabbi Yom Tov Algazi, in the circle of the Rashash.

Sent as an emissary of the Hebron community, he made two great journeys: from 1753 to 1757 through Italy and Germany to Western Europe and London; and from 1772 to 1778 through Tunisia, Italy, France and Holland. Everywhere he visited libraries and studied rare manuscripts. He finally settled in Livorno, a major centre of Sephardic Jewry.

The author of more than 80 works, he covered halacha (Birkei Yosef), Kabbalah, homiletics and history. His Shem HaGedolim is a biographical dictionary of sages and their works, still in use. He passed away in Livorno on 11 Adar 5566 (1806); in 1960 his remains were brought to Jerusalem, to the Har HaMenuchot cemetery.