Review of Ilana Zinguer, L'hébreu Au Temps De La Renaissance David B

University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons

Departmental Papers (History) Department of History

1993 Review of Ilana Zinguer, L'Hébreu au Temps de la Renaissance David B. Ruderman University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/history_papers Part of the Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Jewish Studies Commons

Recommended Citation Ruderman, D. B. (1993). Review of Ilana Zinguer, L'Hébreu au Temps de la Renaissance. Renaissance Quarterly, 46 (3), 591-593. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3039119

At the time of this publication, Dr. Ruderman was affiliated with Yale University, but he is now a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.

This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/history_papers/42 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Review of Ilana Zinguer, L'Hébreu au Temps de la Renaissance

Abstract Ilana Zinguer, who teaches French literature at the University of Haifa, has assembled an interesting selection of essays on various aspects of Hebraic studies in the Renaissance in this volume. Of the eleven contributors, most are French or specialize in French literature in the Renaissance while several are European scholars of Hebrew or Semitic studies. Despite the editor's proximity to the centers of Jewish scholarship in Israel, however, the volume displays minimal awareness of and contact with that scholarship or scholarship stemming from North America. The er sult, as Ilana Zinguer readily acknowledges in her introduction, is less than a systematic treatment of the study of Hebrew in the Renaissance, neither on the part of Christians nor especially on the part of Jews. While is is certainly possible to focus on the the Christian study of Hebrew alone, the reader might wonder whether such a partial picture accurately portrays the complex motivations of Catholics and Protestants in studying Hebrew and their equally complex interactions and collaborations with a living Jewish community deeply engaged in the study and production of Hebrew books.

Disciplines Cultural History | European History | History | History of Religion | Jewish Studies

Comments At the time of this publication, Dr. Ruderman was affiliated with Yale University, but he is now a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.

This review is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/history_papers/42 REVIEWS 59I played on on the the old old cosmographer's cosmographer's credulity credulity and fooled and himfooled with him with forged maps maps and and tall tall tales, tales, may may have haveplayed played a significant a significant role in pre- role in pre- venting Thevet Thevet from from publishing publishing his later his works,later works, but their but mockery their mockery was alsoalso a acommentary commentary on theon changingthe changing times. times.The kind The of kindnaive of naive travel adventures adventures that that had hadonce once gained gained Thevet Thevet praise frompraise the from poets the poets of thethe Pleiade Pleiade were were no nolonger longer capable capable of winning of winning him an himaudience. an audience. BOSTON UNIVERSITY Barbara B. Diefendorf

Ilana Zinguer, ed. L'Hebreu au Temps de la Renaissance. (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, 4.) Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1992. 260 pp. $71.50.

Ilana Zinguer, who teaches French literature at the University of Haifa, has assembled an interesting selection of essays on various aspects of Hebraic studies in the Renaissance in this volume. Of the eleven contributors, most are French or specialize in French literature in the Renaissance while several are European scholars of He- brew or Semitic studies. Despite the editor's proximity to the centers of Jewish scholarship in Israel, however, the volume displays minimal awareness of and contact with that scholarship or scholarship stemming from North America. The result, as Ilana Zinguer readily acknowledges in her introduction, is less than a systematic treatment of the study of Hebrew in the Renaissance, neither on the part of Christians nor especially on the part ofJews. While it is certainly possible to focus on the Christian study of Hebrew alone, the reader might wonder whether such a partial picture accurately portrays the complex motivations of Catholics and Protestants in studying Hebrew and their equally complex interactions and collaborations with a living Jewish community deeply engaged in the study and production of Hebrew books. The volume begins with a study of Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the Old Testament into French, but then shifts to Italy, focusing on the Hebraic interests of Giannozzo Manetti and Pico della Mirandola; the Hebrew translations of philosophy and science by Jews (the small contribution by Giuliano Tamani is the one essay to consider the direct involvement of Jewish savants in the diffusion of Hebraic wisdom among Christians); the translation of Hebrew to Ladino by Converso scholars situated in Ferrara by the middle of the sixteenth century; and the musings of M. Pier

This content downloaded from 165.123.108.74 on Thu, 27 Jul 2017 19:55:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 592 RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY

Francesco Giambullari on the Hebraic roots of Etruscan as gleaned from the creative fabrications of the notorious Annius of Viterbo. The two essays that follow address the unrelated subjects of the desacralization of Hebrew by Christian scholars of the late sixteenth century and whether there was a reading public of Hebrew in France outside the small coterie of Christian Hebraic specialists. The volume concludes with three essays on the place of Hebrew and the Old Testament in the writings of Frangois Rabelais, An- toine de la Roche and Agrippa d'Aubigne, and Jean de Lery. There are few great surprises in any of these essays, but several significantly expand on the work of others or offer promising starts in new areas of research. Christoph Droge's essay on Manetti based on his doctoral dissertation discusses intelligently the Hebraic com- ponent of his humanist scholarship. Jean-Pierre Rothchild's study of "le grand public" of Hebrew letters in France would have infi- nitely more value if compared with the public of Hebrew letters in Italy and Germany. As a region virtually lacking a livingJewish culture, the opportunities for acquiring Hebrew books and studying Hebrew texts with Jews in France was naturally limited, especially when compared with the other two. Katia Campbell's intelligent discussion of the Hebraic enigmas in Rabelais seems convincing, at least to this non-Rabelais scholar. And Marguerite Soulie's study of the polemical poetry of two Protestant writers and Ilana Zin- guer's examination of Lery's Voyage en Terre de Bresil point to the wider influence of Hebrew and Biblical motifs in sixteenth-century literature. Despite the value of these individual discussions, the book as a whole does not adequately address the real significance of the study of Hebrew in the intellectual and spiritual agendas of the Renais- sance, the Protestant and Catholic Reforms. The study of kabbalah by Christians and Jews is virtually ignored. Despite the short essay of Antonella Ansani on Pico, and significant recent research on his and his contemporaries' Hebraic interests, the volume omits almost entirely this critical factor in the study of Hebrew among the Flo- rentine circle, Egidio of Viterbo, Francesco Giorgio, Cornelius Agrippa, Johann Reuchlin and many others throughout Europe. The encounter with Hebrew and Rabbinic texts on the part of cer- tain German and Dutch Protestant scholars is also passed over. Nor do any of the contributors reflect on the impact of the Converso community on the Hebraic interests of Bodin, Montaigne, and other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers.

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TheThe volume, volume, despite despite its many its omissions, many omissions,does point, together does point, together withwith the the recent recent overview overview of Frank ofManuel, Frank to theManuel, significance to the of significance of thethe Hebraic Hebraic factor factor in the instudy the of studyEuropean of culture European in early culture modern in early modern EuropeEurope and and to the to needthe for need a more for systematic a more andsystematic comprehensive and comprehensive examinationexamination of the of subject, the subject, where Christian where and Christian Jewish involve- and Jewish involve- mentsments are are integrally integrally linked andlinked evaluated. and evaluated. YALE UNIVERSITY David B. Ruderman

Hava Tirosh-Rothschild. Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon. Albany: State University of New York Press, I99I. viii + 385 pp. $22.95. This study of an outstanding "Renaissance" Jewish thinker, David ben Judah Messer Leon (c. I470-I535), documents his life and analyzes his thought. Beyond this, the book presents the most comprehensive reconstruction to date of the intellectual situation of Jewish thinkers in early sixteenth-century Italy and its cultural de- pendencies in the Ottoman Empire. In particular, the book explains the motives for their efforts to formulate aJewish theology and ex- amines the methods by which they did so. David was active at the height of these efforts and responded to others who were engaged in them. Born in Venice to the physician, philosopher and knight, Judah Messer Leon, David was educated in the curriculum of rabbinic texts, as well as in the liberal arts and scholastic philosophy, from both Hebrew and Latin sources. He studied under his father in Na- ples and then served as teacher, rabbi, judge and physician in Padua and then, after 1495, in Constantinople, in Salonika by 1504, and in Valona, in Albania, from I 5 I . David's participation in commu- nal life after he arrived in the Ottoman Empire involved him in four major disputes, which are recounted here. David's scholarship exemplifies a characteristically Italian- Jewish program of learning. Tirosh-Rothschild says, "The syncre- tist fusion of halakhah, philosophy, humanism, and Kabbalah was uniquely characteristic ofJewish culture in Renaissance Italy. It is found nowhere else" (I33). David ben Judah Messer Leon wrote many books, only a few of which survive, on philosophical topics, including a commentary on Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed; as well as biblical commentary, legal responsa, an encomium of women, a book of theology, and other works on music and poetry,

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