Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Ramchal, was born in 5467 (1707) in the ghetto of Padua, Italy, to Rabbi Yaakov Chai Luzzatto, a merchant and scholar, and Diamante. From childhood he studied Torah with rabbis and sciences and languages with tutors; his principal teacher was Rabbi Yeshayahu Basan, and he learned Hebrew, Italian poetry and rhetoric from Rabbi Yitzchak Chaim Cantarini. At eighteen he published his first work, Leshon Limudim, on rhetoric.

In 1727 he reported receiving revelations from a maggid, a heavenly messenger who disclosed kabbalistic secrets to him, and a study circle called “Mevakshei Hashem” formed around him. These revelations provoked fierce opposition from rabbis haunted by the memory of the false messiah Shabbetai Tzvi; on his teacher's advice he committed in writing to stop composing works dictated by the maggid. In 1731 he married Tzipporah, daughter of Rabbi David Finzi, chief rabbi of Mantua.

As the attacks continued, he left Italy and reached Amsterdam in early 1735. He joined the Portuguese community, earned his living by polishing (as a diamond cutter, according to English sources), and devoted himself to works of ethics and faith. There he published Mesillat Yesharim (“The Path of the Just”) in 1740, which became the foundational text of the Mussar movement and of the yeshiva world, as well as Derech Hashem.

Works: Mesillat Yesharim, Derech Hashem, Daat Tevunot, Klach Pitchei Chochmah (138 Openings of Wisdom), Adir Bamarom, the plays Maaseh Shimshon and Migdal Oz, and La-Yesharim Tehillah.

In 5503 (1743) he left Amsterdam with his wife and son and settled in Acre in the Land of Israel. There he died in a plague together with his wife and only son, on 26 Iyar 5506 (16 May 1746), aged thirty-nine. His burial place is disputed: one tradition places it in Tiberias near Rabbi Akiva, where a monument was erected in 1947, while other scholars identify his grave in the Jewish cemetery of Kafr Yasif near Acre.