Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies
Series Editor David S. Katz
VOLUME 45 Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance
Sources and Encounters
Edited by Ilana Zinguer, Abraham Melamed, and Zur Shalev
LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hebraic aspects of the Renaissance : sources and encounters / edited by Ilana Zinguer, Abraham Melamed, and Zur Shalev. p. cm. — (Brill’s series in Jewish studies) This volume presents a selection of papers from the international conference Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance (University of Haifa, May, 2009). Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-21255-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Renaissance—Congresses. 2. Civilization, Modern—Jewish inÁuences—Congresses. 3. Cabala and Christianity—Italy—Congresses. 4. Christian Hebraists—Europe—History—Congresses. 5. Jewish philosophy—History—Congresses. 6. Christianity and other religions—Judaism—Congresses. 7. Judaism—Relations—Christianity—Congresses. I. Zinguer, Ilana. II. Melamed, Avraham. III. Shalev, Zur, 1967– CB367.H43 2011 940.2’1—dc23 2011023046
ISSN 0926-2261 ISBN 978 90 04 21255 8
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For their generous support of the conference and subsequent preparation of the book we are grateful to the following bodies and institutions: University of Haifa: President, Rector, Research Authority, Faculty of the Humanities, Posen Research Forum, Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Chair in Jewish Thought and Heritage, Center for the Study of Jewish Culture, Centre de Civilisation Française, Association for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem The Shalem Center, Jerusalem Institut Français at the French Embassy French Consul in Haifa We would also like to thank Simon Cook, Michael Margulis, and Annette Shahar for their dedicated editorial work. Finally, for their selfless support through various stages of the project, special mention is due to Tamy Lavyel, Aharon Refter, and other staff members at the Faculty of the Humanities, University of Haifa.
VII
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Participants ...... IX
List of Figures ...... X
Foreword ...... XI Zur Shalev Introductions 1 - Abraham Melamed ...... 1 2 – Ilana Zinguer ...... 7
Part I – Kabbalah and Mysticism Giulio Camillo’s Memory Theatre and the Kabbalah ...... 14 Lina Bolzoni Entering the Labyrinth: On the Hebraic and Kabbalistic Universe of Egidio da Viterbo ...... 27 Daniel Stein-Kokin Whither Kabbalah? Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Kabbalah, and the Disputations against Judicial Astrology ...... 43 Sheila J. Rabin Part II – Philosophy and the Humanities A - The Abravanel A Paradigm in Isaac Abravanel's Encounter with Renaissance Culture ...... 54 Cédric Cohen Skalli Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore as a Pivotal Document of Jewish- Christian Relations in Renaissance Rome ...... 62 James Nelson Novoa B - Philosophical Aspects The Immortality of the Soul and Opening Up to the Christian World: A Chapter in Early Modern Jewish-Italian Literature ...... 80 Alessandro Guetta Authority vs. Authenticity. The Leiden Debate on Bible and Hebrew (1575-1650) ...... 116 Arthur Eyffinger VIII
C - Conversos, Language and Baroque e e De la pureté de sang aux XV et XVI siècles ...... 138 Annie Molinié et Béatrice Perez L'implicite à propos des Juifs de Rome ...... 154 Ilana Zinguer Vers une sémiotique du Judaïsme à l'âge baroque ...... 164 Georges Molinié D - Literature Moses Zacuto Poet of Kabbalah ...... 170 Dvora Bregman Le Rôle de la poésie Hébraïque dans l’enseignement de Charles Utenhove ...... 182 Philip Ford E - Hebraism and Geographical Thought The Role of Early Renaissance Geographical Discoveries in Yohanan Alemanno's Messianic Thought ...... 192 Fabrizio Lelli Kabbale et cosmographie, de Guillaume Postel à Jacques d'Auzoles-Lapeyre ...... 211 Frank Lestringant
Conclusion Race, Antisemitism and the Renaissance in Fascist Italy ...... 236 David Baum
General Bibliography ...... 251
Index ...... 276
Figures ...... 292 IX
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 1 – David Baum, West Texas State 2 – Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale di Pisa 3 – Dvora Bregman, Ben Gurion University 4 – Cédric Cohen Skalli, University of Haifa 5 – Arthur Eyffinger, Huygens Institute 6 – Philip Ford, University of Cambridge 7 – Alessandro Guetta, INALCO Paris 8 – Fabrizio Lelli, University of Lecce 9 – Frank Lestringant, Sorbonne Paris IV 10 – Abraham Melamed, University of Haifa 11 – Annie Molinié, Sorbonne Paris IV 12 – Georges Molinié, Sorbonne Paris IV 13 – James Nelson Novoa, Villanova University 14 – Béatrice Perez, Université de Rennes 2 15 – Sheila J. Rabin, St Peter's College 16 – Zur Shalev, University of Haifa 17 – Daniel Stein-Kokin, University of Greifswald 18 – Ilana Zinguer, University of Haifa X
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Giulio Camillo, Idea del theatro, Florence, Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550.
Figure 2. Interpretation of “Lucrezia”, in Giulio Camillo, Opere,Venice, Domenico Farri, 1579, p. 307.
Figure 3. The tabernacle and its vessels, the Land of Israel, Jericho as labyrinth. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 6v.
Figure 4. Jericho as Labyrinth, close-up. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 6v.
Figure 5. “Fratris Aegidii Viterbiensis Liber Leonis X Munus” (“A Book of Friar Egidio da Viterbo, the gift of Leo X”). Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 7r. XI
FOREWORD
Recent scholarship on Renaissance culture has emphasized the role of cross-cultural exchange in the shaping and transformation of European knowledge and arts. Indeed, some have even questioned the model of adjacent well-defined cultural blocks and a peripheral contact zone, and doubted the utility of too sharply contrasting the European and non- European. To better understand the early modern world they propose, instead, a continuum, marked by connectedness and a permanent flow of goods, artifacts and ideas. The present book profits from and extends this literature by exploring the complex interactions of Jewish and Hebraic culture with the Christian Renaissance world from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. The cross-cultural encounter between Jews and Christians during this period has been studied by more than a few eminent scholars, from Cassuto and Roth onwards. However, the Jewish reception of humanism and Renaissance culture is still a puzzling question for scholars, as well as the Hebraic or Jewish inspiration of many aspects of the Renaissance. We felt a need for more research which would shed new light on these subjects, both by excavating new or little- known documents, and by examining familiar issues using new insights and methods, such as print culture and the history of the book, antiquarian culture, and the formation of identity – areas which in recent scholarship have greatly contributed to our conceptualization of the Renaissance. A series of successful panels in Renaissance Society of America annual meetings (organized by Prof. Zinguer) eventually led to a highly successful international conference held in Haifa and wholly dedicated to the subject (May 2009). The conference yielded a rich and innovative group of papers that forms the core of this book. Substantially developed and revised, papers in the present collection offer both an overview of the field and a varied series of detailed case-studies, touching on philosophy, education, geography and travel literature, poetry, Kabbalah, biblical scholarship, religious identity, and modern historiography. We hope that our collection will promote new research in the field, and open up further questions and debates. Zur Shalev
1
HEBRAIC ASPECTS OF THE RENAISSANCE: SOURCES AND ENCOUNTERS Abraham Melamed
Renaissance humanist culture is traditionally identified with the return to the classical Pagan sources - Greek and Roman. However, its encounter with other cultures of the ancient world - Pagan and monotheistic, has received more and more attention by scholars in the last decades. Apparently, the humanist conception of the revival of classical culture embraced much more then the venerated Greco-Roman heritage, and they endeavoured to include all ancient cultures, including the Hebraic traditions. This volume, based on lectures delivered at the three day international conference, “Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance: Sources and Encounters” (University of Haifa, May 2009), focuses on various aspects of the Renaissance encounters with Hebraic and Jewish sources. The interest in the Hebraic sources appears already at the very beginning of Renaissance humanism. In the introduction to his Latin translation of Plato's Phaedo (1405), Leonardo Bruni repeated the old tradition, transmitted by the church fathers, that Plato received his wisdom from Jewish sources, and thus affirmed a basic affinity between the Platonic doctrines and the vera religione, the Judeo-Christian monotheistic tradition.1 Giannozzo Manetti (d. 1459) expressed strong anti-Jewish sentiments; nevertheless, he viewed the study of the Hebrew language and Hebraic sources as indispensable tools for the understanding of the beginnings of Christianity, and practically initiated Hebraic studies in the Renaissance.2 This tendency had intensified by the late-Quattrocento with the emergence of Renaissance Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. Ficino included Moses among the great early sages of humanity, together with archetypical figures such as Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster and Pythagoras. He concluded that Plato received the true religious doctrines
1 Stinger, C. L., Humanism and the Church Fathers, Albany, SUNY Press, 1977, p. 76; Idel, M., “Prisca Theologia in Marsilio Ficino and in Some Jewish Treatments,” in Allen, M. J. B. and Rees, V. (eds), Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, Leiden, Brill, 2002, pp. 137-78; Melamed, A., The Myth of the Jewish Origins of Science and Philosophy, Jerusalem, Magness Press, 2010, pp. 262-3 (Hebrew). 2 Trinkaus, Ch., In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1970, pp. 578; 730-2; 820-21 n. 68; Melamed, ibid. pp. 263-4. 2 ABRAHAM MELAMED from them.3 He was followed by Pico della Mirandola, who identified the beginnings of human knowledge with the Mosaic tradition, in particular, the Mosis disciplina. This tendency culminated in his Heptaplus (1489), in which the Platonic tradition is described as close to the Hebraic truth (Hebraicum veritatem). Pico repeated the old saying that Plato was nothing but a Moses speaking Greek. Pico describes Pythagoras as one who practically copied his philosophy from the Mosaic doctrines: “De Mosaica lege plurima in suam philosopiam transtulisse.” Pico was infatuated with Kabbalah and practically Christianized it.4 Still, one cannot question the fact that Italian humanists were by and large focused on the revival of the Greco-Roman classical tradition. This situation will significantly change with the emergence of the northern Renaissance during the 16th century. The so-called ‘Christian Kabbalah’, which mostly flourished during the 16th century, and later the wider movement of ‘Christian Hebraism’ that blossomed in the 17th century, were centred mostly in Protestant Europe, in the countries beyond the Alps. These cultural movements resulted directly from the renewed interest of Renaissance humanists in the ancient past. The scholars who created these fields of study widened the original humanistic definition of classical learning beyond the Greek and Roman sources beloved by Italian Renaissance humanists, to include ancient Hebrew, among other eastern sources. This Hebraic tendency joined the general antiquarian movement of that period that enthusiastically, even obsessively, collected, catalogued and compared knowledge of cultures and societies. These they considered exotic, whether they were forgotten esoteric ancient cultures or those recently unearthed in the great voyages of exploration. This included also the emerging philosophical-historical study of scripture, which in turn brought about a huge wave of scholarship involving other oriental languages.5
3 Blau, J. L., The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance, New York, Columbia University Press, 1944 (repr. Kennikat 1965); Walker, D. P., The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1972; Idel, M. “Hermeticism and Judaism,” in Merkel, I., and Debus, A. G., (eds), Hermeticism in the Renaissance, Washington, London and Toronto, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1988, pp. 59-76; Id., “Prisca Theologia,” ibid., and see the detailed discussion in Melamed, ibid. ch. 8. 4 Kristeller, P. O., Renaissance Thought and its Sources, New York, Columbia University Press, 1979, pp. 50-65; Idel, “Prisca Theologia,” ibid.; Melamed, ibid. pp. 265-7. 5 Momigliano, A., “Ancient History and the Antiquarian,” in his Contributo alla storia degli studi classici, Roma, Edizioni do storia e letteratura, 1954, pp. 67-102; Hodgen, M. T., Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971, ch. 4. Miller, P. N., “The ‘Antiquarianization’ of INTRODUCTION 3
The scholars who participated in these movements borrowed ideas and literary forms from Biblical and post-biblical Hebrew literature and adapted them to their cultural and religious Christian needs. They developed tools for the study of the Hebrew language, translated some Hebrew literary sources and made them available to a wider reading audience. They renewed the old myth of the Jewish origins of philosophy and science,6 and endeavoured to appropriate the treasures of Jewish culture. They thus created a new academic field, Hebraic studies. Its influence upon the development of early modern European culture was enormous, far beyond the immediate contributions of the limited number of scholars who participated in this movement. What began as the esoteric interest of a small group of humanists in the late fifteenth century became, within a hundred years, a defined and respected scholarly field. At an early stage in its development we already find evidence of the great impression it made upon contemporary Jewish scholars. Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi, a Spanish refugee who settled in Jerusalem, wrote in a letter dated 1525: And who knows the Divine intentions which influenced the heart of many people in the lands of the gentiles to study the holy language and the books of Israel, and they turn and turn them as much as they can.7 As far as he was concerned this was indisputable evidence of the imminent coming of the Messiah. As Zephaniah prophesied (3:9): “For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, to serve Him with one consent.” As far as Halevi was concerned, ‘a pure language’ (safa berurah) must have meant the Hebrew language and its culture. The Christian scholar who did most to cultivate this new academic field, planted originally with the seeds of the Italian humanists, was Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522). He transmitted the embryonic Renaissance interest in Hebrew sources, as it had developed since Manetti and Pico della Mirandola, to the northern Renaissance. Reuchlin met Pico during his visit to Italy in 1490, and took over from him the mission of developing the study of the Hebrew language and culture. He studied there with Jewish teachers, among them Ovadiah Sforno, and
Biblical Scholarship and the London Polyglot Bible (1653-57),” Journal of the History of Ideas 62, 3, 2001, pp. 463-82; Rubiés, J. P., Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes, 1250-1625, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. 6 See detailed discussion with full bibliography in Melamed, ibid., especially chapters 8 and 12, dealing with Christian Hebraism. 7 Robinson, I., “Two Letters of Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi,” in Twersky, I. (ed.), Studies in Jewish History and Literature II, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 403-22. 4 ABRAHAM MELAMED consequently added a knowledge of Hebrew to his mastery of Greek and Latin. Thus he achieved full command of the three classical languages, the sources of Christianity. For his admirers he became the miraculum trilingue (the miracle of the three languages). Reuchlin had a great interest in Hebrew philology, and composed textbooks on the Hebrew language. Following Pico, his main interest was the Kabbalah, which he understood in its wider sense, namely as part of the chain of tradition. He identified a chain of transmission of esoteric knowledge beginning with Adam, who supposedly received it from an angel following the exile from Eden. Here, too, he followed Pico, and his two main kabbalistic works, De verbo mirifico (On the Word Making Wonders, 1494) and De arte cabalistica (The Art of Kabbalah, 1517), transmitted the so-called ‘Christian Kabbalah’, the Christian interpretation of the Jewish kabbalistic traditions, from the Italian to the northern Renaissance. In De arte cabalistica he coined the famous saying, which would reverberate in European culture for decades to come: “Nihil quod nostrum esse in philosophia quod non ante Iudaeorum fuerit” (“There is nothing in philosophy that was not developed by the Jews first”).8 Later on, the English seventeenth-century scholar Ben Jonson chose to put the following words, so descriptive of this widespread phenomenon, into the mouth of a madwoman: We call the rabbins, and the heathen Greeks To come from Salem, and from Athens, And to teach the people of Great Britain To speak the tongue of Eber and Javan,9 The combination of Greek wisdom and Hebraic wisdom was thus completed in European minds. Scholars of the last few decades have mainly concentrated their research on Christian Kabbalah and Christian Hebraism during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.10 Recently there has also been much interest in so-called ‘Political Hebraism,’ the Hebraic sources of Renaissance and early modern political philosophy, the research into which has challenged the traditional assumption of the sole Greco-
8 Reuchlin, J., On the Art of the Kabbalah (De Arte Cabbalsitica), M. and S. Goodman (trans.), G. Lloyd Jones (intro.), Latin/English, New York, Abaris Books, 1983, p. 130. 9 Quoted in Roth, L., “Hebraists and Non-Hebraists of the 17th Century,” Journal of Semitic Studies 6, 1961, pp. 204-21 (205). 10 See recently an excellent collection of papers on these issues, Coudert, A. and Shoulson, J. S. (eds), Hebraica Veritas? Christain Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. INTRODUCTION 5
Roman sources of early-modern political philosophy.11 There has been less interest, however, in those Hebraic influences upon Renaissance humanism, which, as noted above, created the early impetus for the development of Christian Hebraism. Thus, one of the main aims of this volume is to avoid concentrating only on later developments, and to investigate also the early encounters of Renaissance humanism with the Hebraic sources. The papers presented here are in essence case studies, which illustrate the multifaceted aspects of these encounters since the mid fifteenth until the early seventeenth century. With regard to these meetings, one can distinguish between research into the engagement of Jewish scholars with Renaissance humanism, on the one hand, and the encounter of Christian scholars of this period with the Hebraic sources, on the other. These two aspects of the whole phenomena naturally coalesce. As the papers presented here clearly show, Jewish scholars of this period who were active in Aragonese Naples, Papal Rome, the Medici’s Florence, Mantua of the Gonzaga’s and Venice, the Serrenissima, if we mention only the major cultural centres, were open to the influences of Renaissance culture and had strong connections with various Christian scholars. Both Yohanan Alemanno and Elia del Medigo had scholarly ties with Pico della Mirandola; as mentioned above, Reuchlin studied with Ovadiah Sforno, and these are just a few examples. In many respects these scholars brought the Maimonidean quest for the great synthesis between the Judaic brand of divine revelation and Greek- originated science and philosophy to its final culmination. The papers by Fabrizio Lelli, Cédric Cohen-Skalli, James Nelson Novoa, Dvora Bregman and Allesandro Guetta all deal with the scholarly activities during the Renaissance of Jewish scholars such as Yohanan Alemanno, Elia del Medigo, Isaac Abravanel, his son Judah (Leone Ebreo), Judah Muscato, Moshe Zacuto, and others. Each of these modern scholars demonstrates the depth of the particular encounters and influences under scrutiny. Lelli’s paper discusses Alemanno’s acquaintance with the new information arising from and concerning the Portuguese geographic discoveries in western Africa, which reached Italy in the late Quattrocento, and its influence upon his messianic deliberations. Cohen-Skalli identifies Isaac Abravanel’s discussion of fortune versus providence in his various works as a paradigm of his encounter with Renaissance humanism. He concludes, “the humanistic
11 Especially in the papers which appeared in the last few years in Hebraic Political Studies. See also recently: Nelson, E., The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2010. 6 ABRAHAM MELAMED revolution took place in the personalities of Jews like Isaac Abravanel, but not in their Hebrew writings.” Nelson Novoa concentrates on the reception and influence in sixteenth century Renaissance Rome of the Dialoghi d'Amore, composed by Abravanel’s son, Leone Ebreo. Bregman discusses kabbalistic influences on the poetry of the Hebrew poet Moshe Zacuto. Guetta shows how the Jewish discussion of the question of the immortality of the soul demonstrates a growing openness to Christian culture. Following Ficino and Pomponazzi this became a very popular issue in Renaissance philosophy. Jewish scholars, from Moses of Rieti, Elia del Medigo and Abravanel, in the late-Quattrocento, to Judah Moscato, David de Pomi and the poetess Sara Copio, in the late Cinquecento, incorporated into this typical Renaissance discussion the medieval Judeo-Muslim discussion of this pivotal issue, amplified by strong kabbalistic connotations. On the other side of the same coin we find the encounters of Christian scholars with Jewish scholars and texts. Sheila Rabin revisits Pico della Mirandola’s usage of kabbalistic notions in his famous 900 Conclusions, while Daniel Stein Kokin investigates Egidio da Viterbo’s novel Christian adaptations of Jewish-kabbalistic sources. All this is evidence of the richness of these Hebraic encounters in the Renaissance. 7
INTRODUCTION II Ilana Zinguer
Le dictionnaire a toujours eu pour fonction de faire que les cultures se rencontrent. Le premier témoignage, en Europe, d’une telle tentative est justement le glossaire philosophique de Samuel Ibn Tibbon qui traduisit de l’arabe en hébreu Le Guide des Egarés du vivant de son auteur, Maïmonide. Tibbon voyagea en Egypte pour recevoir l’autorisation de traduction du maître de Cordoue mais aussi pour éclaircir quelques termes prétendant que, par correspondance, il restait toujours des points obscurs. Ainsi le 30 novembre 1204, un jour avant la mort de Maïmonide, parut la traduction tant attendue, à Arles, en Provence. L’importance fondamentale du Guide des Egarés, traité philosophique qui avait réussi à mettre la vérité de la foi juive dans le cadre aristotélicien et à introduire l’hébraïsme rabbinique en un système philosophique, était telle qu’une réponse à la tension théologique et métaphysique de l’époque avait été procurée1. Cette recherche appliquée à un langage très spécifique engendrera la conception du glossaire philosophique, publié par Tibbon en 1213, sous le titre de Spiegazione dei vocaboli difficili della Guida. L’ouvrage se voulait être une aide aux lecteurs afin de transmettre la culture arabe au monde latin par l’intermédiaire de la langue hébraïque au risque d’ajouter des mots ou vocables - des néologismes. Cette langue de traducteur proposait un système de version, premier du genre en Hébreu, et premier en Europe. Ce glossaire fit ses preuves pendant de longs siècles. Il procurait avec précision les fondements de la logique, de la psychologie, de la physique. Il confrontait les significations des termes témoignant de la sensibilité historico-linguistique allant de la Bible passant par la Mishnah et le Talmud pour aboutir au contemporain et aux vocables de langue vulgaire. Quarante années plus tard, Moseh Ben Shlomo de Salerne entreprit de commenter le Guide des Egarés et il trouva dans le glossaire un modèle, une matière philologique et la trame nécessaire pour créer à son tour un Glossaire judéo-italien, Le Spiegazione dei vocaboli difficili della Guida2 comme appendice explicatif à l’œuvre de Maïmonide. Il y donne les concepts les plus élémentaires de la logique aristotélicienne,
1 Sermonetta, G., Un glossario filosofico ebraico-italiano del XIII secolo, Roma, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1969; Ravitzky, A., “Samuel Ibn Tibbon and the Esoteric Character of the Guide of the Perplexed,” AJS Review 6, 1981, pp. 87-123. 2 Revu en une nouvelle édition par Dr Jehuda Ibn Schmuel, 1946, Jérusalem. L’auteur repère des mots du glossaire utilisés par les humanistes italiens. 8 ILANA ZINGUER une liste de mots techniques, par ordre alphabétique, qui constitue un glossaire authentique, en hébreu, premier du genre en Europe. Plus tard, Moshe Ben Shlomo de Salerne a fourni un commentaire du Guide s’aidant du glossaire de Tibbon qui donnait l’origine et l’étymologie des termes, le vocable en langue vulgaire, prémisses nécessaires pour créer la trace fondamentale d’un glossaire hébraïco-italien3. C’est un exemple parfait et concret de l’interférence des cultures, consciemment menée; les humanistes n’ignoraient pas l’hébreu ni les textes hébraïques. Ils circulaient autant que les hébraïstes eux-mêmes. A leurs côtés, les traducteurs, en passeurs qu’ils étaient, surent maintenir l’information ponctuelle et disponible. Le dictionnaire précité constitua une source infinie pour les Dialoghi d’Amore de Léon l’Hébreu. On se rend compte, en effet, que la langue de Léon l’Hébreu se prête à ce souci stylistique d’une écriture intégrale qui soit à la fois philosophique et élégante. Les “définitions” ou les “propositions” sont des textes rigoureux, des relations conceptuelles précises, des significations doctrinales multiples par souci doctrinal et méthodologique. Basé sur le Spegazione de Tibbon, Léon l’Hébreu a inventé une langue philosophique4 qui, par sa cohésion, sait faire passer des contenus philosophiques et des liaisons conceptuelles au niveau d’une expression précise et riche. Sur cette base, Pontus de Tyard, le traducteur des Dialoghi d’Amore, a su construire et inventer une langue française capable d’exprimer la rigueur d’une pensée et la densité d’une langue. La rencontre entre l’œuvre de Léon l’Hébreu et la langue française (et ses ressources) permet au traducteur de réaliser sa tâche: elle consiste en l’invention d’une langue de traduction. Langue neuve par rapport au français commun et neuve par rapport à l’italien. Langue de traduction qui peut rassembler et mettre en œuvre les caractères de l’acte effectif de l’écriture de Léon l’Hébreu, et ceux de la langue française comme potentialité, capable de réaliser la triple tâche du traducteur de transcrire un texte dans son exactitude, une doctrine dans son sens véritable et une œuvre dans son “style poétique.” 3 Ce glossaire circule en manuscrit que l’on retrouve en plusieurs exemplaires à Londres, Cambridge, Parme, Amsterdam. Il existait un autre glossaire, Glossario filosofico berlinese, des cercles juifs humanistes en contact avec Pico della Mirandola. Voir Steinschneider, M., Die Handschriften-verzeichnisse der Koniglichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, II: Verzeichnis der hebraeischen Handschriften, Berlin, Asher, 1878-97. 4 Voir les travaux de Kessler-Mesguich, S., “Les études hébraïques en France, de F. Tissard à R. Simon (1508-1680),” Thèse de doctorat, Paris, 1994; “L’hébreu chez les hébraïsants chrétiens des XVIe et XVIIe siècles,” La linguistique de l’hébreu et des langues juives. Histoire Épistémologie Langage 18/1, 1996, pp. 87-108; et de Garvin, B., “The Language of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’Amore,” Italia 13-15, 2001, pp. 181-210 (194). INTRODUCTION 9
L’intervention de Jaime Nelson Novoa insiste sur l’originalité et la richesse de la langue italienne de Léon l’Hébreu dans les Dialoghi d’amore. Il est vrai que beaucoup d’encre a coulé à propos de l’utilisation de la langue “toscane,” en regard des langues maternelles du philosophe (espagnol et hébreu). Son style ne reflète aucune spécificité mais le texte présente sérieux et rigueur: pas de décors, pas de personnages et même une certaine austérité se rapprochant de la civile conversation, émanant des traités d’amour du XVIe siècle. L’on s’aperçoit périodiquement que de nombreuses tentatives sont entreprises pour raviver des recherches anciennes ou trop personnelles. Ainsi l’initiative, en 1978, d’Antoine Faivre et de Frederik Tristan, de composer un ouvrage sur Les Kabbalistes Chrétiens5 voulait combler cette lacune. Si La kabbale Juive était dès lors bien étudiée grâce aux travaux de Guershom Scholem, la Kabbale chrétienne, elle, restait encore mal connue. Les travaux de Jean Louis Blau, de Ernst Benz6, les nombreux travaux de François Secret et la précieuse contribution de Jean François Maillard, ne couvraient apparemment pas la très riche matière signalée. Il manquait des travaux de synthèse pour révéler au public ce courant de la pensée occidentale. Il s’agissait de révéler les méthodes des kabbalistes juifs appliquées non seulement à l’Ancien mais au Nouveau Testament pour y trouver des arguments en faveur du christianisme. Cette majeure influence ainsi que la découverte de la pensée hébraïque, étaient des nouveautés entrainées par l’“exode culturel” dû à l’expulsion de 1492, qui suscitèrent l’intérêt caractéristique au seizième siècle. Sheila Rabin a présenté la complexité des philosophes tels que Pic de la Mirandole devant la découverte de la Kabbbale et de Maïmonide7. L’hébreu au temps de la Renaissance8, à l’époque de sa parution, n’était qu’une tentative modeste. Les publications sont innombrables à présent sur le rôle et la place du texte hébreu dans la formidable floraison de l’humanisme9. Depuis, pour notre part, furent organisées des
5 Faivre A. et Tristan, F. (éds), Kabbalistes Chrétiens, Cahiers de L’Hermétisme, Paris, Albin Michel, 1979. 6 Blau, J. L., The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance, New York, Columbia University Press, 1944 (repr. Kennikat 1965); Benz, E., Die christliche Kabbala: Ein Stiefkind der Theologie, Zurich, Rhein-Verlag, 1958. 7 Voir Introduction dans ce volume par A. Melamed. 8 Zinguer, I. (éd.), L’Hébreu au temps de la Renaissance, Leiden, Brill, 1992. 9 Ruderman, D. B., Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995; Ruderman D. B. and Veltri, G. (éds), Cultural Intermediaries: Jewish Intellectuals in Early Modern Italy, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004; Veltri, G., Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb: Foundations and Challenges in Judaism on the Eve of Modernity, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2009. 10 ILANA ZINGUER conférences dans les rencontres internationales ou le sujet fut traité largement. Les exemples deviennent innombrables de ces interventions culturelles plus d’une fois mises à l’index, prohibées, ignorées, occultées. Les recherches se multiplient qui lèvent le voile sur les œuvres humanistes dont les sources sont hébraïques et vice versa des œuvres hébraïques de la même époque qui rendent compte de sources latine ou de langue vulgaire européenne. Notre colloque de Mai 2009, Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance, Sources and Encounters, pourrait être considéré comme une tentative supplémentaire de découvrir dans les œuvres européennes en langues vernaculaires, les lectures directes, les emprunts, les influences. Aujourd’hui les chercheurs de tous les horizons, ont accès à toutes les sources, à toutes les archives disponibles grâce aux techniques rapides et nouvelles. Le texte hébreu comme source de l’humanisme a su se nourrir à son tour de textes humanistes contemporains, l’innutrition réciproque régnant partout, révélée ou celée, continue d’être un enjeu de lecture. Il est de rigueur de s’adresser à tous les niveaux du texte. Si à cette rencontre il ne fut pas question des premiers lecteurs d’hébreu en France ou de l’enseignement de la langue sainte au Collège de France par exemple, il a été question de l’enseignement privé de cette langue. Nous ont été révélées des sympathies d’étudiants illustres ou anonymes pour la langue enseignée par de fervents linguistes. Philippe Ford présente l’enseignement à travers la poésie hébraïque de Charles Utenhove, humaniste gantois, très lié aux poètes de la Pléiade, précepteur auprès de la famille Jean de Morel. Il se sert de manuels hébreux connus à l’époque et principalement de la Bible. Une de ses élèves, la plus douée semble-t-il, Camille Morel, en humaniste distinguée, montra des dons pour la poésie écrite en hébreu. Frank Lestringant, pour illustrer la géographie nouvelle de la Renaissance, met en regard deux œuvres, Des merveilles du monde du kabbaliste chretien de Guillaume Postel (1553) et la Saincte Geographie d’Auzoles(1629), sieur de Lapeyre, un atlas de géographie sacrée basé sur la Saincte Ecriture. Selon ce dernier, toute la science des Païens est contenue dans l’Écriture sainte éclairée par les commentaires hébraïques. La Création ainsi que le Déluge et la nombreuse littérature adjointe fournissent un terrain de discussion théologique et scientifique, entre géographes et texte biblique mais inspirera aussi poètes, philosophes et philologues, ainsi que des kabbalistes. Dans l’histoire de l’écriture de la Renaissance, et particulièrement à l’âge Baroque, le cas des conversos intrigue. La réflexion de Georges Molinié donne des perspectives nouvelles. Les conversos font partie du cheminement européen vers la modernité. Le Baroque peut utiliser la INTRODUCTION 11 figure juive soit comme décor, soit dénaturée dans une perspective chrétienne. Parce que la vérité juive ne peut avoir la même valeur que la vérité chrétienne, le passage par le paganisme est inévitable et de ce fait le judaïsme est mythologisé. C’est le moment propice pour Saint Ignace de choisir ses compagnons et certains sont conversos ce qui ne sera formellement révoqué que quelques dizaines d’années plus tard. Les aléas de ce dramatique épisode sont étudiés conjointement par Annie Molinié et Béatrice Perez. Les règles de la pureté de sang furent pratiquées par des hommes de leur temps, c’est à dire ceux qui prétendaient à la modernité et qui ont su concilier sans état d’âme les champs politique et évangélique et concilier ainsi, avec naturel presque, humanisme et racisme; esprits qu’Annie Molinié dit appartenir à un “humanisme vrillé.” L’exigence de pureté de sang fut obsessionnelle partout en Espagne. L’admission de compagnons dans La Compagnie de Jésus, en 1593, devait confronter le problème des candidats d’origine juive; ceux-ci furent rejetés parce que conversos, malgré la défense initiale d’Ignace de Loyala et l’accord (bien que plein de réserves) de Domingo de Valtanás10. Les Jésuites italiens et portugais vont marquer leur opposition au décret mais en vain. Ce scandale fut tu jusqu’à très récemment. Quand il s’agira de parler de l’identité des conversos, on se posera la question de sa nature; de quoi est-elle faite? De leur formation portugaise? De leur expérience sefardi héritière des vieilles communautés séfarades de la Méditerranée, celles-là même composées des descendants des exilés de 1492? Ce dernier lien s’efface même parmi les crypto-judaïsants et ne reste que l’oubli et sa complexité. Est remarquée alors chez eux une attitude de complicité avec la pratique du catholicisme. Ils ne connaissent plus l’émigration, les livres en hébreu sont bannis, la dissolution des institutions qui mène à l’inquisition portugaise de 1536 empêche la transmission des traditions juives et les dangers de judaïser sont plus grands. Ainsi inévitablement le judaïsme des crypto-juifs est modifié et ceci fut difficile à cerner. N’ayant plus accès au judaïsme rabbinique, certaines pratiques se révèlent en cours. Cependant la Bible devient la base de leur pratique bien qu’en langue vulgaire et non en langue hébraïque. Certaines traditions ancestrales continuent. Certains restent en contact avec la communauté juive. Récemment une image tridimensionnelle avec la prolifération des études sur les conversos surgit avec les travaux d’Antonio Dominguez Ortiz dans la vie espagnole, d’Yeshayahou Yerushalmi dans l’apologie des conversos, et de Jonathan Israël dans le commerce international; tous 10 Voir article dans ce volume d’Annie Molinié et Béatrice Perez. 12 ILANA ZINGUER ceux-ci ont donné une image plus nuancée de la compréhension de l’expérience du converso et de ses motivations. Comment les conversos se définissent-ils eux-mêmes par rapport aux autres groupes (les chrétiens, les protestants, les juifs, etc…) et comment une conception de la “nation” s’est-elle cristallisée chez ces conversos du Nord de l’Europe comme réponse à leur expérience historique spécifique. Ces conversos – définis souvent comme catholique sans foi mais juif en leur volonté, sont eux-mêmes auteurs et leur écriture, – également appelée converso – est remarquée comme hors du commun; les images, l’attitude de la pensée, la morale sont rigoureuses. L’étude de l’implicite chez Montaigne qui dit à mots couverts, si bien que l’implicite est plus riche de sens que l’explicite”11 … pourrait être un exemple caractéristique de cette écriture. La critique réhabilite le droit à la confusion et à l’obscur: Montaigne établit à bon escient des manques dans son texte. Ilana Zinguer reprend le passage du Journal de Voyage en Italie décrivant le Carnaval de Rome12 pour expliquer les silences de Montaigne à Rome à cause du Pape, avant la censure de ses Essais, avant de recevoir la bulle de citoyen: Et c’est plus tard, loin de Rome, au moment où l’Inquisition sévissait lourdement et causait une émigration importante de conversos et de marranes en France, au moment où l’Inquisition exigeait que lui soient livrés les Nouveaux chrétiens du Sud Ouest et de Bordeaux, c’est seulement avant sa mort qu’il s’exprima sur l’expulsion espagnole. Nombreux déclarent que son écriture serait influencée par ses maîtres du Collège de Guyenne, ou encore par le philosophe converso, Francisco Sanches. La constellation familiale et les “noveltes” religieuses pourraient avoir joué un rôle capital dans le développement intellectuel de Montaigne. Une double introduction s’est imposée à cause du bilinguisme pratiqué lors de cette rencontre mais essentiellement pour nos points de vue, à Abraham Melamed et à moi-même, complémentaires. 15 août 2010
11 Mathieu-Castellani, G., Montaigne ou la vérité du mensonge, Les Seuils de la Modernité 4, Genève, Droz, 2000, p. 159. 12 Zinguer, I., “Montaigne et le Carnaval de Rome,” in Zinguer, I. et Blum, S. (éds), Antisémitisme éclairé, Leiden, Brill, 2003, pp. 19-29. Part I
Kabbalah and Mysticism 14
GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH Lina Bolzoni
The person whom we will be discussing, Giulio Camillo (ca. 1480- 1544),1 could well have been the hero of a novel, along the lines of the alchemist Zénon in Marguerite Yourcenar’s L’Oeuvre au Noir. Camillo was portly, spoke with a stutter but as one possessed, and succeeded in reducing to silence both sceptical scholars and polished courtiers. He was practiced in the mysterious arts of alchemy and concocted a potion of distilled gold that was supposed to restore youth, but instead nearly dispatched to the next world the unfortunate client who ventured to drink
1 On Giulio Camillo, and for further bibliographic references, see Stabile, G., “Camillo, G.,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Rome, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana, XVII, 1974, pp. 218-28 and Bolzoni, L., Il teatro della memoria. Studi su Giulio Camillo, Padua, Liviana, 1984, which may be consulted along with Vasoli, C., “Uno scritto inedito di Giulio Camillo De l'humana deificatione,” Rinascimento, 24, 1984, pp. 191- 227; the issue dedicated to Camillo, Giulio Camillo Delminio e altri autori, Quaderni utinensi, 3, 1985; Bologna, C., “Giulio Camillo, il canzoniere provenzale N2,” Cultura neolatina 47, 1987, pp. 71-97; Id., “Il ‘theatro’ segreto di Giulio Camillo: l'Urtext ritrovato,” Venezia Cinquecento 1, 2, 1991, pp. 217-71; Id., “Esercizi di memoria. Dal ‘theatro della sapientia’ di Giulio Camillo agli ‘esercizi spirituali’ di Ignazio di Loyola,” in Bolzoni, L. and Corsi, P. (eds), La cultura della memoria, Bologna, II Mulino, 1992, pp. 169-221; Grohovaz, V., “A proposito di alcuni frammenti manoscritti d'opere di Giulio Camillo Delminio e Lodovico Castelvetro,” Aevum 67, 1993, pp. 519-32; Turello, M., Anima artificiale. Il teatro magico di Giulio Camillo, Udine, Aviani, 1993; Bolzoni, L., “Erasmo e Camillo: il dibattito sull’imitazione,” Filologia antica e moderna 4, 1993, pp. 69- 113; Zaja, P. “‘Oscuri velami’ in alcuni sonetti di Giulio Camillo,” Rinascimento 34, 1994, pp. 259-91; Id., “Struttura retorica e ‘sapienza riposta’ in due sonetti di Giulio Camillo,” Lettere italiane 47, 1995, pp. 10-46; Bolzoni, L., La stanza della memoria. Modelli letteraria e iconografici nell’età della stampa, Turin, Einaudi, 1995; English translation: The Gallery of Memory. Literary and Iconographic Models in the Age of the Printing Press, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001; Chiodo, D., “‘E ciò che non è lei’: sapienza esposta negli scritti di Giulio Camillo,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 174, 1997, pp. 573- 80; Normando, V., and Moroni, N. (eds), Il mondo virtuale di Giulio Camillo, Quaderni di Festina lente 1, 1997; Calvesi, M., “Il teatro sapienziale di Giulio Camillo,” Rendiconti Classe di Scienze Morali Accademia dei Lincei 9, 4, 1998, pp. 579-600; Cingolani, G., “Le ‘Rime’ di Giulio Camillo: la tradizione a stampa,” Università di Macerata. Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia 33, 2000, pp. 183-205; Keller-Dall’Asta, B., Heilsplan und Gedächtnis: zur Mnemologie des 16. Jahrhunderts in Italie, Heidelberg, Winter, 2001, pp. 185- 282; Bolzoni, L., “Emblemi e arte della memoria: alcune note su invenzione e ricezione,” in López Poza, S. (ed.), Florilegio de estudios de emblemática. A florilegium of studies on emblematics. Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de Emblemática de The Society for Emblem Studies, A Coruña, Societad de Cultura Valle Inclán, 2004, pp. 15-32; Camillo, Giulio, Chiose al Petrarca, P. Zaja (ed.), Padua, Antenore, 2009. GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 15 it.2 He was a philosopher and an orator, a master of grammar and rhetoric, and wrote both verse and prose in Latin and Italian. Born in the region of Friuli in northeastern Italy, Camillo was educated in the refined intellectual circles of Venice and Padua; he participated in the dissection of cadavers and was in contact with heretical groups; in Rome he frequented the ciceroniani, whose ambition was to restore the Latin tongue of Cicero to its original splendour; he knew Erasmus, although the latter regarded him with the utmost suspicion. He managed to ingratiate himself with powerful patrons including Francis I, the king of France, and later the Spanish governor of Milan, Alphonse d’Avalos, who financed – with more or less generosity – his projects. Camillo died in Milan, apparently as a result of amorous excesses in the company of two women, the appropriate end to a life that oscillated between the extremes of mystical asceticism and inebriation of the senses. At first sight Giulio Camillo could be dismissed as just one of the many more or less guileful charlatans who wandered across Europe from court to court between the Quattrocento and the Cinquecento, attempting to earn a precarious living. This judgement, which was held by some of his contemporaries, cast a shadow over Camillo’s name until the eighteenth century. In fact, many of those who knew him regarded the philosopher as almost divine, and the list of his friends certainly commands respect. He was included by Ariosto in the select company of princes, noble dames and men of letters gathered together in the last canto of Orlando Furioso (from which Machiavelli was excluded, a slight that the Florentine author complained of bitterly).3 Camillo was a friend of writers such as Pietro Bembo, and had close links with the circle of Pietro Aretino. Also intriguing are the ties that he cultivated with various artists of the period, from the architect Sebastiano Serlio to painters such as Lorenzo Lotto, Pordenone, Francesco Salviati, and above all Titian, who not only executed a (now lost) portrait of the philosopher but also painted many images for his memory theatre. The unique originality of Camillo’s thought emanates from this particular project, but his theatre was also the motive for the deep suspicion and incredulity that surrounded him. Centuries later we are in a
2 Camillo’s hapless client was Francesco Greco; cf. Castelvetro, L., “Lettera a M. Antonio Modona a Brissella del lustro, et dell’Olimpiade, con altre lettere del medesimo Autore,” Raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e filologici, 47, 1753, pp. 431-2. 3 “E quei che per guidarci ai rivi ascrei \ mostra piano e più breve altro camino, \ Iulio Camillo” (Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 46, 12, 5-7). Letter from Niccolò Machiavelli to Lodovico Alamanni with the date of December 17, 1517, in Machiavelli, N., Tutte le opere, A. Capata (ed.), Rome, Newton, 1998, p. 948. Camillo’s eulogy was added by Ariosto in the edition of 1532; in his letter Machiavelli expressed his indignation that he was not included in the edition of 1516. 16 LINA BOLZONI better position to appreciate his work, to see it as an emblematic portrayal of the reveries and myths, but also of the intellectual explorations of an epoch.4 We can say that Camillo treated with immense seriousness the dreams of his time, presenting a reflection of them that – due to its very fidelity – may appear to us distorted. His theatre offers an original interpretation of the ancient tradition of ars memoriae. His purpose was to show users how to memorize the entire encyclopaedia of human knowledge by arranging its contents in a metaphysical order. At the same time Camillo aspired to capture the hidden essence of beauty, in order that his theatre might function as an instrument for remembering, and reproducing, the secrets underlying the creation of the great works of art of Antiquity. We will see how the tradition of the Kabbalah played a central role in this process, becoming an essential tool in the construction of Camillo’s memory theatre.5 To grasp the meaning of his project, we must first of all examine a whole galaxy of texts by Camillo’s hand, the greater part of which were still unpublished when he died. The work that presents in detail the schema for his project, L’idea del theatro, appeared in print six years after his death, in 1550,6 [fig. 1] and even the genesis of this work is enveloped in legend. Girolamo Muzio, a close friend of Camillo, claimed that Camillo dictated the text to him in the white heat of inspiration in just seven mornings.7 This may have been a metaphor, however, since the number seven had an occult significance and Camillo organized his theatre and its contents around this number. What is more, manuscripts have gradually come to light that contain alternative versions of this theatre, while other texts, both published and unpublished, shed light on its secret structure and on the importance of the kabbalistic tradition in its ideation. Our aim here will be to raise various points that we hope will lead to further study by scholars with greater expertise than ourselves in the kabbalistic tradition. Taking as our departure point Camillo’s L’Idea del
4 The rediscovery of Camillo’s theatre reflects a general revival of critical interest in the art of memory. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to citing Rossi, P., Clavis universalis: Arti della memoria e logica combinatoria da Lullo a Leibniz, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1960, and Yates, F., The Art of Memory, London, Routledge and Kegan, 1966. 5 On the kabbalistic tradition and its expression during the Italian Renaissance, cf. Secret, F., Les kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance, Paris, Dunod, 1964; Scholem, G., On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, New York, 1969; Idel, M., La cabbalà in Italia (1280-1510), Florence, Giuntina, 2007. 6 For a modern edition with commentary, see Camillo, L’idea del theatro, L. Bolzoni (ed.), Palermo, Sellerio, 1991. 7 Girolamo Muzio recounts this episode in a letter: see Muzio, Lettere, Florence, Sermartelli, 1590, p. 73. GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 17 theatro, we will attempt to see how various themes radiate from this work to other still unpublished and little known texts. Camillo presents his theatre as a mystery, as a divine secret that must not be divulged. According to the author, it was precisely this aspect that set his memory system apart from all the others. Its loci and images were neither arbitrary nor human in nature, but divine and linked to the secret, hidden structure of reality itself. His theatre was a mens artificialis and a mens fenestrata – an artificial mind and a mind endowed with windows – a machine that was designed to draw from the inner soul the images hidden there, by rendering them visible.8 In this way his theatre functioned by reconstituting the unitary and universal dimension of the world, which in the human experience was fragmented into thousands of rivulets of individual events. Camillo notes that he chose the model of the theatre because in Greek the root of the word ‘theatre’ was the same as the verb ‘to see’. This model was apparently influenced by the rediscovery of the Roman amphitheatre by Renaissance architects. At the same time Camillo’s theatre was a mental model, a grid for the classification of reality made up of forty-nine principal loci originating from the intersection of the seven elements of a vertical order (the seven columns, or portals, representing the seven planets) with the seven elements of a horizontal order (the seven grades). The loci represent the expansion of unity into plurality, and the images designating these loci can imprint in the memory the different phases, or more exactly the different aspects, of a process that begins within the profound nature of the divine and goes on to manifest itself in nature, in man, and in his myriad activities, including the arts and sciences. In the first grade of the theatre we find the seven planets represented – in accordance with antique iconographic tradition – in human form. The doctrine of astrological correspondences sanctions their use as an initial, basic criterion for a universal classification system. But this is merely the first level of signification. Camillo then weaves around the seven planets a complex web of meanings and correspondences, in which different philosophical and religious traditions converge on the seven fundamental images as guarantors of their universal truth. The seven planets and the divinities that mythology associated with them correspond in fact to the seven days of creation, to the first principles of Pythagorean and hermetic philosophy, and to the sefirot, the ten divine names or emanations of the Kabbalah.
8 Cf. the letter from Viglius Zuichemus to Erasmus, in which he describes the model of Camillo’s theatre which he had seen (Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, P.S. Allen (ed.), vol. X, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1941, pp. 29-30 and Camillo, Pro suo de eloquentia theatro ad Gallos oratio, Venice, Giovan Battista Somaschi, 1587, p. 39. 18 LINA BOLZONI
Let us see how Camillo reduced the ten original sefirot to seven, the mystical number on which his theatre was based: Salomon, in the ninth chapter of Proverbs, says that: “Wisdom hath built herself a house” and founded it upon seven columns. These columns, which symbolize most stable eternity, we must understand as being the seven Sephiroth of the Supercelestial world, which are the seven measures of the structure of the Celestial and the Inferior; in these are included the ideas of everything Celestial and Inferior. It is impossible to imagine anything not included in this number.9 His theatre, Camillo explained, would retrace the tree of divine names but stop at the seventh – Binah – because this was the highest level to which the human intellect could aspire: Now the most secret theologians, who are the Cabalists, say that Moses passed seven times through the seven Sephiroth without ever being able to pass the Binah. They say that is the height to which the human intellect can be raised. And while Moses, having reached the aforesaid Binah, had opposite him the aspect of the higher crown and that of the Chokmah, of which it is written: “spoken face to face,” nevertheless, truly God did not speak to him unless through the Angel (as one reads in the Acts of the Apostles) and it took place thus: “No one knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son and he whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him.” When Moses reached the Binah, in which is the post of the Angel called Methraton, that is “prince of faces,” Moses had his discussions with him. Therefore, he climbed seven times seven times, which is forty-nine, the number of the remission. To which number Christ also turned, making a prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer, inasmuch as the prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer, according to the Hebrew text written by Matthew, is of forty-nine words.10
9 “Salomone al nono de’ Proverbii dice la sapienza haversi edificato casa, et haverla fondata sopra sette colonne. Queste colonne, significanti stabilissima eternità, habbiamo da intender che siano le sette Saphiroth del sopraceleste mondo, che sono le sette misure della fabrica del celeste et dell’inferiore, nelle quali sono comprese le idee di tutte le cose al celeste et all’inferiore appartenenti.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, p. 51. The English translation of the passages from L’idea del theatro cited in this paper were drawn from Wenneker, L. B., “An Examination of L’idea del theatro of G. Camillo, Including an Annotated Translation, with Special Attention to His Influence on Emblem Literature and Iconography,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1970, see p. 201. 10 “Dicono adunque i secretissimi theologi, i quali sono i cabalisti, che Mosè sette volte passò per le sette Saphirot, senza poter giamai passar la Binà. Et dicono quello esser il termino al quale l’intelletto humano può esser levato. Et benché Mosè, giunto alla detta Binà, havesse di rimpetto la faccia della Corona superiore, et quella della Chochmà, onde è scritto: “Loquebatur facie ad faciem,” nondimeno veramente ad esso Dio non parlò, se non per l’Angelo (come si legge ne gli Atti de gli Apostoli) et questo avvenne percioché “Nemo novit Filium, nisi Pater, neque Patrem quis novit, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 19
Camillo therefore terminates with the seventh name in the sefirot – Binah – and excludes the two highest emanations – Chokmah (Wisdom) and Keter (Crown) – a decision that was justified by the limits of the human intellect and the Christian revelation. Furthermore, writing to Luigi Guicciardini, he associated not one but two sefirot with the goddess Venus: “because Plato, as well, sometimes referred to two Venuses, and on the right is the one which guides us toward celestial things. The one on the left toward material things. Both nonetheless fall under the single name of Venus.”11 In this way, Camillo adapted the sefirot to fit the septenary schema of his theatre, and so drew up the following table of correspondences between the planets, the sefirot, and the Angels: Planets Sefirot Angels The Moon (Diana) Malkuth Gabriel Mercury Yesod Michael Venus Hod and Netzach Haniel Sun Tiferet Raphael Mars Gevurah Camael Jupiter Chesed Zadkiel Saturn Binah Zaphkiel Thus Camillo re-elaborates for his own purposes a scholarly tradition that sought to reconcile the Kabbalah with Christianity and whose principal exponents were Egidio da Viterbo, Annio da Viterbo, Francesco Zorzi (a Franciscan friar whose work bore many points of similarity to that of Camillo), and above all the philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the author of Heptaplus.12 revelare” Et essendo Mosè arrivato alla Binà, nella quale è un officio di angelo detto Mitathron, cioè Princeps facierum, con quello hebbe i sui ragionamenti. Essendo egli dunque salito sete volte sette fiate, che sono quarantanove (numero della remissione, al quale numero Iesù Christo volse che ascendessimo, facendo oratione al Padre, impercioché la oratione che dominical chiamiamo, secondo l’ebreo testo scritto da Matteo, è di quarantanove parole), l’ombra di queste salite imitando, habbiamo dato sette porte, o gradi, o distinzioni, che dir le vogliamo a ciascun pianeta.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, p. 57; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 209. 11 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Carte Strozziane, Serie 1, filza 37, cc. 30r-32v, Camillo, letter to Luigi Guicciardini, published in Guicciardini e le scienze occulte, R. Castagnola (ed.), Florence, Olschki, 1990, pp. 374-83: “perché anchor Platone talhor finge due Veneri, et la destra è quella che ci guida a le cose celesti. La sinistra a le volgari. Ambedue nondimeno cadono sotto questo unico nome di Venere.” 12 On the ties between Pico and Camillo, see Bolzoni, L., “Scrittura e arte della memoria. Pico, Camillo e l’esperienza cinquecentesca,” in Garfagnini, G. C. (ed.), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Convegno internazionale di studi nel Cinquecentesimo anniversario della morte (1494-1994), Florence, Olschki, 1997, pp. 359-81. Cf. Wirszubski, C., Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, Cambridge, MA and London, Harvard University Press, 1989. 20 LINA BOLZONI
Here I would like to mention a curious annotation that can be found in the Libraria of the brilliant and unquiet scholar, Anton Francesco Doni, who was a familiar figure in cultural circles from Florence to Venice. Doni mentions a “gentil huomo nobilissimo” (a most noble gentleman), who owned a manuscript by Pico entitled ‘La Chiave delle Scienze’ (The Key to the Sciences), and goes on to affirm “that Giulio Camillo drew his theatre and his idea from there.”13 Doni’s words should not be taken literally, but they do provide an intriguing clue. The title of the mysterious work by Pico – ‘The Key to the Sciences’ – is apparently an allusion to the Kabbalah or to Lullism. We may conclude that Doni is suggesting to us that Pico made a crucial contribution to Camillo’s thought by providing him with a vital “key” – a method for reading and interpreting texts, and for constructing new ones. Pico’s Heptaplus is a commentary on the text of the story of creation in the book of Genesis, and is based on two premises: first, that all the secrets of the world are contained in the words of the book of Moses, and secondly, that one had to use special techniques to discover these secrets because Moses – like the Egyptians, the Pythagoreans, and the wise men of Antiquity – employed images that both revealed and concealed the knowledge contained in them, in order to defend this wisdom against impure contact with persons incapable of understanding it. According to Pico, it is possible to construct a text that reproduces both the framework used by God to create the world and the modalities by which God communicates with man. The different worlds – the supercelestial, the celestial, and the natural, as well as the microcosm of the world represented by man – are linked together by a chain of correspondences, by a fundamental unity of structure that manifests itself in different forms. The divine character of Genesis consists, on a rhetorical plane, in the fact that its text is one and multiple, just as the structure of the world is unitary and multiple. By the use of appropriate imagery, Moses succeeded in recreating the divine order in the dispositio or order of his text. As a consequence, the book he wrote is a perfect imago mundi (picture of the world), and Moses himself constitutes the model of the perfect writer. Here Pico steps forward as the interpreter who is able to wrest the secrets from this text by means of his ‘seven-fold’ commentary, which reveals the secret parallels between the philosophical and religious traditions of Antiquity, from the pre-Socratic to the hermetical, the Chaldean, the kabbalistic, and so on. Camillo was greatly influenced by Pico’s Heptaplus, but seems to have wished to hide the fact. And indeed for him the underlying purpose of his
13 Doni, A. F., La Libraria, Venice, Altobello Salicato, 1580, II, p. 100v. GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 21 project was completely different. Camillo wanted to demonstrate how the various philosophical and religious traditions could converge and endow him with magical powers. His aim was to create an instrument that would not only help the users of the theatre to understand and remember universal knowledge, but that would act directly on words, on things, and on the purification of the soul. As he tells us, in fact, in an unpublished treatise entitled De transmutatione, the secret objective of his theatre was to teach the three arts of metamorphosis: alchemy, which acts on things; eloquence, which acts on words; and deification, which acts on the soul.14 At its most profound level, the theatre could operate in such a way as to allow the human mind to recover its universal dimension and the connection with its divine component. We can see therefore why, in Camillo’s text, the introduction to the fourth grade of the theatre – the level dedicated to the soul – is particularly long and difficult. Here the role played by the kabbalistic tradition, beginning with its most important work, the Zohar, is absolutely crucial. Indeed, Camillo makes a direct reference to this mystical commentary, attributing it to the 2nd-century rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, although it is now believed to have been written in the 13th century in Spain by Moses de Leon: Let us rise to the fourth level pertaining to the inner man, which was the last and the most noble creature made by God in His image and likeness. Here it should be noted that in the Hebrew text, that which is translated by ‘image’ is called Celem, and that which is called ‘likeness’ is written Demut. These words in the book of Rabbi Simeon, the Zohar, which means ‘the illuminator’, that is, the giver of light, are interpreted in this sense, that Celem signifies, so to speak, the angelic mould, or form, and Demut implies the divine level, because he wants God not only to lead our soul to the excellence of the angels, but also adds to them the quality of divinity.15 This is an absolutely essential point, for Camillo’s project is in fact concentrated on the divine dimension that is present in man and focuses upon how its extraordinary powers could be reactivated. The next point
14 Cf. the text, reproduced in Bolzoni, L., “Eloquenza e alchimia in un testo inedito di Giulio Camillo,” Rinascimento, 24, 1974, pp. 243-64. 15 “Sagliamo al quarto grado appartenente all’huomo interiore, il qual fu l’ultima e la più nobil creatura, fatta da Dio a sua imagine et smilitudine. Et qui è da notare che nel testo hebreo quello che è tradotto per imagine, è detto Celem, et quello che è detto similitudine, è scritto Demut. Le quali parole nel Zoar di Rabi Simeon, che suona illuminator (cioè dator di luce) sono interpretate in questo senso, che Celem significhi (per dir così) la stampa, over la forma angelica, et Demut importi grado divino, percioché vuole che Dio non solamente tirasse l’anima nostra alla eccellenza degli Angeli, ma anchor le aggiungesse il grado divino.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, p. 122; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 289. 22 LINA BOLZONI that Camillo discusses – the doctrine of the three souls – was also drawn from the Zohar, as interpreted by Francesco Zorzi: It should be known... that in us are three souls. Although all three of which rejoice in this common name of soul, nevertheless each has its own particular name. Whereas the lowest, and nearest, and most like our body is called Nephes, and it is this which is otherwise called by Moses, the ‘living soul’. And this because, in it are contained all our sufferings, we have it in common with the beasts… The soul in the middle, that is the rational, is called by the name of the spirit, namely Ruach. The third is called Nessamah, according to Moses, a breath, according to David and Pythagoras, light; according to Augustine, Upper Portion; according to Plato, mind; according to Aristotle, the Active intellect.16 According to Camillo, who here adopted a position that was quite at odds with Christian theology, this soul “being divine, is not capable of sin.”17 Later, in De l’humana deificatione, he would distance himself somewhat from this claim. Discussing the cleansing of Neshamah from any stains that she might have acquired in the company of her two sisters, Nefesh and Ru’ach, he writes: “… but of this purging I will speak later, and also of the said stains, even though Plotinus may have believed – and I in the past along with him – that on this highest soul neither sin nor suffering could fall.”18 To aid in remembering, and at the same time to veil the secret of the three souls, Camillo resorts to an unusual iconographic invention that combined different myths – that of the three Gorgons: … who between them had only one eye which was commutable, since the one was able to lend it to another, and that which had it saw as much as long as she had it. In this symbol lies all the mystery of the truth revealed above, and it causes us to understand the divine ray to be without and not within ourselves.19
16 “E’ da sapere che in noi sono tre anime...la più bassa et vicina et compagna del corpo nostro, è chiamata Nephes... et questa, percioché in lei capeno tutte le nostre passioni, la habbiamo noi comune con le bestie... L’anima di mezo, che è la rationale, è chiamata col nome dello spirito, cioè Ruach. La terza è detta Nessamah, da Mosè spiraculo, da David et da Pithagora lume, da Agostino portion superiore, da Platone mente, da Aristotele intelletto agente.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, pp. 127-8; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 295. Cfr. Giorgio, F., De harmonia mundi, III, 5, 3. 17 “Essendo divina, non può peccare.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, p. 131; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 289. 18 The text may be found in Vasoli, C., “Uno scritto inedito,” p. 221. 19 “Le quali fra di loro havevano un solo occhio commutabile fra loro, percioché l’una all’altra il poteva prestare, et quella che l’haveva, tanto vedeva quanto l’haveva. Nel qual simbolo giace tutto il misterio della verità aperta di sopra, et ci si fa intender il raggio GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 23
The doctrine of the three souls is, as we have said, central to Camillo’s project. In fact, in the introduction to the fourth grade of his theatre Camillo alludes to the kabbalistic tradition regarding the nature of Adam, who was created from earth that “was virginal, since it had not yet contracted any stain,”20 earth that was called adem, from which the first man – Adam – drew his name. He also reinterpreted the incarnation of Christ in this light: To satisfy divine justice [Christ] offered himself as the cleansing agent of all human guilt, in a body similar to that which Adam had before he sinned, namely in a body made of virginal earth and of the most pure blood of the Virgin Mary.21 Thus Camillo draws a picture in which the original sin committed by Adam brought about the decadence of the entire universe (“Therefore, Adam having sinned, so did all of all the elements sin by the contraction of this stain”).22 As becomes clear from the treatise De transmutatione, this concept is also important because it renders credible the possibility of realizing the alchemistic opus or transformation through which the original condition of Adam before the Fall can be recovered. The theatre, in that moment in which it reproduces the mens (or mind) of man, also in some mysterious way reproduces his divine nature. The influence of the Kabbalah extended from the theatre to Camillo’s other works. Reflections on the primary principles, on the three worlds, and on the role that the sefirot played in these can be found in the manuscripts that contain his L’interpretazione dell’arca del patto,23 and in a letter that Camillo wrote on 11 January 1536 to Luigi Guicciardini. Here Camillo interweaves kabbalistic beliefs with the secrets of alchemy and exhibits his knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet. These writings, like his Sermoni della cena (published in Parma in 1571 by Seth Viotto), testify to the author’s passionate reflections on matters of theology, in
divino esser di fuori, et non dentro di noi.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, p. 137; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 307. 20 “Era virginale, percioché non haveva anchor contratto macchia,” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, 125; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 293. 21 “Si appresentò per purgator di tutte le humane colpe in corpo consimile a quello che haveva Adam prima che peccasse, cioè in corpo fatto di terra virginale et di sangue purissimo di Maria Vergine.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, 125; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 293. 22 “Peccando adunque Adam, peccarono tutti gli elementi per contrattion di macchia.” Camillo, L’idea del theatro, 127; Wenneker, “An Examination,” p. 295. 23 This unpublished work has come down to us in various manuscripts: Naples, Biblioteca dei Gerolamini, Ms. S M XXVIII 2-13; Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Ms. Aldino 59; Dublin, Trinity College Library, Ms. Q.3.12. 24 LINA BOLZONI which he reinterprets Christianity in the light of the secret knowledge transmitted by the Zohar. Camillo’s opposition to other theological currents emerges explicitly in De l’humana deificazione, a treatise addressed to his young daughter Cornelia, who had been sent away to live in a convent until she was ready to be married. Here Camillo presents a long disquisition on the doctrine of the three souls and refutes the criticism of those who accuse him of having abandoned “the accepted ways of our holy theologians in order to follow paths that are not countenanced by the Holy Church nor by the peripatetic philosophy.”24 He responds by insisting that, while he has remained faithful to the Church, nevertheless he wished to lend his ear to the prophecies and oracles, to the secret knowledge that the Holy Spirit consigned to Elijah and that Elijah in turn delivered to the author of the Zohar. Certainly the advice imparted by Camillo to his daughter walled up in her convent must have seemed bizarre to those who adhered to the traditional teachings of the Church. Do not consider, he wrote, virginity superior to the married state: “in truth God (as Mercurius Trismegistus said) is full of fertility and contains within Himself the one and the other sex; this is why He drew close to Moses, saying ‘we will make man in our image and likeness,’ and in the mass from which He made him, He placed the one and the other sex.” Camillo concludes, “in short, God ordained matrimony but never the opposite state did He ordain.”25 So immersed was Camillo in Jewish mysticism that he even used kabbalistic procedures when composing a text in homage to a woman. In a letter sent on May 5th, 1535 to a mysterious Lucrezia (the same woman to whom he addressed his Lettera del rivolgimento dell’huomo a Dio), Camillo succeeded in creating a daring combination of different literary canons: the traditional form of the encomium, whose wordplay centred on the ‘interpretation of the name’ of the person being lauded, and a form typical to the kabbalistic tradition, which takes the letters in a name and recombines them in order to obtain new words that it was believed could provide clues to the divine mysteries. Thus he transformed ‘Lucrezia’ into a rich wellspring of encomiastic invention; by casting the letters of her name on the page and rearranging them in different combinations, he generated words – LA CARA, LUCE, CREA, RARA, CERTA, AITA, CURA, ATRA, RETE, ARTE, IRATA, CI LACERA (the dear one, light, create, rare, certain, help, care, dark, network, art, irate, you lacerate us) – that could be used as material and at the same time as a source of
24 Vasoli, C., “Uno scritto inedito,” pp. 222-3. 25 Ibid., 200-201. GIULIO CAMILLO’S MEMORY THEATRE AND THE KABBALAH 25 inspiration for his poems. [fig. 2] The fact that this procedure was drawn from the Kabbalah is explicitly acknowledged by Camillo: Now, passing on to another manner of having the full name of Your Illustrious Lordship give birth to things that by chance remain hidden, I declare that in the antique theology of the prophets there were seven modalities of theologizing, among which one was called Siruf, that was carried out by moving letters from place to place, through which process one could extract the most elevated meanings.26 He cites as a confirmation the fact that the opening word of Genesis – ‘Beresit’- was interpreted by “great minds fired by the Holy Spirit” “through the transmutation of the letters” as a prophesy regarding the advent of Christ. This interpretation in a Christian key of the opening text of Genesis echoes to the letter the Expositio primae dictionis, idest “in principio” that concludes Pico’s Heptaplus. Camillo does not cite this source here, and does not hesitate to combine sacred mysteries with the literary techniques of the love poem. I would like to conclude with the examination of a page from a manuscript that is conserved in the Beinecke Library at Yale University (Italian Castle Archive, General Collection, 110.51). This manuscript contains a copy of the treatise De transmutatione in which Camillo wrote that the secret of his theatre lay in the fact that it could teach the three transmutational arts of eloquence, alchemy and deification.27 In comparison to the other surviving copies of the text, the Yale manuscript contains a striking addition; on folio 44v., after “La transmutatione divina essere tre principii,” we find the following table: God Satan Christ his opposite The Anti-Christ The Church The Synagogue This most singular interpolation is present only in the Yale manuscript. We could hypothesize that the copyist, probably working at the end of the Cinquecento, sensed the dangers contained in a text that extolled the arts of alchemy and claimed to show the path by which an elect few might achieve “divine transmutation, through which man himself becomes God,” a text that furthermore viewed Christ as the vital, fertilizing spirit of the world (“the spirit of Christ himself … in the guise of rain and dry water (acqua secca) descends from the supercelestial to the celestial, and
26 In Camillo, Opere, Venice, Domenico Farri, 1579, p. 304. 27 Cf. Bolzoni, L., “Una lettura sospetta del ‘teatro’ di Giulio Camillo (a proposito del codice Italian Castle Archive, General Collection, 110.51 della Beinecke Library di Yale),” in Pertile, L., Syska-Lamparska, R. A. and Oldcorn, A. (eds), La scena del mondo. Studi sul teatro per Franco Fido, Ravenna, Longo, 2006, pp. 69-77. 26 LINA BOLZONI finally comes to rest beneath the curve of the Moon, and causes the Sun to bring what it has of the greatest virtue to the Earth, thus allowing her to procreate in all of the diversity that we see”).28 The scribe’s addition therefore could be interpreted as a sort of antitoxin to perceived heresy; the enemy is no longer just the danger of sophistry that Camillo warned against, which blocked the path of those seeking to master the three metaphorical arts and prevented them from reaching an understanding of the primary principles. The enemy has assumed once again the familiar mask and institutional guise of Satan, the Anti-Christ, and the synagogue, in contraposition to God, Christ, and the Holy Church. This addendum allows us to measure the difference between accepted doctrine and the core of Camillo’s thought, which attempted to bring together different philosophical and religious traditions and to forge from them a unified whole in which the Kabbalah occupied a position of central importance. If this is indeed the case, then it may be said that the copyist’s intervention has served – contrary to his original intent – to heighten our appreciation of the unique quality of the text that he was seeking to mask and denature.
28 Giulio Camillo, De transmutatione, in Bolzoni, “Eloquenza e alchimia,” p. 258. 27
ENTERING THE LABYRINTH: ON THE HEBRAIC AND KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO Daniel Stein Kokin
Introduction: The Labyrinth of Jericho
In January of 1515, Pope Leo X gave Egidio da Viterbo (1469?-1532) – the renowned Augustinian preacher and Christian kabbalist – a present.1 To such a committed collector of Jewish texts as was our friar, nothing would have been so exciting as a Hebrew manuscript. And clearly, Leo knew his advisor well, since his gift was a richly illuminated, early fourteenth-century codex featuring the biblical prophets and writings (i.e. the Hebrew Bible excluding the Pentateuch), along with a number of Jewish grammatical and rabbinic works.2 The presence of Egidio’s marginalia throughout the work testifies to extensive use of this latest addition to what eventually became the most extensive Christian collection of Jewish esoterica in its time. Yet a feature of this text left unnoted in its margins appears likely to have exerted a significant influence over our Augustinian prior general’s (and soon to be Cardinal’s) conception of that esoterica. Directly opposite the initial folio of the biblical book of Joshua, the first text in this codex, three images are to be found, all clearly original to the manuscript [fig. 3]. The first depicts the tabernacle and its various associated vessels; the second, a schematic map of the land of Israel. The third [fig. 4], the focus of our interest for the moment, presents the city of
1 On Egidio da Viterbo in general, see especially O’Malley, J. W., S.J., Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform: A Study in Renaissance Thought, Leiden, Brill, 1968. 2 Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72. We actually do not know precisely when the gift (which apparently included several books) was made, but in a letter dated January 6, 1515 Egidio reports it to Gabriele della Volta, his friend and fellow Augustinian (Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. 688, fol. 53r). On this gift, see Weil, G. E., Élie Lévita: humaniste et massorète, Leiden, Brill, 1963, pp. 81-2 and Martin, F. X., Friar, Reformer, and Renaissance Scholar: Life and Work of Giles of Viterbo, Villanova, PA: Augustinian Press, 1992, p. 171; on the identification of the contents of this gift with the text of interest to us, see also Weil, G. E., “Le codex Neofiti I,” Textus 4, 1963, pp. 225-9 (228) and Martin, F. X., “Egidio da Viterbo, 1469-1518: A Study in Renaissance and Reform History,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge University, 1958, pp. 100 and 109. The indication in Egidio’s own hand in our manuscript that it was a gift from the pope would seem sufficient to obviate any doubt on this score (fol. 7r “Fratris Aegidii Viterbiensis / Liber Leonis X Munus”). This notice can be seen in fig. 5 below and is also published in Busi, G., Libri e scrittori nella Roma ebraica del Medioevo, Rimini, Luisè Editore, 1990, p. 79. 28 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
Jericho and its walls in the form of a labyrinth, clearly identifiable thanks to the pastiche of biblical verses placed along its circumference, as well as other tell-tale signs.3 The protrusion located at the bottom of the image is, for example, labelled as the House of Rahab the Prostitute; the red ink used uniquely here for text nicely echoing the scarlet thread deployed in the biblical account. That Egidio noticed this image we can be quite sure – since only a few inches lie between it and his acknowledgement of the papal largess, written in his own hand at the bottom of the facing page [fig. 5]. The presence of this Jericho labyrinth is fascinating in its own right, since it constitutes further, hitherto unnoted, evidence for the diffusion of this image in medieval and early modern Jewish texts.4 But what I wish to explore in this paper is the potential impact Egidio’s encounter with it may have had on his own conception of what it meant to engage with esoteric, and especially kabbalistic, texts. For some fifteen years after receiving this gift, in his prophetic swan song the Scechina [sic] – a lengthy, 349 folio text which can be described as the summation of Egidio’s knowledge of Jewish lore5 – our author likens kabbalistic wisdom to precisely such a labyrinth. It is perhaps especially fitting in the case of Egidio to point to the potential influence of an image over his spiritual and intellectual concepts, given that his inspiration has often been alleged to hover in the backdrop behind visual works such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s “Stanza della Segnatura” (especially the “School of Athens”) at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.6 On one occasion, Egidio, who for most of this work writes in the first person as the Shekinah (!), likens the mysteries, which this feminine emanation of the Godhead (according to the Kabbalah) has stored away, to “circuitous sacred oracles,” to “a labyrinth of writings” “inaccessible to mortals” and to which “there is no hope of [entry] … unless with the thread of Rahab extended from the window.”7 Egidio’s Shekinah
3 These verses are taken from the account of the siege of Jericho in the Book of Joshua. 4 On the Hebrew Jericho Labyrinth tradition see Yaari, A., “Bibliographic Collections, 37: The Picture of the Seven Walls of Jericho in Hebrew Manuscripts,” Kiryat Sefer 18. 2, 1941, pp. 179-84 (Hebrew), and Kern, H., Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5,000 Years, A. Clay (trans.), Munich, Prester, 2000, pp. 128-36. Kern here bases himself almost entirely on Yaari. My own examination of this trope, entitled “The Jericho Labyrinth: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Visual Trope,” is forthcoming. 5 This text is published in Viterbo, E., Scechina e libellus de litteris Hebraicis, F. Secret (ed.), Rome, Centro Internazionale di Studi Humanistici, 1959. 6 See, for example, Pfeiffer H., Zur Ikonographie von Raffaels Disputa: Egidio da Viterbo und die christlich-platonische Konzeption der Stanza della Segnatura, Rome, Università gregoriana, 1975; Most, G. W., “Reading Raphael: ‘The School of Athens’ and Its Pre-Text,” Critical Inquiry 23, 1996, pp. 145-82. 7 Egidio da Viterbo, vol. 1, p. 106 (f. 169v). ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 29 proceeds to identify this thread as her own way of proceeding, adding that “faith… offers to the wise a thread.”8 On another, Egidio again refers to the thread of Rahab in the context of “the enigmas and intricate windings of the divine labyrinth.”9 And here the Shekinah reveals that she “gave this thread, this pattern, this model to the apostles” in the hope that, their minds having been filled with the holy spirit and the sefirot (we later learn that these are the means by which miracles are performed), “their lines and thread will be extended throughout the whole world.”10 There can be no doubt that what ultimately lies behind these statements is the conception or depiction of Jericho in the form of a labyrinth, and of Rahab’s thread as that which enables the negotiations of its twists and turns. And while there are echoes here of traditional Christian exegesis, in which Rahab is celebrated for her faith (as in the eleventh chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews11), I am aware of no written source (Christian or Jewish) which discusses Jericho in such labyrinthine terms.12 Particularly striking here is how Rahab’s thread comes to function, not only as the guide to the labyrinth of esoteric doctrines, but also as the means by which those doctrines contained within are to be disseminated throughout the entire world. For these two reasons – that is, 1) its likely status as the source of Egidio’s interest in the Jericho labyrinth and, 2) the ways in which he reinterprets it – I have opened with this image, and would like to suggest that it can serve as a powerful metaphor for thinking about how Egidio da Viterbo both uses his Jewish sources – and at the same time is transformed – twisted about, one might say – by his engagement with them. François Secret, the great scholar of the Christian Kabbalah, already more than four decades ago argued that Egidio’s work represents “the most remarkable assimilation of the Kabbalah in the world of the
8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 114 (f. 171v). 10 Ibid. 11 Hebrews 11:31 (“By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace”). Bible translations are taken from Coogan, M. (ed.), The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Augmented Third Edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, but are on occasion modified the better to accord with Egidio’s use thereof. 12 Kern provides a comprehensive listing of written treatments of labyrinths, none of which cast light on Egidio’s own discussion (which, incidentally, here goes unmentioned). See Kern, pp. 28-9. In fact, Egidio’s conception of the labyrinth as standing for esoteric doctrines contrasts strikingly with much of the labyrinth discourse and imagery of his age, which presented the labyrinth as a metaphor for sin and vain pleasure, and as a trap from which one needed to escape rather than as the point at which one wished to arrive. See Kern, pp. 200-201, 220-21. 30 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
Christian humanists.”13 But of what deep significance was this, to what degree – if at all – did the Jewish mystical tradition truly influence or shape his theology? Much as Egidio himself writes, in terms reminiscent of Horace, of how Rome in conquering Judea was in turn conquered by it,14 in this paper I would like to explore how upon entering the labyrinth, so to speak, in some key places the order of the universe of a leading Christian preacher, advisor, and scholar in High Renaissance Rome underwent a profound transformation and, indeed, remarkable reversal. Egidio’s entry into this “labyrinth” is reflected in numerous aspects of his oeuvre (and one should emphasize that we are dealing here in every case with his later period, the last two decades of his sixty-three year lifespan). Elsewhere, I address at some length his views on language, that is, his oft repeated suggestion that Latin and Greek are essentially barbaric in contrast to Hebrew, a view strikingly at odds with the humanism in which Egidio was formed and upon which he drew in his great success as preacher and orator.15 The influence of the Kabbalah over Egidio is perhaps most powerfully revealed in the importance he ascribes to the feminine aspect of the divinity. Peter Schäfer and Arthur Green have each recently explored the similar functions played by Mary and the Shekinah in medieval Christian and Jewish culture, respectively.16 Against this backdrop, Egidio was remarkable for the degree to which he subsumed Mary, as both mother and bride of Christ, into the kabbalistic category of the Shekinah. Only on rare occasions in his eponymous text does he even bother to remind his reader that the Shekinah and Mary are one and the same. In the same vein, Egidio accepts the Rabbinic notion that the “location” of the Shekinah is in the West,17 a view which had earlier prompted the late-eleventh and early- twelfth century convert Petrus Alfonsi to cast ridicule upon his former co-religionists.18 The very interest displayed by Egidio in the Shekinah
13 Secret, F., Les kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance, Paris, Dunod, 1964, p. 120. 14 See below n. 50. 15 Stein Kokin, D., “The Hebrew Question in the Italian Renaissance: Linguistic, Cultural, and Mystical Perspectives,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2006, pp. 261-8, 283-8, 356-93. O’Malley briefly notes this contrast, p. 82. Rowland I., The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 144, provides good grounds for linking Egidio’s celebrated (also at times derided) oratory with humanist sensibilities. 16 Schäfer, P., Mirror of His Beauty: Feminine Images of God from the Bible to the Early Kabbalah, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002, esp. pp. 169-72; Green, A., “Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs,” AJS Review 26, 1, 2002, pp. 1-52. 17 The rabbinic interpretation of Nehemiah 9:6 is the source of this view; see, for example, Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 91b. 18 On this, see Biddick, K., The Typological Imaginary: Circumcision, Technology, History, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 2003, p. 24. ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 31 was, among Christians at this time, a novelty – Egidio’s forerunners Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin do not even mention her at all. In the present paper, however, I wish to focus on two specific examples of Egidio’s transformation, both of which stem from his engagement with Jewish sources: first, and more extensively, his understanding of the identity and history of “Rome”; second, and more briefly, his conception of the relationship of human activity to the divine.
I. Rome:
As a leading preacher and scholar associated with papal curia in the 1510s and 20s, Egidio was naturally deeply interested in the theological and providential significance of Rome. At a relatively early stage in his engagement with Hebraica, this concern was already expressed in the form of a political mythology of Italy as a latter-day promised land grafted onto traditional Christian “New Israel” supercessionism. Thus, in a sermon of 1511,19 Egidio exploited the patriarch Jacob’s parting blessings for his sons in Genesis 49 as the basis for presenting the different regions of Italy as the portions allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel. “Gather and hear, O sons of Jacob” (Gen. 49:2), that is the sons of the old, limping law… Hear the new law which God will give to us to see and which will take up its seat in the city of Rome and in Italy…20 Not surprisingly, Rome here is compared to Judah, and presented in particular as the new Jerusalem: “O Judah, your brothers will praise you” (Gen 49:8) and the sons of your country will adore you. This is Rome, which is the focal point of worship since the whole world is obliged to worship the pope and [Rome] is the capital of the new promised land just as Jerusalem [was the capital of the] old [promised land]21
19 BAV Ms. Chigi G.II.37, 163v ff. I am most grateful to Ingrid Rowland for informing me of the existence of this source and for sharing her transcription of it with me. 20 Ibid., fols. 164 r-v. “Congregamini et audite filiis jacob id est filii veteris legis claude: ibique subiungitur audite israhel patrem vestrum id est audite novam legem que videre deum nobis dabit et in urbe Roma et in italia sedem suam acceptura est novamque promissionis terram ut in danielis vaticinio continetur est vobis traditura.” There appear to be some grammatical problems in this quotation - it is possible that only a rough transcription or notes of Egidio’s sermon was preserved by Tizio. 21 Ibid., fol. 164v. “Juda te laudabunt fratres tui et adorabunt filii patris tui Hec est roma que caput est adorationis cum universus orbis pontificem adorare teneatur estque caput terre promissionis nove sicut hierusalem veteris in qua erant reges de tribu juda...” 32 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
The supercessionist tenor of Egidio’s Roman discourse never flags, but in subsequent writings it becomes increasingly inflected, indeed inverted, by his direct engagement with Hebrew sources. From describing Rome as a new Judah or Jerusalem, as above, Egidio comes to associate Rome and the biblical Edom, even finding hints in Scripture as to Rome’s ultimate theological role. In his excellent monograph on Egidio, John W. O’Malley refers to this tendency, noting how Egidio is thereby “able to link Rome’s origins with the biblical narrative, and thence to draw a series of illuminating contrasts between Esau and Jacob, i.e., between Rome and Israel.”22 Yet O’Malley does not here address the background for this view, which is precisely that which makes it most interesting. As is well known, the successive association of the spurned biblical character Esau with the Edomites, Rome, and finally Christianity was a staple of ancient, medieval, and early modern Jewish typology, which at the same time emphasized Jewish descent from and connection with Esau’s brother, Jacob. Christian exegesis also developed its own typology, linking Christianity to the favoured younger son Jacob and the Jews to his despised older twin.23 God’s prophecy to an entreating
22 O’Malley, pp. 122-3. O’Malley here actually refers to Egidio “etymologically [italics mine] relating the city of Rome to Edom.” But O’Malley does not specify what he means by an etymological link, nor am I aware of any place where Egidio makes such a connection. 23 The classic account of how this association arose is G. D. Cohen’s, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Altmann, A. (ed.), Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1967, pp. 19-48. Additional discussions include: Thraede, K., “Jakob und Esau,” in Realenzyklopädie für Antike und Christentum 16, pp. 1118-1217, esp. pp. 1181-2; Ruether, R. R., “The Adversus Judaeos Tradition in the Church Fathers: The Exegesis of Christian Anti-Judaism,” in Cohen, J. (ed.), Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, New York, New York University Press, 1991, pp. 174-89 (179-80); Begg, C. T., “Israel’s Confrontation with Edom (Num 20,14-21) according to Josephus and Philo,” Revista Catalana de Teología 32, 1, 2007, pp. 1-18; Hadas-Lebel, M., “Jacob et Esaü, ou Israël et Rome dans le Talmud et le Midrash,” Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 201, 1984, pp. 369-92. In contrast to Cohen, who presents the Jewish and Christian exegesis of Jacob and Esau/Edom as initially independent trajectories, the revisionist approach of Israel Jacob, Yuval argues that Jewish linkage between Edom and Rome was borrowed from Paul’s association of the Jews with Esau in Romans 9:6-13. On this, see his Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, B. Harshav and J. Chipman (trans.), Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006, pp. 3-20 (esp. 16). (“The possibility should be considered that the Jewish identification with Jacob emerged from internalizing the Christian position and confronting it.”) and 19. But common sense would suggest that Jewish identification with Jacob, the progenitor and, as Israel, namesake of the nation, could hardly come merely in response to Christian claims. And this impression finds confirmation in recent scholarship, which suggests that the Jewish equation between Edom and Rome (as if a response to a Jewish/Jacob link) in fact stems from far earlier than Cohen had supposed. For a summary of the evidence to this ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 33
Rebekah that “the elder shall serve the younger”24 in fact seemed to suit the Christian approach especially well. Despite the general prevalence of this tendency among Jews and Christians, we do encounter rare reversals of position on both sides of the religious divide. Because the book of Deuteronomy forbids the lending of money on interest to one’s brother (Deut. 23:19-20), shortly after describing the Edomites in precisely such terms (Deut 23:7: “You shall not abhor the Edomite, for he is your brother”), medieval Jewish writers who sought to defend the practice of moneylending were compelled to carve out some wiggle-room amidst the Edom=Christianity equation. The Provençal philosopher and commentator Joseph ibn Kaspi (1280- after 1332) appears to be unique for his time in rejecting the association outright: “…one cannot argue against us, that we lend on interest to Christians in this country, because Edom’s name and memory were already wiped out by Nebuchadnezzar,” he writes. “Today only two or three Edomites are dispersed here and there in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir which is near the land of Israel.”25 Although one naturally presumes that these Jewish arguments were advanced in response to Christian charges of hypocrisy regarding the above Deuteronomic provisions,26 our best evidence for medieval Christian acceptance of the notion of Edom as Rome is found among the Christian Hebraists Raimundo Martini (c. 1220-c. 1284) and Nicholas de Lyra (c. 1270-1349), two authors who do not appear particularly interested in the usury question. For the Catalonian Dominican Martini, adoption of the Jewish approach in his Pugio Fidei is intimately linked with the overall polemical purpose of his work: to employ rabbinic effect, see Feldman, L., “Remember Amalek!”, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 2004, pp. 62-7. On this reading, Paul is reacting to and radically reinterpreting an older typology, as opposed to inventing it. For the later medieval and early Modern development of this theme, see Rosenthal, J., “Interest from the Gentile,” in Mehkarim u- Mekorot 1, Jerusalem, Reuven Mass, 1967, pp. 280-96 (Hebrew). 24 Genesis 25:23. 25 Stein, S., “Interest Taken by Jews from Gentiles: An Evaluation of Source Material,” in Pre-Capitalist Economic Thought, New York, Arno Press, 1972, pp. 145-6. Stein comments that Ibn Kaspi’s arguments were not altogether new; yet the sharpness of this assertion, to the best of my knowledge, was. By contrast, the late twelfth-century Rabbi Moses of Paris argued that in its violent behaviour against Jerusalem Edom had squandered any rights as brother. On this, see Nelson, B., The Idea of Usury, 2nd edn, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1969, p. 6, n. 7. 26 Rosenthal, p. 281 (Hebrew), and Ruderman, D. B., The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1981, p. 86, argue this explicitly, but without furnishing specific Christian arguments to this effect. Christian opposition to usury seems most commonly to derive from a conception of universal brotherhood, rather than insistence upon a specific Edomite-Israelite brotherhood. On this, see Nelson, pp. 3-28. 34 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN sources as proofs for Christianity. Drawing upon the biblical conception of Jacob/Israel and Esau/Edom as brothers and the talmudic linkage between Edom and Rome, Martini is thus able to present the conversion of Rome to Christianity as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Micha (5:2-3) that at the time when one from Bethlehem will rule over Israel, “the rest of his brothers (i.e., including Edom) shall return to the people of Israel.”27 For his part, in his Postillae on the Hebrew Bible, Nicholas de Lyra adopts contrasting, indeed contradictory, positions. Regarding Balaam’s oracle that “Edom will become a possession, Seir a possession of its enemies” (Numbers 24:18), he comments that “according to the Hebrews, Edom and Seir refers to the city of Rome, and this [city] became a possession of Christ, since it became the principal seat of his vicar”28 (Martini, incidentally, also refers to this verse, citing approvingly Rashi’s gloss of Edom as Rome29). The saviours with whom Obadiah concludes his prophecy (Obadiah 1:28, “And saviours shall go up to Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau…”) he parses as Christian emissaries who came to Rome in the time of Constantine to condemn its idolatry and bring it into the Christian fold.30 On at least two other occasions, however, de Lyra comes out against the association of Rome with Edom.31 The examples of Martini and de Lyra furnish important precedents for Egidio, while also serving to underscore the truly radical extent of his acceptance of the traditional Jewish position. Like them, he attaches great importance to the references to Edom in Balaam’s oracle and in Obadiah.32 He exults that, according to the first prophecy, “not Judea, not
27 Martini, R., Pugio Fidei, Leipzig, Lenckisch, 1687, pp. 399-401, accessed on 05/20/10 at http://judaica-frankfurt.de/content/pageview/262324. 28 Biblia Latina cum postillis Nicolai de Lyra, Venice, [Johannes Herbort de Seligenstadt for] Johannes de Colonia, Nicolaus Jenson et Socii, 1481, pp. x3-x3v. 29 Martini, ibid., p. 399. 30 Rosenthal, p. 294. Martini had referred to this verse as well, but only to establish the linkage between Edom and Rome on the basis of Rashi’s gloss on Edom here. See Martini, ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Egidio refrains in these discussions from ever mentioning either Martini or de Lyra. It is therefore hard to know whether he had missed this aspect of their writings or, as is more likely, wanted only to highlight the ancient Hebrews and Arameans as his sources. Egidio does refer to Nicholas in his theological-historical treatise, Historia viginti saeculorum; in addition, we know that Egidio was in possession of a manuscript containing two of his works (Perles, J., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hebräischen und Aramäischen Studien, München, Theodor Ackermann, 1884, p. 163, n. 1.). The two works were “De Differentia Nostrae Translationis ab Hebraica Litera Veti Testamenti” and “Locorum Veti Testamenti secundum Talmudistarum Interpretationem Annotatio.” ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 35
Jerusalem, but ‘Edom will become a possession,’” noting explicitly that the reference is to “the city of Rome.”33 The prophet Obadiah’s role in imparting this true identity and meaning of Rome, what Egidio calls the “highest secret,” was for him particularly significant: for Egidio suggests that the Edom/Rome connection is hidden in this briefest of all the prophets, lest it be revealed before the proper time.34 And if Martini, as we have seen, emphasizes the restoration of Israelite/Edomite brotherhood through Christianity, Egidio downplays this theme in favour of one of mutual conquest. This suggests that the anti-Jewish stance that was central for Martini has been, in Egidio’s case, largely replaced by the desire to assert the importance of Rome’s Hebraic roots to his Christian colleagues. A further, excellent indication of what Egidio feels he can derive from this portion of Scripture comes from his discussion of its final verse. Unlike Nicholas, for whom Obadiah’s “saviours” are emissaries in the time of Constantine, Egidio holds them to be no less than the apostles Peter and Paul, described as Jewish men (homines iudaeos!) who, coming to Rome, seized (i.e. Christianized) the city.35 Egidio is here explicit that the mountain of Esau refers to Rome, justifying his assertion on the interpretation of the Hebrews and Arameans. The depiction here of Christian apostles as Jewish conquerors of Rome nicely echoes a point Egidio had made several dozen folios earlier. There it was reported (on the basis of Midrash Bereshit Rabba) that while God originally considered granting Israel possession over ten nations, in the end he reserved domination over the final three for the messianic age.36 Egidio writes that according to the Arameans, one of these three is “Edom: the
33 Scechina, vol. 2, pp. 78-9 (f. 249v). 34 Scechina, vol. 2, p. 65 (f. 245). 35 Ibid., p. 79 (f. 250). As if subconsciously aware of the stretch in reading these “saviors” as Peter and Paul, Egidio suggests that Obadiah practically rendered them visible to the eye (“veluti ad oculum appinxit”). The interpretations of Nicholas and Egidio, both of which emphasize emissaries arriving in Rome, face the same geographical problem that Obadiah’s saviors are described as ascending Mt. Zion in order to judge Mt. Esau. In this regard, it is perhaps worthwhile to note that the Septuagint translation renders the passage as “from Mt. Zion” (ਥȟ ȡȠȣȢ ȈȚઅȞ), as in, “And saviors shall go from Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau…” If, in fact, these authors relied upon the Septuagint’s rendition of this verse, it would represent an ironic approach for these noted Hebraists. It should also be noted that in citing this passage, Egidio leaves out all reference to Mt. Zion: “ascendant salvatores: iudicare montem Esau et erit Domino regnum.” 36 Midrash Bereshit Rabba, J. Theodor and H. Albeck (eds), Jerusalem, Shalem Books, 1996, sec. 44, pp. 446-7. 36 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
Senate and People of Rome, the ruler of the nations.”37 The Jewish conquest of Rome through Peter and Paul thus implicitly serves as a fitting indicator of the Messiah’s arrival. But if Rome must, for Egidio, be understood with reference to the biblical Edom, this does not, by any means, deprive the city of its positive theological significance, a significance that Egidio frequently tries to prove by recourse to etymology. Indeed, Egidio was keen to prove that the very name “Roma” was linked to the Hebrew (“my language” as his Shekinah calls it) term for height or high place (ʤʮʸ) – this against the apparently widespread tradition that the name came from the Greek “romeh” (૧ȫȝȘ), meaning strength.38 Ever the syncretist, Egidio was happy to draw further support for this contention from such authorities as Virgil (who spoke near the very outset of his Aeneid of the “high walls of Rome”39) and the Roman grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus (second-century A.D.). Following Festus, who, he claims, derived Romulus’ name “not from strength but from height,”40 Egidio averred that “the Latins accepted the name of Rome,” since the city “was first located on the Palatine hill… which, on a high place, was naturally
37 Scechina, vol. 1, p. 142 (f. 181v). In Bereshit Rabba, it is the rabbis ("ʯʩʰʡʸ") who suggest that these three nations are comprised of the Edomites, Moabites, and the beginnings of the Ammonites. 38 According, for example, to Paul the Deacon, the eighth-century epitomizer of Festus’ De verborum significatione, Romulus and Remus derived their names “from virtue, that is strength,” in what is clearly a reference to the equivalent Greek term. See Festus, S. P., De verborum significatione quae supersunt cum Pauli epitome, K. O. Mueller (ed.), Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1975, p. 267 (“Romulus et Remus a virtute, hoc est robore, appellati sunt.”). A surviving fragment of Festus’ text itself refers to a tradition according to which the initial settlement on the Palatine hill took its name from the virtue of its early king, Valentiam, subsequently translated into the Greek equivalent for virtue thanks to the mass immigration of Greek speakers (“quod nomen adventu Evandri Aeneaeque in Italiam cum magna Graece loquentium copia interpretatum, dici coeptum Rhomem”). See ibid., pp. 268-9, and pp. 266-269 more generally, for a range of etymologies of Rome and Romulus. 39 Virgil, Aeneid I:7 (“altae moenia Romae”). 40 The basis for this alternative etymology is a passage from De verborum significatione according to which, as preserved by Paul the Deacon, “Romulus was called Altellus, as if tall on the earth” (“Altellus Romulus dicebatur, quasi altus in tellure”). See Festus, ibid., p. 7. The originally intended meaning was probably that Romulus had been nourished in the earth (from the Latin alo, alere, i.e. to nourish), but the Latin “altus” does also mean “tall” or “high.” For Egidio this is confirmation that the names Rome and Romulus must have a Hebrew origin; Altellus is but a translation from when the latter was committed to writing (vol. 1, p. 119, f. 173: “cum litteris mandaverit”). This is of course a highly selective and downright fanciful use of etymological tradition since, as we have seen, Festus and Paul also contain the linkage between Rome and strength. But Egidio was content to make use of whatever arguments he could to link Rome and its eponymous founder to the Hebrew language. ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 37 protected, and was most obstinate and firm against capture, whence the Greek word for strength was derived.”41 Egidio’s rebuttal of a Greek etymology for “Rome” in favor of a Hebraic one is part and parcel of his general effort to emphasize Hebraic over Greek wisdom. Suggesting in his 1517 Libellus de litteris hebraicis that in Psalm 145, which commences “I will exalt you, O Lord,” “not Jerusalem but the name of Rome resounds,”42 he aimed to show how the Bible itself foreshadows Jerusalem’s eventual replacement by Rome. What, then, is the overall basis for, and significance of, Egidio’s assertion of Rome’s Edomite roots and Hebraic links? For starters, one can say that it further fills out the forged mythical/historical framework put forward by Egidio’s predecessor, Annius of Viterbo (1432-1502). In the words of one scholar, Annius wanted to prove that “his own native place, Viterbo, had been a prominent cradle of civilization, with a history and traditions compared to which even those of Rome itself paled into insignificance.”43 Hence the well-known claim that Noah, that is Janus, had arrived, post-flood, to the Janiculum Hill, well before the foundation of Rome, as well as Annius’ indication that he would at some point write an Etruscan pontifical history about the pre-Roman popes.44 Egidio, deeply influenced by Annius, offered a similar Etruscan counter- narrative in his writings. Yet there were some important differences between these two Viterbans. While Riccardo Fubini has suggested that the Bible loses its centrality for Annius,45 with Egidio we encounter a most strident attempt to re-incorporate Italian history, not just into a biblical, but indeed also into a traditional rabbinic historical framework. Similarly, whereas Annius argues for the autochthony of the Turreni-
41 Scechina, vol. 1, pp. 118-9 (f. 173). Thus does Egidio replace a Greek etymology for Rome with a Roman etymology for a Greek term. 42 Libellus, p. 50 (f. 40). In the original Hebrew, the Psalm opens with the word ʪʮʮʥʸʠ (AROMimkha). 43 Weiss, R., “An Unknown Epigraphic Tract by Annius of Viterbo,” in Brand, C. P. et al. (eds), Italian Studies Presented to E.R. Vincent, Cambridge, W. Heffer, 1962, pp. 101-20 (101). 44 Fubini briefly discusses this work, the Historia Etrusca Pontificia, which appears never actually to have been written, in his essay, “L’ebraismo nei riflessi della cultura umanistica: Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti, Annio da Viterbo,” Medioevo e Rinascimento 2, 1988, pp. 283-324, reprinted in his Storiografia dell'umanesimo in Italia da Leonardo Bruni ad Annio da Viterbo, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2003, p. 328. 45 Ibid., p. 318, “…nelle Antiquitates anniane la Bibbia perde la sua centralità.” This can clearly be seen with regard to Roman history, in which Annius’ forged early Roman historians have nothing to say of any biblical resonance whatsoever. On these passages, see Danielsson, O. A., “Annius von Viterbo über die Gründungsgeschichte Roms,” in Gustav, King of Sweden, Corolla Archaeologica, Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup, 1932. 38 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
Etruschi46 and the Romans, Egidio emphasizes the Levantine roots of both the Etruscans and Edomites.47 This shift can best be understood in light of changing circumstances in Rome itself. Egidio’s intellectual and professional maturity coincided with the reigns of the two Medici (and therefore Tuscan) Popes, Leo X and Clement VII, and thus an age of Tuscan co-optation of Rome. The ressentiment or anti-colonial mentality which prompted the elder Annius’ mythmaking could therefore, in Egidio’s, hands be transformed into an exploration of how Romans and Tuscans periodically held sway over one another. It also meant that Rome no longer needed to be in some way overcome or overshadowed, but could rather be presented as having been co-opted or transformed. Indeed, I would like to suggest that much of Egidio’s language about Jews and Edomites, Rome and Jerusalem, in fact reflects his thoughts about the contemporary situation between Tuscans and Romans, that is, the relationship between Tuscans and Romans in his day as something of a revisiting of that which prevailed in antiquity between Hebrews and Romans. First, let us consider what Egidio has to say about the ancient relations between Hebrews and Romans. In the Libellus, he spells this out explicitly: God inclines victory now to this side now to that side… so the Romans conquer the Hebrews in arms and the Hebrews overcome the Romans in piety. The Roman foe destroys the city, the Hebrew preserves it. The Roman levels it to the ground, the Hebrew raises it up to heaven. The Roman strives to abolish the memory of it, the Hebrew to consecrate it as abiding and as eternal.48 While this passage might at first glance appear to refer to different approaches to Jerusalem – its physical destruction on the part of the Romans, its spiritual preservation on that of the Hebrews – the subsequent indication that “the Roman was to take away the place and nation of the Hebrews, but nevertheless was to bring forth a continual Hebrew leader”49 makes it clear that we in fact here encounter complementary and contrasting victories – of the Romans over Jerusalem and of the Hebrews over Rome. And we see that despite – perhaps,
46 Fubini, p. 311. Annius brought forward the De origine Italiae et Turrenae of Mirsilo Lesbio as “testimone non sospetto dell’origine autoctona dei ‘Turreni’-Etruschi.” 47 For example, Egidio notes explicitly in the Libellus (p. 43, fols. 29-29v) that “Edom, having come out from Asia, established the empire of the Romans.” 48 Libellus, p. 40 (f. 25). 49 Ibid., p. 41 (f. 26). ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 39 indeed, because of – the political domination of the Romans, the Hebrews achieve a spiritual triumph.50 It is when addressing the Tyrrhenians, the alleged progenitors of the Etruscans/Tuscans that the potential for a parallel assessment with the Hebrews becomes most apparent. Egidio’s comments on the Tyrrhenians, whose name he derives from the Tower of David mentioned in the Song of Songs (4:4), can be presumed to reflect his conception of himself and his fellow Tuscans, namely as an elite blessed with divine knowledge and the special ability to teach others: This then is the true Tyrrhenian, who embraces all the aspects of religion and is not unmindful of his ancestral race. Nor is he base, since he indeed is acquainted with the most exalted secrets of divine things… along with the admiration of the whole world. And indeed, the Tyrrhenians also teach other peoples.51 What I am suggesting is that Egidio’s conception of the ancient Etruscans, or of the ideal Tuscans of his day, was quite similar to his conception of the ancient identity and role of the Hebrews – that is, an elite group which although politically overpowered by Rome nonetheless exerted great influence over her.52 In any case, the result is a vision of history strikingly at odds with traditional humanist accounts as well as with the Annian heritage that exerted such important influence over Egidio. The relationship of Egidio’s adoption of the traditional Jewish conception of Edom to that of his contemporaries is too large a subject to be treated here in full. However, a most instructive and ironic contrast can be drawn between Egidio and his colleague and fellow Augustinian, the Jewish convert to Christianity Felice da Prato (ca. 1450-ca. 1550). Felice is sometimes thought to have exerted a significant influence on Egidio’s own writing,53 yet he lambastes his erstwhile co-religionists for reading Psalm 60:9 (“Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?”) as referring to Rome. After all, “Rome had its beginning in the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah,” while the psalm itself
50 This notion of the mutual conquest of the Romans and Hebrews is reminiscent of the Roman poet Horace’s assertion (Epistles, 2.1.156) that “captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror” (“Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit”). 51 Ibid., p. 47 (ff. 35v-36). 52 It is interesting, in this regard, to compare this description with the near- contemporary account of the role of the Jewish people put forward by the rabbi, doctor, and philosopher Obadiah Sforno (c. 1470-c.1550), who, in interpreting the notion of a “priestly nation” (ʭʩʰʤʫ ʺʫʬʮʮ) from Exodus 19:6, emphasized that this referred to the distinct role of the Jewish people as a teacher of divinity to humanity. 53 O’Malley, p. 77. 40 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN was written “on account of the victory of David which he had against his enemies.”54 Egidio’s own brief reference to this same passage indicates that it only confirmed his own view that the seat of the Shekinah was transferred to Rome.55 Thus we find a striking and ironic reversal: at approximately the same time that a Jewish convert to Christianity sought to ridicule the Rome/Edom association, a born Christian who became captivated by Jewish sources sought to emphasize it.
II. Human Activity and the Divine:
In the context of a discussion in the Scechina which examines how humanity is influenced by changes and adjustments that take place within the sefirotic Godhead, Egidio proceeds to state what he describes as “an incredible thing, one that scarcely by human ears is able to be borne… a thing difficult to say, more difficult still to hear, and most difficult of all to believe”: You mortals, you, I say, make me, a mortal, beautiful, you render me complete, you turn me into a precious immortal! Who could believe, who could be persuaded, who could convince themselves that these things are true? That heavenly things from human things, incorruptible things from corruptible things, eternal from ephemeral things, lastly that God from man, receive power and injury? Nevertheless, very many oracles preach [that these things] do receive [this kind of influence]… but with a secret and unutterable explanation [ratione]: when you pray, when you cultivate the temples and the altars, when you give to the needy, you bring it about that the father gives to me the power [facultatem] to give to you. When you sin, when you behave injustly, when you leave behind temples and prayers, when you see the needy in vain, when you do not give to the deserving, neither does the father give to me, but rather he snatches away the power of giving to you… If you act piously, you give; if you behave wrongly, you take away. You set out a bed, you prepare a bedchamber, you sing an epithalamium, you couple bride to groom, in this manner about which I have spoken. On the contrary, when – these things having been neglected – you turn back to human things, you snatch the groom from the breast of the bride, you drive him out from the bedroom, you command that he flee far away from me. The groom having gone away, I am become a servant, I flee from the slave. It is necessary that I yield myself to the command of your disgraces. And since they command that I go away from the bridegroom, I am compelled to surrender and submit. These things are not new, they are oracles to those who know.56
54 Prato, F., Psalterium, Venice, Peter Lichtenstein, 1515, fol. 29v. 55 Scechina, p. 118 (f. 173). 56 Scechina, p. 93 (f. 165). ON THE KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE OF EGIDIO DA VITERBO 41
Here, I submit, we encounter Egidio’s novel adaptation of the prevalent kabbalistic notion that, through the performance of the mitzvot, the rituals and commandments of Jewish law, the long-sundered masculine and feminine aspects of God can be reunited in divine matrimony (“You set out a bed, you prepare a bedchamber, you sing an epithalamium, you couple bride to groom”). These masculine and feminine aspects are alternatively understood as involving the sixth sefira “Tifereth” (masculine) and the tenth “Shekinah” (feminine), or the ninth sefira “Yesod” (masculine) with the “Shekinah.” In particular, the fulfilment of positive commandments brings about male/female union in the Godhead, whereas transgression of negative commandments sunders them further, and feeds evil forces. Also notable here, from a Christian perspective, is the elevation of Mary qua Shekinah into the Godhead – that is, the emergence of the feminine counterpart of divinity as in fact an element of that divinity, and her incorporation into the sefirotic system – as well as the explanation that is provided for this development: “you turn me [a mortal] into a precious immortal.” If Egidio is in fact suggesting that it was human action and behaviour that accomplished this, then we are witness to a truly radical re-deployment of a standard element of kabbalistic theosophy. Despite important similarities between the respective medieval Christian and Jewish cultivations of Mary and the Shekinah, the notion of human influence on the Godhead appears to be unique to Jewish mystical contexts and thus to indicate an important contrast between the two traditions. This, at least, is the note on which Arthur Green ends his important article “Shekinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs,” alluded to briefly above.57 And given that prior to Egidio there seems to have been little interest in the Shekinah among Christian kabbalists, it seems quite likely that we have here come upon an important innovation of Egidio’s kabbalistic system. Certainly, the dramatic manner in which Egidio introduces his topic here, along with his reference to the very many oracles that address it, suggests that he at least regards it as novel for his Christian reader. To be sure, Egidio does not refer in the above source to Christian engagement in the Jewish mitzvot, referring instead to prayer, involvement in church ritual (“when you cultivate the temples and the altars”), and charitable and pious behavior in general. But the cosmic effect of these activities is very much assimilated to that which the kabbalists ascribed to fulfilment of the Jewish commandments. The
57 Schäfer, for his part, stresses Mary’s role “as mediator between heaven and earth, God and humankind,” (Schäfer, ibid., p. 170), but makes no reference to a human role in re-uniting Mary with God or Jesus. 42 DANIEL STEIN KOKIN depiction here bears a general similarity to a passage from the Iggeret Hamudot (The Precious Letter) of the fifteenth-century Tuscan Jewish philosopher and mystic Elijah Hayim ben Binyamin da Genazzano. For in the context of reporting the cosmic influence achieved through fulfilment of halakhah, he acknowledges that observance of the seven Noahide laws by gentiles also plays some role in reuniting the sefirot.58 But, of course, fascinating as it is for a Jew – bound-up as he is in a system of divine commandments and their heavenly repercussions – partially to integrate gentile commandments into that system, it is far more striking to encounter a Christian thinking in these same terms.
Conclusion
Opening with the image of the labyrinth of esoteric doctrines and suggesting that we together explore how a leading Christian scholar of Hebrew and Kabbalah in the High Renaissance was transformed by his own metaphoric entry into this labyrinth, I have tried in this paper to present two examples, both of which I consider to be fascinating, of how the encounter with Jewish sources could be transformative in this period. This, of course, is not in any way to suggest that Egidio da Viterbo became through the Kabbalah any less pious or committed a Christian, but it does show how this encounter could lead, in prominent, albeit rare cases, to new exegetical and theological frameworks for important aspects of Christianity. It is also my hope that, in focusing on Egidio da Viterbo, I have been able to show that amidst the naïve erudition that characterizes his writing some interesting and novel developments are to be found. Indeed, despite the not insignificant body of scholarship on Egidio, I was able to find no discussions of the two issues upon which I focused. This suggests that his works may still themselves constitute something of a labyrinth, awaiting further close inspection – for those who bring along the string of Rahab.
58 Genazzano, E. H. ben Binyamin da, La lettera preziosa, F. Lelli (ed.), Florence, La Giuntina; Nîmes: Editions de l’éclat, 2002, p. 203. 43
WHITHER KABBALAH? GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, KABBALAH, AND THE DISPUTATIONS AGAINST JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY Sheila J. Rabin
In 1486 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola presented his 900 Conclusions, in which he set forth 900 theses for public debate. These theses were derived from sources as diverse as Plato and Aristotle, Greek Peripatetics and Neoplatonists, Avicenna and Averroes, Pythagoras, Orpheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, and Kabbalah, as well as many others, reflecting an immense spectrum of thought and opinion. The first part of the book stated opinions from the sources; the second part comprised Pico’s own opinions based on those sources. From the perspective of his natural philosophy, Pico’s use of Kabbalah in this early work was his most original and interesting contribution. Gershom Scholem has suggested that the form of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah was probably Neoplatonic in its origins,1 and during the period that Pico was working on the Conclusions and pursuing philosophical eclecticism,2 the Neoplatonic flavor of the Kabbalah would have appealed to him. Also appealing was its presumed antiquity, as its adherents maintained that Kabbalah was an oral tradition revealed to Moses alongside the written law at Mount Sinai. On the other hand, the tradition that has come down to us is highly literary, focusing on the words and letters of the Torah, and this, too, would have made it appealing to Pico. When he wrote the Conclusions, Pico had access to the major works of Kabbalah then available as well as commentaries by several medieval authors. Chaim Wirszubski has established that the works available included Sefer Yetsirah (The Book of Creation), written between the
1 On Kabbalah and its history see Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 3rd edn, New York, Schocken Books, 1954; reprint 1961, and Kabbalah, Jerusalem, Keter Publishing, 1974; reprint, New York, New American Library, 1978. Moshe Idel’s Kabbalah: New Perspectives, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988, also an important work, focuses more on the devotional and magical aspects of the tradition. I am following Scholem and his students in transliterating ʤʬʡʷ as Kabbalah. The technically correct transliteration into English is “qabbalah,” which is off-putting for the Anglophone reader. “Cabala,” which many scholars use, including Brian Copenhaver and Steven Farmer mentioned below, is based on Renaissance Latin transliteration. 2 Allen, M. J. B., “The Second Ficino-Pico Controversy: Parmenidean Poetry, Eristic, and the One,” in Garfangnini, G. C. (ed.), Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, Florence, Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1986, pp. 417-55 (418), rightly points out that “Pico was never a committed, let alone a doctrinaire, Neoplatonist.” 44 SHEILA J. RABIN third and the sixth centuries, Sefer ha-Bahir (The Book of Illumination), attributed to the midrashic Rabbi Nehunya ben ha-Kanah but in fact a twelfth-century compilation, and Zohar ([Book of] Splendor), attributed to the second-century mystic Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai but probably written by Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century. When Pico wrote the Conclusions, he also had available to him works by medieval Jewish kabbalist commentators: Azriel ben Menahem of Gerona (1160-1238), Abraham Abulafia (1240-1291), and Menahem Recanati (ca. 1250-ca. 1310), as well as several anonymous works.3 Most of the works were translated for Pico from the Hebrew by his teacher, Flavius Mithridates, a converted Jew and scholar of Kabbalah. Mithridates made marginal notations within his translations to guide his pupil and developed the argument that Kabbalah proved the truth of Christianity.4 Indeed, Pico claimed that his kabbalist theses in the Conclusions “strongly confirm[ed] the Christian religion using the Hebrew wisemen’s own principles.”5 His ninth magic thesis, which got him into trouble with the Catholic Church, declared, “There is no science that assures us more of the divinity of Christ than magic and Cabala.”6 This sentiment was repeated in other works: the Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), an introduction to the Conclusions;7 the Apology (1487), a defense of the condemned theses;8 and the Heptaplus (1489), a kabbalist exegesis on the creation story in Genesis.9 While kabbalists, like other mystics, frequently sought mystical union with the divine, kabbalists also sought to reform the world. In this way the human being became an active agent influencing the universe, and
3 See Wirszubski, C., Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, Cambridge, MA and London, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 60-64. This study, written by a scholar of Kabbalah, is the most extensive work on Pico’s use of Kabbalah in the Conclusions and the first to show how thoroughly Pico absorbed principles of kabbalistic exegesis. It is important in my understanding of the subject. 4 Ibid., p. 69. 5 Pico della Mirandola, G., 900 Conclusions, S. A. Farmer (trans.), in Id., Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems, Tempe, AZ, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998, p. 517. 6 Ibid., p. 497. 7 Pico della Mirandola, G., Oration on the Dignity of Man, E. L. Forbes (trans.), in Cassirer, E., Kristeller, P. O., and Randall, J. H., Jr. (eds), The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1948, pp. 249, 253. 8 Pico della Mirandola, G., Apologia, in Id. and Pico, G. F., Opera omnia, 2 vols., Basel, 1557; reprint, Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 1969, p. 1:180. 9 Pico della Mirandola, G., Heptaplus, D. Carmichael (trans.), in On the Dignity of Man, On Being and the One, Heptaplus, Indianapolis and New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1965, p. 158. WHITHER KABBALAH? 45 kabbalist principles thus encouraged the practice of magic. As Moshe Idel has noted: An archmagician, the theurgical kabbalist does not need external help or grace; his way of operating - namely, the Torah - enables him to be independent; he looks not so much for salvation by the intervention of God as for God’s redemption by human intervention.10 The kabbalist was an active operator in improving the universe, both human and divine, whose skill required no divine intervention; his was the highest stratum of magic. Pico frequently cited Kabbalah within the perspective of magic in the section “Theses according to His Own Opinion” of the Conclusions. There are references to Kabbalah in his mathematical theses,11 Zoroastrian theses,12 magical theses,13 and the Orphic theses.14 The theses on magic are particularly interesting in this regard. Magic was considered a form of natural philosophy and a means of affecting nature, but some magic was objectionable: that which was accomplished by conjuring the aid of demons was evil and, consequently, forbidden.15 Pico introduced his theses on magic by establishing what he believed was acceptable or not acceptable in its pursuit. The first two theses restated the two kinds of magic: All magic that is in use among the moderns, and which the church justly exterminates, has no firmness, no foundation, no truth, because it... depends on the enemies of the first truth, those powers of darkness, which pour the darkness of falsehood over poorly disposed intellects.16 This refers to demonic magic. On the other hand, Pico declared, “Natural magic is permitted and not prohibited.”17 Pico gave Kabbalah a critical role in natural magic. He declared, “No magical operation can be of any efficacy unless it has annexed to it a work of Cabala, explicit or implicit.”18 Moreover, “the nature of that
10 Idel, p. 179. 11 Pico, 900 Conclusions, theses 7a: 67, 68. 12 Ibid., theses 8: 14. 13 Ibid., theses 9: 7, 9, 15, 18, 22, 25, 26. 14 Ibid., theses 10: 4, 10, 13, 15, 21. 15 D. P. Walker, in his Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella, London, Warburg Institute, 1958, was the first modern scholar to address this issue. Richard Kieckhefer, in Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997, shows an excellent example of the magician conjuring demons. 16 Pico, 900 Conclusions, p. 495. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., p. 499. 46 SHEILA J. RABIN which is the horizon of temporal eternity is next to the magus, but above him, and proper to it is the Cabala.”19 In addition to that, he averred, No names that mean something, insofar as those names are singular and taken per se, can have power in a magical work, unless they are Hebrew names, or closely derived from Hebrew.20 And he concluded his theses on magic declaring, Just as through the influence of the first agent, if that influence is individual and immediate, something is achieved that is not attained through the mediation of causes, so through a work of Cabala, if it is the pure and immediate Cabala, something is achieved to which no magic attains.21 In his first thesis on magic Pico denied the efficacy of demonic magic, but in these later theses on magic that related to Kabbalah he claimed that natural magic had no power without Kabbalah. In this way he implied that Kabbalah made natural magic effective and guaranteed that it was not demonic. Unlike the other forms of ancient magic that Pico wrote about in the Conclusions, kabbalist magic was not pagan. In fact, kabbalist magic stemmed from the divine word, and this shielded it against any demonic tendencies or influences.22 Pico’s kabbalist theses went beyond his intent of merely supporting Christian doctrine. He truly created a Christian Kabbalah by showing how the principles of Kabbalah could be applied to and, in doing so, reinforce Christian dogma.23 For example, thesis 14 states: By the letter... shin, which mediates in the name of Jesus, it is indicated to us Cabalistically that the world then rested perfectly, as though in its perfection, when Yod was conjoined with Vav - which happened in Christ, who was the true Son of God, and man.24 The Hebrew name of Jesus, ʥʹʩ (Yeshu), is formed by three Hebrew letters. The middle, weighty, letter ʹ (shin) is also the first letter of the Hebrew word for Sabbath – ʺʡʹ (shabbat) - and means “rest.” In the
19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Copenhaver, B., “Number, Shape, and Meaning in Pico’s Christian Cabala: The Upright Tsade, the Closed Mem, and the Gaping Jaws of Azazel,” in Grafton, A. and Siraisi, N. (eds), Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, Cambridge, MA and London, MIT Press, 1999, pp. 25-76 (37). 23 See Wirszubski, p. 151. 24 Pico, Conclusions, p. 527. WHITHER KABBALAH? 47
Bahir, the letter shin is twice compared to the root of a tree.25 The root is both the source of life and the source of strength in the tree. In the name Yeshu, the shin is in a pivotal position flanked by two similar, light, consonants ʩ (yod) and ʥ (vav), both of which can also be used, at times interchangeably, as vowels. In the Bahir, the letter yod is the holy tenth, and vav, the sixth letter, is associated with man.26 Here Pico showed that he had so completely absorbed kabbalist principles that he was able to rework them to confirm Christian principles, namely, the centrality and divinity of Jesus and Jesus as the man-god. This thesis initiated a series of similarly configured kabbalist statements, and as these are the last theses of the Conclusions, they form perhaps its climax. In fact, Brian Copenhaver has plausibly argued that not only was Kabbalah central to the Conclusions, but even the number of theses, 900, had kabbalistic significance.27 Unsurprisingly, Kabbalah was a major focus of interest in the Oration, which was intended as an introduction to the Conclusions, and in the Apology, which was written to support the theses that were questioned under Pope Innocent VIII’s direction. Pico’s interest in Kabbalah is also evident in the Heptaplus, his Christian kabbalist interpretation of the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. It is not surprising that there is no Kabbalah in his 1491 work On Being and the One, an attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle on the issue of whether or not unity surpasses or is coextensive with being, because Kabbalah was irrelevant to the subject of this work. Is its absence in the Disputations against Judicial Astrology, his final work in which he repudiated astrology and which was published posthumously in 1496, also related to the nature of the subject? After all, like supporters of magic in Pico’s day, most medieval Jewish kabbalists promoted astrology as well as magic. There are no direct references to Kabbalah in the Disputations. Pico did maintain, Just as the astrologers contend that they find their images in the stars, so the Hebrew masters contend that they find their alef-bet, that is, the letters and elements of their language, in the stars.28
25 The Bahir, A. Kaplan (trans.), Boston and York Beach, Weiser Books, 1979, pp. 30, 45. 26 Ibid., pp. 38, 30. 27 Copenhaver, “Number, Shape, and Meaning in Pico’s Christian Cabala,” pp. 57-58. 28 Pico della Mirandola, G., Disputationes adversus astrologium divinatricem, E. Garin (ed.), 2 vols., Florence, Vallecchi Editore, 1946 and 1952, p. 2:268: “Hebraeorum Magistri, sicuti imagines suas astrologi, ita suum in stellis alephetarium, hoc est suae linguae notas et elementa, invenire contendunt...” (lines 22-24). My translation. 48 SHEILA J. RABIN
This may have been a veiled reference to the kabbalists, but he was attacking their recourse to the stars, not the study of Kabbalah itself. This accusation could also imply that in their recourse to the stars, such kabbalists perverted their doctrines. He also attacked the thirteenth- century kabbalist Eleazar of Worms for claiming that different signs of the zodiac had power over different parts of the human body,29 but this, too, was a condemnation of a specific astrological doctrine that was asserted by a specific individual, not a condemnation of Kabbalah. It is interesting to note that this was a commonly accepted astrological idea, not unique to Eleazar. Had Pico rejected Kabbalah by the time he wrote the Disputations? Had it ceased to exert an influence on him? Pico did not directly attack Kabbalah, even though it fostered astrology. Indeed, among Jewish thinkers he focused his ire most on the twelfth-century author Abraham ibn Ezra; ibn Ezra was not a kabbalist. Had Pico set aside his kabbalist studies by the time he wrote the Disputations, but was not ready to repudiate Kabbalah? In the Oration Pico had expressed a mystical strain: the highest destiny of the human being was to be “made one with God.”30 To the mystic, union with the deity was the ultimate goal and ultimate joy of human existence. This strain was muted in the Disputations, but a version of it appeared in book 3 when Pico described the role of angels as bringing humans closer to the divine; the view that the stars bar human access to the divine was a theme in the Disputations. It is interesting to note that Nahmanides (Moses ben Nahman), the thirteenth-century Jewish philosopher and kabbalist, alluded to this matter in his Commentary on the Torah. Nahmanides accepted astrology, and yet he suggested: The Glorious Name created everything and He placed the power of the lower creatures in the higher beings, giving over each and every nation in their land, after their nations some known star or constellation, as is known by means of astrological speculation... But the Land of Israel, which is the middle of the inhabited earth, is the inheritance of the Eternal designated to His Name. He has placed none of the angels as chief, observer, or ruler over it since He gave it as a heritage to His people who declare the Unity of His Name, the seed of His beloved ones. 31
29 Ibid., p. 2:420. 30 Pico, Oration, p. 225. 31 Nahmanides (Ramban), Commentary on the Torah, C. B. Chavel (trans. and ed.), New York, Shilo Publishing, 1974, pp. 3:268-9. WHITHER KABBALAH? 49
The divine freed Israel from the dominion of the stars so that they could be his people and under his direct rule. This closed the gap between the human being and the divine, making the divine more accessible to the human being. Such direct access to the deity was important for the mystic who sought the immediacy of the divine presence. Pico was aware of Nahmanides as a kabbalist. He mentioned him as a commentator on the Bible in the proem to Heptaplus32 and, according to Pearl Kibre, owned parts of his Commentary on the Torah.33 Crofton Black has suggested that Nahmanides’ ideas about the sabbath in his commentary on the creation were important to Pico’s depiction of the sabbath in Heptaplus.34 On the other hand, Pico need not have been aware specifically of Nahmanides’ claims on this point, for this passage in Nahmanides illustrates well how mysticism could affect a philosopher’s view of astrology. The mystic seeks unmediated access to knowledge or experience of the divine being. Consequently, a mystical thinker could perceive that astrology presented an obstacle to the divine, for the sky became an intermediary that must be overcome. Pico may have been struck by this thought when he was pursuing his mystical studies.35 On the other hand, Louis Valcke has suggested that Pico’s kabbalist studies may have continued to affect him in another area. Valcke claims that the rejection of astrology in the Disputations encompassed a general rejection of magic and, consequently, of practical Kabbalah, but not of Kabbalah as a method of biblical criticism.36 This is possible, and it is reinforced by the fact that Pico did not mention Kabbalah itself in the Disputations, but it must remain speculative because of Pico’s death soon after writing the Disputations. What is truly surprising is not only that Pico did not refer to Kabbalah in the Disputations; there is no mention of any Jewish thinkers as opponents of astrology. The near absence of the twelfth-century philosopher Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) is astounding. There are only three references to Maimonides in the Disputations: in book 3, Pico mentioned him among several thinkers opposed to the conception that
32 Pico, "Heptaplus," p. 73. 33 Kibre, P., The Library of Pico della Mirandola, New York, Columbia University Press, 1936; reprint New York, AMS Press, 1966, p. 41. 34 Black, C., Pico’s Heptaplus and Biblical Hermeneutics, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2006, pp. 228-30. 35 Arthur M. Lesley, who is editing and translating the notebooks of Yohanan Alemanno, Pico’s final Jewish teacher, has informed me that this issue came up in Alemanno’s notebooks. 36 Valcke, L., Pic de la Mirandole: Un itinéraire philosophique, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2005, pp. 315-16. 50 SHEILA J. RABIN the critical days, or the turning point in the course of a disease, were affected by the moon;37 in book 9, as one opinion regarding the debate over the movement of the eighth sphere;38 and in book 10, as one opinion regarding the debate over the order of the planets.39 Only in the first instance was Maimonides shown as opposing an astrological doctrine, and at no point was Maimonides mentioned as an opponent of astrology itself. Pico was acquainted with the ideas of Maimonides. He owned two copies of Latin translations of Maimonides’ masterpiece Guide of the Perplexed, as well as two copies of his Medical Aphorisms and a copy of his commentary on the Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers).40 He cited Maimonides in the Conclusions and the Heptaplus.41 But Pico was also convinced that Maimonides, an Aristotelian rational philosopher, was a kabbalist.42 He wrote in the Conclusions, Rabbi Moses the Egyptian, in the book the Latins call the Guide for the Perplexed, while in the superficial shell of words appears to move with the philosophers, in hidden insights of a profound sense enfolds the mysteries of the Cabala.43 Pico’s view of Maimonides as a kabbalist notwithstanding, Maimonides was a fervent critic of astrology.44 In the Guide he compared astrology to the forbidden “Amorite usages,” a form of idolatry that “is turned into a glorification and a worship of the stars.”45 The lack of reference to
37 Pico, Disputationes, p. 1:338. 38 Ibid., p. 2:344. 39 Ibid., p. 2:374. 40 Kibre, pp. 152, 213; 179, 186; 239. 41 Pico, Conclusions, Three Maimonidean theses, 277; Kabbalstic thesis 63, 547. Pico, Heptaplus, pp. 73 and 121. An 1881 translation into English by Michael Friedlander rendered the title of Maimonides’ work as The Guide for the Perplexed, which Farmer used in his translation of Pico. Shlomo Pines, in his scholarly translation, changed the title to Guide of the Perplexed, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1963. 42 Copenhaver, B., “Maimonides, Abulafia and Pico. A Secret Aristotle for the Renaissance,” Rinascimento, 2nd ser. 46, 2006, pp. 23-51, suggests that Pico’s contention that Maimonides was a kabbalist came from Abraham Abulafia. 43 Kabbalstic thesis 63, 547. See also Wirszubski, chapter 7. 44 See, for example, Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, pp. 543-9. His Mishneh Torah also placed astrology as a form of idolatry, although Pico did not seem to have been aware of this work. See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, vol. 11, The Laws of the Worship of the Stars and Their Statues, E. Touger (trans.), New York and Jerusalem, Moznaim, 1990, particularly chapter 11, sections 8 and 9, 206. Marx, A., “The Correspondence between the Rabbis of Southern France and Maimonides about Astrology,” Hebrew Union College Annual 3, 1926, pp. 311-58, contains an edition of Maimonides’ letter to the rabbis in Hebrew, which was his most systematic denunciation of astrology (pp. 349-58). Of course, the letter was not available to Pico. 45 Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, p. 543. WHITHER KABBALAH? 51
Maimonides as an opponent of astrology in the Disputations may indicate either that Pico had rejected Kabbalah regardless of the position of the kabbalist on astrology or that Pico had become loath to write about any medieval Jewish thinker in a positive light but, perhaps, still accepted his own Christian Kabbalah. Or it may support Steven Farmer’s claim that the editors of the Disputations, Pico’s nephew Gianfrancesco Pico and Giovanni Mainardi, both strong opponents of astrology, tampered seriously with the Disputations.46 Farmer has adduced what he claims is a completed but lost work of Pico’s, The Concord of Plato and Aristotle, as well as Gianfrancesco’s philosophical writings and the access to the manuscript of the Disputations of the fiery Dominican preacher who was vehemently against astrology, Girolamo Savonarola, to support his contention that the nephew seriously altered the Disputations. However, there is only spurious evidence that The Concord of Plato and Aristotle ever existed. Moreover, the Disputations praised Aristotle, and Gianfrancesco also brought out On Being and the One, which took an Aristotelian position, despite the nephew’s disdain for Aristotle. On the other hand, as Charles Schmitt has noted, in his Examination of the Vanity of the Doctrine of the Gentes, Gianfrancesco lamented, the Aristotelian movement... gained momentum from two principal sources. First, there were the followers of Maimonides..., who attempted to explain the Old Testament by means of Aristotle’s philosophy.... Secondly, the high regard which Averroes and his followers had for the Aristotelian works has been of great moment in promoting the spread of Peripatetic philosophy.47 Though Gianfrancesco’s critique of Aristotle was still being developed at the time he edited his uncle’s Disputations, and the Examination of the Vanity was not written until more than twenty years later, the ability to reconcile Aristotle’s philosophy with monotheism may have seemed a greater threat to Gianfrancesco than that posed by the philosophy of Aristotle per se. The twelfth-century Arab philosopher and jurist Averroes (ibn Rushd), like Maimonides a staunch opponent of astrology, was also slighted in the Disputations. Furthermore, Maimonides was also omitted entirely in the version we have of On Being and the One; Averroes is in there only to show an incident where Pico claimed he
46 Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486), part 1, Introductory Monograph, pp. 151-79. 47 Schmitt, C. B., Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469-1533) and His Critique of Aristotle, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, p. 61. 52 SHEILA J. RABIN agreed with the eleventh-century philosopher and physician Avicenna (ibn Sina) over Averroes.48 It is a mystery to me why Pico would not have used such an obvious ally as Maimonides, who was not only a philosopher but a successful physician as well, to bolster his attack on astrology. The Jewish philosopher certainly would have fit Pico’s arguments better than Thomas Aquinas, who was not against limited astrology but was highlighted by Pico as an opponent of astrology.49 Pico’s belief that Maimonides was a kabbalist might suggest that his near absence in the Disputations was a rejection of Pico’s kabbalist interests; or the near absence could suggest that by the time Pico was writing the Disputations he had repudiated Jewish sources altogether; or it could suggest the attempt to remove references to a thinker whom Gianfrancesco, and not Giovanni, had repudiated.
48 Pico, On Being and the One, P. J. W. Miller (trans.), in On the Dignity of Man, On Being and the One, Heptaplus, p. 55. 49 Pico, Disputationes, p. 1:66. Part II
Philosophy and the Humanities
A - The Abravanel 54
A PARADIGM IN ISAAC ABRAVANEL’S ENCOUNTER WITH RENAISSANCE CULTURE Cédric Cohen Skalli
One of the major problems in addressing the question of the humanistic aspects of Isaac Abravanel’s literary work1 is to elucidate the intellectual paradigms that both allowed him to connect himself to humanistic discourse and constituted the framework of an understanding of himself as a financier, a leader and writer. Recent and less recent scholarship has revealed clear humanistic trends in Abravanel’s work and life, such as the use of classical literature, of humanistic rhetorical conceptions, of ancient and contemporary history, of astrology, magic, Kabbalah, and also of republican ideas and humanistic models of leadership.2 Nevertheless, much work still needs to be done before we have obtained a clear idea of his involvement in Renaissance culture and of his assimilation of it. In other words, the question is less whether Abravanel
1 On the life and work of Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) see Borodowski, A. F., Isaac Abravanel on Miracles, Creation, Prophecy, and Evil: The Tension between Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Biblical Studies, New York, Peter Lang, 2003; Lawee, E., Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition, Albany, SUNY, 2001; Netanyahu, B., Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953. 2 Ben-Shalom, R., “The Image of Christian Culture in the Historical Consciousness of the Jews of Twelfth- to Fifteenth-Century Spain and Provence,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Tel- Aviv University, 1996 (Hebrew); Ben-Shalom, R., “Myth and Classical Mythology in the Historical Consciousness of Medieval Spanish Jewry,” Zion 66, 2001, pp. 451-94 (Hebrew); Gutwirth, E., “Don Ishaq Abravanel and Vernacular Humanism in Fifteenth Century Iberia,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 60, 1998, pp. 641-67; Id., “‘Consolatio’: Don Ishaq Abravanel and the Classical Tradition,” Medievalia et Humanistica 27, 2000, pp. 79-98; Idel, M., “Kabbalah and Prisca Theologia in Rabbi Isaac and Yehuda Abravanel’s Writings,” in Dorman, M. and Levi, Z. (eds), Leone Ebreo’s Philosophy of Love: Four Lectures, Haifa, Kibbutz Meuhad, 1985, pp. 73-112 (Hebrew); Ravitzky, A., “Kings and Laws in Late Medieval Jewish Thought: Nissim Gerona vs. Isaac Abravanel,” in Landman, L. (ed.), Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction between Judaism and Other Cultures, New York, Yeshiva University Press, 1990, pp. 67-90; Cohen Skalli, C., “The Humanistic Rhetoric of Don Isaac Abravanel: Rhetoric, History and Tradition in Abravanel’s Letters and Introductions,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Tel Aviv, 2005 (Hebrew); Cohen Skalli, C., “Authorship in the Age of Early Jewish Print: Maayanei ha-yeshua and the First Printed Edition in Ferrara 1551,” in Goodblatt, C. & Kreisel, H. (eds), Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture: Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period, Beer-Sheva, Ben-Gurion University Press, 2006, pp. 185-201; Cohen Skalli, C., “Discovering Isaac Abravanel’s Humanistic Rhetoric,” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, 2007, pp. 67-99; Cohen Skalli, C., “Yitshaq Abravanel’s First Edition (Constantinople 1505): Rhetorical Content and Editorial Background,” Hispania Judaica 5, 2007, pp. 153-76. A PARADIGM IN ISAAC ABRAVANEL’S ENCOUNTER 55 borrowed humanistic conceptions in his Hebrew and Jewish work than in which way and in which framework. In this chapter I would like to present what seems to me one of the central avenues of Abravanel’s assimilation of humanism. I rely for this task on the work of Angel Gomez Moreno, Pedro Catedra and Jeremy Lawrence, which has established convincingly the existence of a 15th century Iberian humanism, different in many of its features from 14th and 15th century Italian humanism.3 Abravanel lived in the Iberian Peninsula until the Expulsion of the Jews in 1492 – first in Portugal and then in Castile, and after the Expulsion fled to Italy where he lived until his death in 1508, first in Naples, then in the Venetian cities of Corfu and Monopoly and finally in Venice itself, which was exceptional at this time for a Jew. Hence, over the course of his life, Abravanel was exposed to both Iberian and Italian humanism. But his knowledge of Italian humanism predates his Italian period; it began in Portugal where he was in regular commercial and literary contact with Tuscany, as we know from his letters to Yehiel da Pisa and from other commercial documents.4 We may add that the literary success of Abravanel’s firstborn son, Yehudah, author of the Dialoghi d’amore, is a clear testimony of the increasing integration of Don Isaac and his sons in Italian Renaissance humanism and culture.
3 Catedra, P., “Una epistola ‘consolatoria’ attribuida al Tostado,” Atalya 3, 1992, pp. 165-76; Id., “Prospección sobre el género consolatorio en el siglo XV,” in Deyermond, A. D. and Lawrance, J. (eds), Letters and Society in Fifteenth-Century Spain: Studies Presented to P. E. Russell on his Eightieth Birthday, Llagrannoz, Wales, Dolphin, 1993, pp. 1-16; Id., “Creación y lectura: sobre el genero consolatorio en el siglo XV,” in Vaquero, M. and Deyermond, A. D. (eds), Studies on Medieval Spanish Literature in Honor of Charles F. Fraker, Madison, Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1995, pp. 35-61; Id., “Modos de consolar por carta,” in Megías, L. and de Henares, A. (eds), Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, Alcalá, Universidad de Alcalá, 1997, pp. 469-87; Lawrance, J., “Nuño de Guzmán and Early Spanish Humanisam: Some Reconsiderations,” Medium Aevum 51, 1982, pp. 55-85; Id., “The Spread of Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Castile,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 62, 1985, pp. 79-94; Id., “On Fifteenth-Century Spanish Vernarcular Humanism,” in Michael, I. and Cardwell, R. A. (eds), Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honour of Robert Brian Tate, Oxford, Dolphin, 1986, pp. 63-79; Id., “Nuevos lectores y nuevos generos: apuntes y observaciones sobre la epistolografia en el primer rinacimento español,” in Concha, V. G. (ed.), Literatura en la Época del Emperador, Salamanca, 1988, pp. 81-99; Id., “Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula,” in Goodman, A. and MacKay, A. (eds), The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, London, 1990, pp. 220-58; Moreno, A. G., España y la Italia de los humanistas, Madrid, Gredos, 1994; Pontón, G., Correspondencias, Los orígenes del arte epistolar en España, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva , 2002. 4 On this question see Cohen Skalli, C., Isaac Abravanel: Letters, Berlin & New York, Walter de Gruyter, 2007. 56 CÉDRIC COHEN SKALLI
The following pages will present what seems to me the central conceptual paradigm of Abravanel’s work: the tension between fortune and divine providence. It is important to stress that this conceptual duality is also a central theme in Castilian vernacular humanism, especially in Los doce trabajos de Hercules of Enrique de Villena, in El labyrintho of Juan de Mena and in Bias contra fortuna of the Marques de Santillana.5 In the only extant Portuguese letter of Abravanel (1470- 1471), we may read a clear expression of the uncertainty of life and of the stoic consciousness that men should develop in response to the human condition: In his letters, Seneca maintains that we must wait for death like a prepared table for a host who, if he does not come for lunch, will arrive in time for dinner, and so from day to day. In fact, as logicians say, nothing is more certain than death, and nothing is more uncertain than the hour when it will take place.6 Uncertainty of life and death affect the whole of human life, which is constantly subjected to contingency. This condition of man is the ontological ground for two different – and sometimes conflicting – interpretations of the vicissitudes of life: fortune and providence. The first term refers to a system of natural forces ultimately related to astral influences. The second refers to God’s intervention in history and in individual life. In this Portuguese letter, Abravanel insists on the rule of fortune over human affairs and on the stoic ethic that must shape the aristocratic consciousness of the leader. That life is subject to the reign of chance means, for the noble, that life is full of opportunities to succeed.7 This neo-stoic and humanistic view of leadership, which Abravanel learned from 15th-century Iberian literature, was very probably a shared ideology whose assimilation enabled Abravanel to enter court society, not only on economical terms as a financier, but on cultural terms as a humanist. The many letters that Abravanel must have written in Portuguese, Spanish and maybe in Italian are lost, so we can only speculate on the basis of the Portuguese epistle about the nature of his humanistic correspondence with non-Jews. But there can be no doubt that a discourse on fortune, an ethic of action and a psychology of the remedies of fortune were parts of this lost correspondence.
5 Mena, J., Obra Completa, A. G. Moreno and J. T. Calvente (eds), Madrid, Turner, 1994, pp. 13-174; Marques de Santillana, Obras Completas, A. G. Moreno and P. A. Maxim (eds), Madrid, Turner, 2002, pp. 310-71; Enrique de Villena, Obras Completas, P. Catedra (ed.), Madrid, Turner, 1994, pp. 1-112. 6 Cohen Skalli, Isaac Abravanel: Letters, pp. 90-91. 7 On the new figure of the Renaissance leader, see Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 69-138. A PARADIGM IN ISAAC ABRAVANEL’S ENCOUNTER 57
If we turn now to the Hebrew and Jewish works of Abravanel, things look different. We do find an elaborated discourse on fortune, which takes the form of long astrological discussions. But these discussions are balanced – much more than in the Portuguese letter – by a discourse on providence that stresses the specificity of Jewish history and its exceptional position regarding the rule of fortune. Already in his first opus, Ateret Zekenim, written in the mid-60s of the 15th century, Abravanel develops at length a conception of fortune and providence that, in fact, constitutes the core of the book itself. In the eleventh chapter, he affirms that, according to the doctrine of the first sages (harishonim) and as a statement of simple truth (haemet beazmo), “all the nations in their country are under the rule of the stars and that each nation has its own star in the sky.”8 He then further asserts, “astral bodies influence and guide human affairs, primarily in the birth and death of man since the astral bodies put the elements in movement, bring about their composition and pour into the composed beings the capacity and the conditions to receive their form.” Finally, he tells us, “as birth and death are determined by the movement of the astral bodies, it follows necessarily that most of human qualities and events will be determined by the movements of these astral bodies.” This way, each nation, each country and even each city is affected by the astral constellation of the moment. This astrological view is of course an explanation and a rationalization of the contingency of human life. Abravanel refers to the same human condition and to the same rule of fortune as in the Portuguese letter, but this time from a cosmological point of view. It is important to stress that astral influence in Abravanel’s thought is never determinist, it sets up a limited series of options, but never annihilate human choice and freedom. Indeed man, according to Abravanel, is not only composed of material elements, but also of a soul of intellectual nature that delivers him from the determinism of natural influences and connects him to the separated Intellects. In the twelfth chapter, of Ateret Zekenim,9 Abravanel explains that there is an anomaly in the astrological system he just presented. This anomaly is Israel, which is the only nation whose destiny is not determined by a specific astral body, but by divine providence. Abravanel makes huge efforts to integrate this anomaly into the astrological system of chapter 11. His main argument is that the cosmological system is linked to God the Creator, and that this link does not express itself in a general dependence upon God of each level of the
8 Abravanel, Ateret Zekenim, repr. Jerusalem, 1994, pp. 61-2 (Hebrew). 9 Ibid., p. 63-71. 58 CÉDRIC COHEN SKALLI system, but rather in the dependence of a special part of each level that is in direct contact with God. In the sub-lunar world, Israel is the privileged part which is directly influenced by God and which can also connect itself directly to God. The tension between astral influence and divine providence seems perfectly harmonized; but the last page of the chapter ruins this harmony by introducing a new factor, the exile of Israel, which drastically diminishes the divine influence over its destiny and thus submits it to foreign and often hostile astral influences. To respond to this challenging situation, Abravanel draws the figure of the angel Mikhael, which becomes the temporary astral protector of Israel. This strange chapter highlights the problem with which Abravanel is confronted. The history of Israel was originally a history in which divine providence played a central role, but with the exile it has entered the normal interplay of natural influences. Abravanel doesn’t want to lose the specificity and superiority of the divine history of Israel, but neither can he deny its present integration – or fall – into the general history of the nations. The concrete situation of the Jews must therefore be interpreted both in terms of fortune and providence. We see from this short discussion of Abravanel’s first opus that a certain interpretation of human existence – both individual and collective – through the motive of divine providence, which is absent from the Portuguese letter whose addressee is a Christian, is a central aspect in his communication with a Jewish readership. This discourse on providence was supposed to function both as a common cultural ground between the author and the readership and as a means to express new ideas. In 1483, Abravanel was accused by King Joao II of Portugal of having taken part in a plot against him.10 Abravanel fled to Castile, where he began to write the first part of a long commentary on the Former Prophets.11 This commentary he finished in 1493, after having been expulsed from Castile and found refuge in Naples. The whole commentary deals in different ways with the question of how a leader and a people can lose or regain their connection to God.12 It is clear that the background to this new reflection on divine providence was both Abravanel’s personal misfortune in Portugal and the tragedy of Spanish Jewry in 1492. With this in mind, I would like to deal with Abravanel’s long discussion of Salomon’s wisdom in his commentary. Abravanel describes in detail King Salomon’s perfect knowledge of physics,
10 On this episode, see Lipiner, E., Two Portuguese Exiles in Castile: Dom David Negro and Dom Isaac Abravanel, Jerusalem, Magness, 1997. 11 Abravanel, Commentary on Former Prophets, Jerusalem, 1965 (Hebrew). 12 Cohen Skalli, C., “Abravanel’s Commentary on the Former Prophets: Portraits, Self- Portraits, and Models of Leadership,” Jewish History 23, 2009, pp. 255-80. A PARADIGM IN ISAAC ABRAVANEL’S ENCOUNTER 59 astronomy, astrology, metaphysics, politics, economy and Jewish exegesis. In the discussion of Salomon’s knowledge in metaphysics, Abravanel describes his knowledge of the separated Intellects. He then enters a long discussion of Salomon’s poetical knowledge. Indeed, Salomon knows how to use poetry and musical harmony to make the separated Intellects bring their special influence to bear on the cosmos and on history: Solomon reached the intellection of the existence and truth of the separated Intellects… he knew to distinguish between them and to order them according to their level of perfection… he succeeded even in knowing their effect and power in guiding the course of the lower beings… Solomon composed many poems (shirim) on the wisdom of the separated Intellects “and his songs were a thousand and five” [1 Kgs 5.12], which means five thousand; the habit of the ancients was to speak of divine matters in poems. It seems that he composed such a great number of songs to all the celestial angels [sarim]. He wrote one special song for each celestial angel, a song appropriate to the nation each angel is ruling, adapted to his special function. He made the Song of Songs especially for God’s rule over Israel… he succeed in knowing the ways and means to bring down the influx of each angel on the people he ruled.13 This idea seems borrowed from Ficino’s theory of astrological music. Abravanel relies on the concept that poetical and musical harmony correspond to the mathematical harmony between the heavenly bodies and that this correspondence can affect celestial beings and bring down their influx.14 Here we have a remarkable example of how Abravanel’s ongoing reflection on fortune and providence served as a medium for the assimilation of humanistic ideas. This text shows that King Salomon was a master both in astral magic and in Jewish magic. It reveals also that the discourses on astrology and on divine providence were sometimes very close and that the main issue at stake was how to affect Jewish history, with less importance attached to making a strong distinction between Renaissance astrology and magic and Jewish wisdom. This was of course a strategy of assimilation, which both disclosed and dissimulated the humanistic origin of the borrowed ideas, but also tried to demarcate Jewish thought or tradition from the borrowed source.
13 Former Prophets, 475. 14 On music and harmony in Renaissance Platonism see Walker, D. P., Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 3-29. 60 CÉDRIC COHEN SKALLI
In another remarkable text written a few years later (June 1496), Nahalat Avot, a commentary on the Pirkei Avot,15 Abravanel devotes a very long discussion to a series of a sentences of Rabbi Akiva (Mishnah Avot 3.13-16), attending especially to the sentence “all is foreseen and still freedom of choice is given.”16 In his commentary on this sentence, Abravanel develops a very interesting conception of human freedom based on the idea of the image of God (tselem elohim). That man was created in the image of God, he argues, means both that man is an image of the cosmos, a microcosm, and that God created the universe from a certain spiritual representation of it, a certain intelligible model of the world, which Abravanel designates by the Hebrew word tsiur. Man is therefore the image of this primordial image of the world in God. This image is also the Torah itself given by God to the people of Israel. During this long discussion, which clearly intends to stress the dignity of man, or in Abravanel’s word yoqer maalato, a fascinating series of reflections is set up: God, the cosmos, man, the Torah are all reflection of the same primordial image of the universe. The neo-platonic and Florentine flavour of the conception is clear. The last part of Abravanel’s discussion is surely the most interesting. It contrasts God’s creative image of the world (tsiur), which contains also all human history, with human freedom, which itself results from man’s dualistic nature. Man has to choose because his nature is both intellectual and material; he is subject to both physical and intellectual causality. Human freedom must be understood in this text as an existential dramatization of God’s static image of the world in the sense that man has to choose between the higher part and the lower part of his nature. Man has to reaffirm the hierarchy between different elements of the cosmos as it is found in God’s image of the world. In a sense, the destiny of God’s creation is hanging in the balance of human choice: by his right or wrong choice man realizes God’s intelligible image of the world or destroys it. This praise of human freedom, written a few years after the expulsion, was meant to arouse the will and the intellect of the Spanish exiles so that they could discover in themselves the capacity to overcome the vicissitudes of fortune and connect themselves again to divine providence. The tension exposed here between physical and intellectual causality in Jewish existence and history is a new elaboration of that duality of fortune and providence which connects human freedom and
15 Pirkei Avot im perush hanesher hagadol rabenu Moshe Ben Maimon veim Nahalat Avot mehasar hagadol rabenu Don Yizhaq Abarbanel, New York, 1953 (Hebrew). 16 Ibid., pp. 163-209. A PARADIGM IN ISAAC ABRAVANEL’S ENCOUNTER 61 providence through the motive of the image of the world both present in man and in God. The list of similar discussions in which Abravanel interprets human existence in terms of fortune and providence is long. These discussions are often occasions, not only to borrow humanistic ideas, but also to reaffirm the superiority of Judaism over its cultural environment. This mode of assimilation was quite successful; it allowed Abravanel to partake in a dual discourse – one in Portuguese, Spanish or Italian, which showed to the Christians his cultural integration, and another in Hebrew which established a new apology for Judaism with the help of humanistic concepts. Such an attitude had a complex result: it opened Jewish elites to Renaissance culture and to an authentic dual cultural experience, but it limited Hebrew and Jewish literature to an updated apologetic, and did not allow a full-fledged use of the new humanistic forms of expression. As a consequence, the humanistic revolution took place in the personalities of Jews like Isaac Abravanel, but not in their Hebrew writings.
62
LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT OF JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN RENAISSANCE ROME James Nelson Novoa
By any standards the Dialoghi d’amore was a critical success in sixteenth century Renaissance Europe. Between 1535 and 1607 it had gone through sixteen separate editions in Italy alone and was translated into Latin once, French twice and Spanish at least five times.1 In addition to the testimony of the printing press we have the words of the literati of the sixteenth century itself. Lauded by authors as far afield as Benedetto Varchi (1503-1565), Tullia d’Aragona (1510ca-1556), Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1579), Pontus de Tyard (1521-1605), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), and translated into Spanish by Garcilaso de la Vega the Inca (1539-1616), it is obvious that the work was a critical success among readers throughout the Christian world.2 The Jewish reaction would seem to have been more restrained in that century. It was only in the seventeenth century that
1 A complete list of the Italian editions with a detailed description of each and a partial description of all the translations is available in the facsimile edition of the 1535 editio princeps by Carl Gebhardt (1881-1934), published in 1929 along with a study of the work: Dialoghi d’Amore. Hebraeische Gedichte Herausgegeben mit einer Darstellung des Lebens und des Werkes Leones/Bibliographie/Register zu den Dialoghi, Heidelberg / Oxford / Paris / Amsterdam, Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1929, pp. 111-19, and in the critical edition of the work: Leão Hebreu (Jehudah Abrabanel), Diálogos de Amor, texto fixado, anotado e traduzido por G. Manuppella [1901-1988], 2 vols., Versão portuguesa, bibliografia, Lisboa, Instituto Nacional de Investigaçao Científica, 1983, pp. 87-94. On the translations see Bacich, C. D, “Afterword: The Dialogues of Love in Spanish,” in Leone Ebreo, Dialogues of Love, Bacich and R. Pescatori (trans.), Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2009, pp. 361-72, and my own articles: “Consideraciones sobre una versión aljamiada de los Diálogos de amor de Yehudah Abarbanel,” Sefarad 65, 1, 2005, pp. 103-26; “El ms. 1057 de la Biblioteca municipal de Oporto: una traducción desconocida de los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo,” Rivista di filologia e letteratura ispaniche VII, 2004, pp. 9-42, and “An aljamiado versión of Leone Ebreo´s Dialoghi d’amore,” Materia Judaica. Rivista dell’associazione italiana per lo studio del giudaismo VIII, 2, 2003, pp. 311-27, and also my book, Los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo en el marco sociocultural sefardí del siglo XVI, Lisboa, Cátedra “Alberto Benveniste” de Estudos Sefarditas, Universidade de Lisboa, 2006. 2 For an overview of the critical reaction to the text in the sixteenth century see Pelayo, M, Historia de las ideas estéticas en España, 4 vols., 4th ed., Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1974, pp. 485-554.; Olmedo, A., Los Dialoghi d’amore de León Hebreo: aspectos literarios y culturales, Granada, Universidad de Granada, secretariado de publicaciones, 1984; Peri (Pflaum), H., Die Idee der Liebe. Leone Ebreo. Zwei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie in der Renaissance, Tubingen, J.C.B Mohr, 1926. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 63
Baruch of Urbino undertook a Hebrew translation, though this was only published (in Lyck, Poland) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The question of the original language, an issue that I will only address in passing, of course remains a vexata quaestio among scholars. By its wide circulation, its vast acceptance and its continued popularity among the other such trattati d’amore that populated the literary landscape in sixteenth century Italy, it is obvious that the work was exceptional.3 Exceptional in particular was the fact that the work was presented in all cases except two editions, which stated the contrary and to which we will have occasion to turn later, as the work of Leone Ebreo, a Jewish author in the context of Renaissance Italy and Europe. On account of the interest that it generated and its wide readership it can truly be said that the text constitutes an example of Jewish-Christian relations of the highest order in the Italy of the Cinquecento in general, and in Rome in particular.
Biographical details and contexts
Through the Dialoghi, Judah Abravanel (1465ca-1525ca) was unquestionably consecrated as Leone Ebreo, the author of a classic in the love treatise genre whose authority is recognized to this day and a recognized figure among those writers of his own day who tackled the complex subject of love. Of course, and as his literary pen name indicates, he was a cultural and literary outsider in the sixteenth-century Italy which first greeted him. Indeed, the little we know for certain of his wandering life places him in contact with Iberian cultural contexts, both in his early years in Portugal and Spain and during his Italian sojourn. The son of the last great Sephardic exegete, philosopher and statesman, Isaac Abravanel (1430-1508), Judah was reared in the best that late- fifteenth-century Iberian Judaism could offer: first in Lisbon in Portugal, where he was born around 1460, and later mainly in Gudalahara, Spain, where he settled with his father in his early manhood. Of these early years we know virtually nothing except that his father was in charge of tax farming and the economic affairs of Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza (1428-1495) and also, possibly, of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand (1452-1516) and Isabel (1451-1504) and that, after the
3 On sixteenth-century Neoplatonism and its diffusion through the vogue of love treatises see Pelayo, M., pp. 485-560; Saitta, G., Il pensiero italiano nell’umanesimo e nel Rinascimento. Il Rinascimento, vol. II, Bologna, Cesare Zaffi, 1950, p. 79; Nelson, J. C., Renaissance Theory of Love. The Context of Giordano Bruno´s “Eroici Furori”, New York, Columbia University Press, 1958; Perry, T. A., Erotic Spirituality. The Integrative Tradition from Leone Ebreo to John Donne, University of Alabama Press, 1980. 64 JAMES NELSON NOVOA expulsion decree of April 1492, he sailed that July along with his family on a ship from Valencia bound for the Aragonese-dominated kingdom of Naples.4 They were welcomed along with other Sephardic exiles by the ruler of the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples, Ferdinand I (1423?-1494), the son of Alfonso de Magnanimous (1416-58). It would seem that in a very short space of time Isaac had gained favour within the circles of the court, something which continued during the reign of Ferdinand’s successor, Alfonso II (1448-95) who, in 1494, extended to Jude abramenel ebrei filii don ysac abramanel the same rights and privileges as the rest of the Jewish subjects in the southern Italian kingdom. Such a favourable moment was to be short lived, however, due to the entry of French troops into the south of Italy under Charles VIII (1470-98), who in 1494 laid claim to the territory on behalf of the Anjou dynasty. The ties that linked Isaac to Alfonso were apparently so great that when in January 1495 the Aragonese king abdicated his throne in favour of Ferdinand II, he accompanied Alfonso into exile in Messina. This marked the first separation between father and son as Judah undertook a brief stint in Genoa before being reunited with his father in the south of Italy, this time in Puglia in Spanish controlled Barletta where, on May 10 1501, father and son received a safe-conduct from the new Aragonese monarch, Frederick I (1451-1503), who had only recently reestablished his authority over the kingdom by expelling the French. The safe- conduct gave the family permission to go to Naples and settle, specifically mentioning Judah for the first time as maestro Leone phisico, that is to say as doctor or physician. The move was to prove impossible, however, as in 1500 the kingdom was once again attacked, this time jointly by Louis XII (1462-1515) and Ferdinand of Spain. Both Isaac and Judah apparently enjoyed good relations with the Spanish military commander, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (1453-1515), during the time that he had his base in Barletta. This was to prove beneficial to Judah who seems to have been named personal physician of the Spanish military leader, who in turn was appointed Spain’s first viceroy when the Kingdom of Naples became a Spanish possession in 1504.
4 For biographical details on Leone’s life see Sonne, I., “Intorno alla vita di Leone Ebreo,” Civiltà Moderna VI, 1934, pp. 5-35, and my Los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo, pp. 35-52 and “Un humanista sefardí en Nápoles: Los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo,” in Actas de las jornadas de estudios sobre cultura y literatura españolas en Italia en el quinquentésimo aniversario de la muerte de Isabel la Católica, Romanisches seminar der Christian Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel/Centro de estudios sobre el renacimiento español, Salamanca, SEMYR, 2005, pp. 101-18. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 65
Father and son were then separated once again, now for the last time. Isaac went on to Venice where he remained until his death in 1508, engaged by the Council of Ten as an advisor on matters of international trade. Judah, however, stayed in Naples where, together with his brother, he became a recognized leader in the Jewish community. Along with his family, Judah would remain in Naples even after the first partial expulsion of the Jews from the south of Italy in 1510.5 In 1520 he and his family were exonerated from paying the taxes incumbent upon the Jews in the Kingdom. The following year, from March to May, he was entrusted with the health of Cardinal Raffaele Riario de San Giorgio (1451-1521), the important Ligurian prelate. It has also been claimed that in April of the same year he intervened on behalf of the Jews of Naples when a Franciscan friar sought to impose the yellow hat on them in line with the distinctive usage already practiced in other Italian states. Judah’s efforts were to prove in vain as, at the end of the month, an official decree instated the use of the symbol. This is the last known documented account we have of Abravanel’s whereabouts and actions. Some secondary evidence points to a possible Roman sojourn. A Hebrew poem, included in a body of works in Latin and Greek, prepared by members of the Accademia romana and published in 1522 in Rome included a poem by a certain Leonis judei.6 The Roman census on the eve of the 1527 sack of the city mentions at least three Leone Ebreos, but then it was not an uncommon name.7 Years later, in 1533, we find a letter addressed to a certain Leoni Hebreo, an erudite doctor living in the eternal city, asking for advice and consolation in matters of love.8 The Aragonese translator of the Dialoghi, Carlos Montesa, who himself resided in the city for several years in the middle of the sixteenth century, claimed that Abravanel had tended to the health of pontiffs and
5 On the expulsion from Naples see Martín, F. R.,“La expulsión de los judios del reino de Nápoles,” Hispania IX, XXXIV, 1949, pp. 28-76; Bonazzoli, V., “Gli ebrei del regno di Napoli all’epoca della loro espulsione. I parte: II periodo aragoneses (1456-1499),” Archivio storico italiano, Disp IV, 1979, pp. 495-559; “Gli ebrei del regno di Napoli all’epoca della loro espulsione. II parte: il periodo spagnolo (1501-1541),” Archivio storico italiano, Disp I, 1981, pp. 179-287. 6 Dionisotti, C., “Appunti su Leone Ebreo,” Italia medioevale e umanistica II, 1959, pp. 409-28 (425-8). 7 Gnoli, D., “Descriptio Urbis o censimento della popolazione di Roma avanti il sacco borbonico,” Archivio della Società romana di storia patria 17, 1894, pp. 375-515 (478). Egmont Lee´s recent edition of the document provides the same information: Habitatores in Urbe: The Population of Renaissance Rome, Rome, Casa editrice Università La Sapienza, 2006. 8 Scrivano, R., “Platonismo, ebraismo e Caballa nel Rinascimento: Leone Ebreo,” in Id., Il modello e l’esecuzione. Studi rinascimentali e manieristici, Naples, Liguori editore, 1993, pp. 122-3. 66 JAMES NELSON NOVOA prelates in the city.9 This is all inconclusive and speculative but it is nevertheless wholly possible that the Portuguese Jew resided some time in a city in which Iberian Jews had been accepted since the expulsion from Spain and in which, in the first few decades of the sixteenth century, they even had separate community formations.10 Leone Ebreo’s brother, Samuel Abravanel (1473-1546), was to become a respected member of the Jewish community of Naples on account of his economic prowess and his recognition as an intellectual. Until the final and definitive expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Naples and Samuel’s resulting exit from the city in 1543, a group of erudite Christian humanists, with interests in Hebrew learning and Jewish culture and thought, regularly met with Jewish intellectuals in his Neapolitan home, where they would discuss themes of common interest.11 Such was his importance in the eyes of the Neapolitan officials that, even though the Jews were officially expelled in October 1541, Samuel was able to remain another two years in order to settle his affairs, which included vast sums of money lent to the state. Samuel, who left the city for Ferrara, was one of the last Jews to leave the kingdom.12
Publication and early circulation of the Dialoghi d’amore
The next definite news we have is that contained in the posthumous dedicatory letter of the editio princeps of the Dialoghi d’amore, which was published in Rome in 1535. In the dedication to the Sienese noblewoman Aurelia Petrucci (1511-42), the Sienese nobleman Mariano Lenzi, the work’s first editor, claimed that he had rescued the work of a now dead author from obscurity:
9 Philographia universal de todo el mundo, de los Dialogos de Leon Hebreo, Traduzida de Italiano en Español, corregida y añadida por Micer Carlos Montesa, Ciudadano de la insigne Ciudad de Çaragoça. Dirigida al muy Illustre Señor don Francisco Gasca Salazar Inquisidor Apostólico del Reyno de Aragon y Maestre Escuelas de la universidad de Salamanca. Es obra sutilissima y muy provechosa, assi para seculares, como Religiosos… En Çaragoça, en casa de Lorenzo y Diego de Robles Hermanos, Año 1584, fol. 2v. 10 Cooperman, B. D., “Ethnicity and Institution Building among Jews in Early Modern Rome,” American Jewish Review 30, 1, 2006, pp. 119-45. 11 De Frede, C., “L’orientalista Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter e i suoi rapporti con i Pontaniani,” in Id., Religiosità e cultura nel Cinquecento italiano, Bologna, Società editrice Il Mulino, 1999, pp. 165-82 (169). 12 Di Leone Leoni, A., “Nuove notizie sugli Abravanel,” Zakhor 1, 1997, pp. 153-6 and Cassuto, U., Gli ebrei a Firenze nell’età del Rinascimento, Firenze, Olschki, 1965, pp. 88-9. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 67
Although I believe (when I think of you) I have made two small gains at once: to have repaid my obligation to you and to have imposed a new obligation on Master Leone (if one can impose obligations on the dead). I believe that he would be quite happy that I have retrieved these divine DIALOGUES of his from obscurity and, in the name of such a gallant lady (as you), set them in the light for all to see and remain indebted to me for their splendor and your protection.13 Abravanel’s text in the princeps of 1535 consisted of three dialogues: on love and desire, on the community of love and on the origin of love. The book carried the indelible mark of the Jewish and specifically the Sephardic philosophical tradition, dealing with such time honoured and difficult medieval themes as the eternity of the world, creation and God’s role in the distribution of love in the universe.14 In Abravanel’s view the universe is suffused with divine love, which works by way of a circular movement. God communicates love to the universe in an emanatory-like scheme, while creation reciprocates and returns this love to the creator, each element of creation acting according to its own ontological dignity, man being at the top end of the elements of the natural world. Revealing himself more than a little influenced by his Averroistic sources, he ultimately identifies the end of man with intellectual contemplation and the turning away from fleeting things. In an early sixteenth-century literary context saturated with Renaissance Neoplatonism, it is not difficult to see why Leone Ebreo’s text became so popular. Nonetheless, the “Jewishness” of the work was evident for all to see. Samuel ibn Gabirol (1020 ca-1057) is referred to as “our Albenzubron,”15 while
13 Ebreo, Dialogues of Love, Bacich and R. Pescatori (trans.), p. 24. On Petrucci see my “Aurelia Petrucci d’après quelques dédicaces entre 1530 et 1542,” Bolletino senese di storia patria CIX, 2002, pp. 532-55. 14 For the sources of the Dialoghi and its relation to Jewish thought see Klausner, J., “Don Jehudah Abravanel e la sua filosofia dell’amore,” La rassegna mensile di Israel, vol. VI/11-12/marzo-aprile/1932, pp. 495-508/vol. VII/1-2/maggio-giugno/1932, pp. 22-41; Fontanesi, G., Il problema dell’amore nell’opera di Leone Ebreo, Venice, Libreria emiliana editrice, 1934; Kodera, S., Filone und Sofia in Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore: platonische Liebesphilosophie der Renaissance und Judentum, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1995; Guidi, A., “Platonismo e neoplatonismo nei Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Ebreo: Maimonide, Ficino e la definizione della materia,” Medioevo, rivista di storia della filosofia medievale 28, 2003, pp. 225-48; “La sagesse de Salomon et le savoir philosophique: matériaux pour une nouvelle interprétation des Dialogues d’amour de Léon Hébreu,” Revue des sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 91, 2007, pp. 241-64; Idel, M., “Mekorot Dimui ha-Ma’agal be Sefer ha-Vikuah al ha-Ahavah,” Iyyun 28, 1978, pp. 155-66 (Hebrew); Pines, S., “Medieval Doctrines in Renaissance Garb? Some Jewish and Arabic Sources of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore,” in Cooperman, B. D. (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1983, pp. 365-98. 15 Ebreo, Dialogues, p. 237. 68 JAMES NELSON NOVOA
Maimonides is alluded to as “our rabbi Moses.”16 Clearly, throughout the text no attempt is made to disguise the author’s religious persuasions. The claim to fame of Mariano Lenzi, the editor of the princeps, is of course his editorial work on the Dialoghi, and his decision to have the work published. Though little is known about him we do know that he was present in Rome in the 1520s, a member of the Sienese community who likely fled the Italian state due to the continued strife and infighting. He probably followed upon the heels of his lesser-known cousin, Lattanzio Tolomei, and his uncle, the prelate, Sienese political figure, linguist and humanist, Claudio Tolomei (1492-1555), who arrived in the eternal city around 1518.17 The family tie is not without importance. It likely contributed, at least in part, to the decision to grant permission for publication – for such permission was given in January 1534 only after a special petition was made out by Tolomei to Blosio Paladio, the papal secretary of briefs under Clement VII (1478-1534) and Paul III, under whom the publication was granted.18 From documents in the Vatican Archive we know that Lenzi was accorded an exclusive privilege to print the work for ten years.19 The licence on the volume itself claims that the privilege was extended to the Senate of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, Florence and other territories in Italy. The publisher to whom Lenzi had recourse was no ordinary publisher. Originally from Asola, in the north of Italy, Antonio Blado (1490-1567) had been accepting commissions by the Apostolic Chamber since at least 1520, but had been the official printer of documents for the Apostolic Chamber of the Holy See since only 1535, the same year as the publication of the princeps of the Dialoghi. Easily the most prolific printer in Rome in the early part of the century, Blado saw through his press, located at the Campo dei fiori, not only papal documents but also literary works, which included the Discourses (1531), The Prince (1532) and the Florentine Histories (1532) by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), and Orlando furioso (1543) by Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533).20 Later,
16 Ibid., p. 266. 17 For Lenzi and his connection to the Sienese community in Rome see my articles “A publicação dos Diálogos de amor de Leão Hebreu no contexto romano da primeira metade do século XVI,” Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas VI, 2006, pp. 55-74; and “Mariano Lenzi: Sienese Editor of Leone Ebreo´s Dialoghi d’amore,” Bruniana & Campanelliana XIV, 2, 2008, pp. 477-94. 18 This document is published in my “New Documents regarding the Publication of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore,” Hispania Judaica Bulletin 5, 2007, pp. 271-82. 19 Ibid. 20 The national Italian web page of libraries (www.sbn.it) claims that Blado and his publishing house were responsible for over 1,300 titles between 1516 and 1567. See the entry by Barbieri, F., Dizionario Biografico degli italiani 10, Rome, Istituto della LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 69 in 1545, Blado entered into a business relationship with Marcello Cervini (1501-55), then chief librarian of the Vatican library but subsequently Pope Marcellus II, and the Florentine printer Benedetto Giunta (1506-62) to print works in Greek.21 Though he did not seem to have a particular penchant or interest in Jewish works per se, years later he could have been involved in the publication of books in Hebrew. He was, it would, seem, involved in dealings with Isaac ben Emmanuel di Lattes (incomplete dates -1570), who printed Hebrew books at Blado’s shop in 1545 and 1546.22 The manuscript tradition testifies to the work’s early circulation in Rome. We have five extant copies of the manuscript. One of these was the work of the famed copyist and printer from Vicenza, Ludovico degli Arrighi, active in Rome from 1510 until the sack of the city of 1527, in which it would seem that he perished.23 Printing at least forty-three books, degli Arrighi had been commissioned to produce humanistic and ecclesiastical works by prominent aristocratic and clerical figures such as Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547) and Giovanni de Medici, who would later go on to be pope Clement VII. Noted for his humanistic calligraphical style, which was expounded in works such as the Operina di Ludovico Vicentino da imparare di scrivere littera cancelleresca (Rome, 1522) and Il modo da temperare le penne con le varie sorti de littere ordinato per Ludovico Vicentino (Rome, 1523), his pen was responsible for what is quite probably the most perfect of the manuscripts from a formal point of view: ms. Harley 5423, now held in the British Library, very likely copied at some point between June 1524 and May 1527.24 The noblewoman to whom degli Arrighi chose to dedicate the work was not a banal figure either. Aurelia Petrucci was the daughter of the
Enciclopedia italiana, 1968, pp. 753-7. In addition see the following books which provide lists and descriptions of works published by Blado and his publishing house: Bernoni, D., Dei Torresani, Blado e Ragazzoni, celebri stampatori a Venezia e Roma nel XV e XVI Secolo, Milan, Ulrico Hoelpi, 1890, pp. 193-255; Catalogo delle edizioni romane di Antonio Blado asolono ed eredi 1516-1593, possedute dalla Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele di Roma; con una introduzione storicobibliografica, G. Fumagalli and G. Belli (eds), Rome, Ministero della pubblica istruzione, 1891. 21 Dorez, L., “Le cardinal Marcello Cervini et l’imprimerie à Rome,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 12, 1892, pp. 289-313; and Layton, E., “The History of a Sixteenth-Century Greek Type Revised,” The Historical Review 1, 2004, pp. 35-50. 22 Amram, D. W., The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy, Philadelphia, Julius B. Greenstone, 1909, pp. 249-51. I am indebted to Bernard Dov Cooperman for this information, which will form the subject of a forthcoming article of his. 23 See the entry by Pratesi, A., Dizionario biografico degli italiani 4, Rome, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1962, pp. 310-13. 24 On the manuscript see Law, V., “Two More Arrighi Manuscripts Discovered,” The Book Collector 27, 3, 1973, pp. 370-79; and Dionisotti, “Appunti su Leone Ebreo.” 70 JAMES NELSON NOVOA
Sienese oligarch Borghese Petrucci (1490-1520), who was in turn the son of Pandolfo Petrucci (1452-1512), “Principe” of Siena during the early years of the sixteenth century.25 While her father briefly held power in the city from 1512 to 1514 before leaving for exile in Naples, Aurelia remained in Siena, marrying twice and becoming, before dying in the city in 1542, one of the most celebrated and cultivated noblewomen of her day as well as a minor writer in her own right, whose poetry was included in the first collection of women’s poetry published in Italy (in Lucca in 1559), the Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime e virtuosissime donne, compiled by Ludovico Domenichi (1515-64). She in fact responded to Lenzi’s dedicatory letter with a sonnet in which she thanked him and pleaded her unworthiness to receive so auspicious an offering. Lenzi’s dedicatory letter evinces the interpretation that the average sixteenth century reader was to have of the work. The content of the work mirrored, in Lenzi’s eyes, Petrucci’s virtues and character, and he begins his letter to the Sienese noblewoman with a classical allusion: Among the ancient Egyptians it was common to dedicate works to the god Mercury, since they believed that all arts, sciences, and many of the other beautiful things of this earth were discovered by this god, and that it was therefore only habitual for them to thank the inventor of all that man had learned and gained knowledge of. For this reason Pythagoras and Plato and many other great philosophers went to Egypt to study philosophy. In addition, they learned a great deal at the gates of Mercury, which were full of knowledge and doctrine. I too, gracious Lady, believe that those who have had the pleasure of knowing you can likewise benefit, so that in turning to you their beautiful thoughts might become nourished by a divine spirit, and they might spend their energies in honor of your name. In doing so, they might learn true virtue by your example just as the ancient philosophers learned at Mercury’s gates.26 For Lenzi, Petrucci was the embodiment of the ideal virtues that display divinity: For if one takes stock of the nobility, kindness, morality, and courtesy of your person and considers these together with your honesty, poise, grace, prudence, astuteness and knowledge, and finally looks again at each of these virtues, he will certainly see that your life is none other than the mirror of those remaining talents and the ideal of how others should live their own. And those who, mired down by earthly concerns, are not able to rise to these celestial thoughts, need only turn their gaze to you, and
25 For news on Petrucci´s life see my “Aurelia Petrucci d’après quelques dédicaces entre 1530 et 1542,” Bolletino senese di storia patria CIX, 2002, pp. 532-55. 26 Ebreo, Dialogues, p. 23. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 71
instructed by your radiance, they will be slowly purged, and will also be made worthy of the lofty contemplation of your divinity. He goes on to claim that he was motivated by Petrucci in taking his decision to publish the Dialoghi, for he saw it as a means of paying the debt owed to her on account of her example and her virtue. Being incapable of producing an original work, Lenzi, a Sienese exile in Rome, deemed that the most fitting tribute to the famed noblewoman from his homeland was the publication of Leone Ebreo’s work, dealing as it does with chaste love, especially given that the chaste love owed to Petrucci was the motive behind his decision to bring the book into the limelight: Recognizing this communal and personal need, I have acted like those who, not having their own means, borrow from others to pay their debts. In my desire to repay this great debt I owe you, but recognizing the limits of my own talents and not having produced anything worthy myself, I send you the fruits of another’s labor: these books about love by Master Leone, titled PHILO and SOPHIA. They are about a chaste Love, for a chaste woman who inspires Love; heavenly considerations for a woman adorned with heavenly virtues; the highest of intentions for a woman full of the highest ideals. Thus with another’s work I wished to show you my willingness to please you and to repay my debt, rather than to postpone it, given my own lack of talent.27 The context, then, in which the editio princeps saw the light of day was, from the outset, linked to a Sienese presence in Rome, which had congregated there after Sienese factional infighting increased in the wake of the fall of the Petrucci. This alone would seem mere trivia were it not for the fact that in some way it influenced the final form taken by the text. The five extant manuscripts, which have been dated from 1521 to 1534, comprise only the third dialogue.28 The variations between them do not suggest any radical departures in the spirit of the text. What is most evident is, on the formal level, a gradual elimination of the latinisms present in the manuscripts and the move towards a more standard Tuscan-based prose style; a tendency that would most certainly have been welcomed by someone like Lenzi, who belonged to the entourage of Claudio Tolomei, his uncle.29 Tolomei was one of the major theoreticians of the time on the correct use of Tuscan, favouring a kind of pan-Tuscan linguistic ideal over that proposed by another revered
27 Ibid., pp. 23-4. 28 For an overview of the manuscripts see my “Appunti sulla genesi redazionale dei Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Ebreo alla luce della critica testuale attuale e la tradizione manoscritta del suo terzo dialogo,” Quaderni d’italianistica 30, 1, 2009, pp. 45-66. 29 Garvin, B., “The Language of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore,” Italia 13-15, 2001, pp. 181-210. 72 JAMES NELSON NOVOA authority on the question, Pietro Bembo, who believed Boccaccio’s fourteenth century’s Tuscan should serve as the model for the kind of prose that was to be written throughout the Italian peninsula. The earliest manuscripts point to an early version of the work, written in the often-stilted prose style of philosophical and literary works such as the Libro de Natura de amore (1525) by Mario Equicola (1470-1525) or the Anteros (1496) by Gian Battista Fregoso. These latter works were themselves based on heavily latinate prose models and associated in particular with the prose writing in fashion in papal Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which was known as the lingua cortigiana romana. This would seem to fit with the little we know of the circulation of manuscripts of the work. In 1525, writing from Granada, Spain where he was residing as the ambassador of the Holy See, Baltasar Castiglione (1478-1529), the author of the Book of the Courtier, requested, along with works by Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) and Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478-1550), some of the Libri del maestro Lione that were then circulating in Rome.30 The publication of Mariano Lenzi’s edition of the work coincided with another curious and partial edition of the Dialogh d’amore. A few days after the papal concession to print the work was extended to Lenzi another papal brief was offered to a certain Leonardo Marso. This second brief granted permission to publish in Rome a work entitled De amore humano et divino. Possibly in order to avoid conflict with Lenzi’s edition of the Dialoghi, the wording of this second concession made it seem that the work was Marso’s when it was, in fact, the second of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore, on the community of love. The work was published, but with the title De amore humano et divino and without the author’s name on the title page.31 The work was the result of a botched commission of a Latin translation of the work, offered to the prelate, from the Abruzzo region though with family ties to Siena, Bernardino Silverio Piccolomini d’Aragona, Apostolic Pronotary and bishop of Teramo, who later went on to become archbishop of Sorrento.32 In his dedicatory letter to Piccolomini in lieu of the Latin translation which he was not able to complete, Marso, a minor humanist who went on to become a professor of rhetoric at the Universities of Rome and Siena in
30 Castiglione, B. di, Lettere inedite e rare, G. Gorni (ed.), Milan/Naples, Riccordo Ricciardi editore, 1969, pp. 90, 97 and 101. 31 On the book see my articles, “New Documents”; “Benedetto Giunta: Probable Editor of the Partial Edition of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore in Rome,” Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas 8, 2008, pp. 159-68. 32 On Silverio Piccolomini see Guarna, B. C., “Il vescovato di Teramo,” Rivista del Collegio Araldico 3, 1905, p. 666; Ebreo, Diálogos, pp. 563-4. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 73 the 1530s and 1540s, states that he published the second only of the dialogues for the time being, thereby offering a sample of the work in its entirety.33 The work was almost certainly published in Rome, in January or the first half of February 1535, by the Florentine bookseller-printer Benedetto Giunta, a member of the Giunta publishing house with at least twenty titles to his credit, mainly in Florence but of which at least three can be surely attributed to him in Rome between 1540 and 1541.34 That the publishing of the partial edition of the Dialoghi did not sour his relationship with Antonio Blado is borne out by the fact that, as we have had occasion to note already, several years later they were to embark on a business venture together. The extreme rarity of the book, of which few libraries possess a copy and which was virtually unknown until the twentieth century, and the fact that Giunta forayed only occasionally into printing in Rome make it likely that the book was a sporadic commission handed out to him by Marso.35
The Dialoghi and its sixteenth century readers
At this point it could perhaps be asked how this work, which was patently Jewish, could interest so many illustrious Christian writers and intellectuals of the early sixteenth century. Up until its publication in 1535 it had passed through the hands of some of the major cultural figures in Italy and, thereby, through several different cultural contexts: Rome, southern Italy and Siena. It is obvious that even before the publication of the work it had already generated considerable interest, which only made editing and having the work circulate through the press that much more enticing. The point of view of many sixteenth century readers could be summed up in the words attributed to the Florentine humanist Benedetto Varchi (1502-65) in Tullia d’Aragona’s (1510-56) Dialogue on the Infinity of Love (1547). In one passage, in which Varchi takes into account past authors who have dealt with the question of love, she has him say that Leone Ebreo, Filone in her words, is the author of preference in matters of love:
33 On Marso and his edition see my “La pubblicazione dei Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Ebreo e l'Umanesimo dell’Italia meridionale,” Itinerari di studi storici 20-21, 1, 2006- 2007, pp. 213-30; and “Leonardo Marso d’Avezzano´s Oratio for the Death of Giovanni Battista Pio,” Bruniana & Campanelliana 1, 2010, pp. 247-54. 34 See my “Benedetto Giunta: Probable”. 35 On bookseller-printers see Richardson, B., Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 34-5. 74 JAMES NELSON NOVOA
Of all the authors, whether ancient or modern, who wrote about love in any language I prefer Filone. I think I have learned more from him than from anybody else, for he speaks about love not only more comprehensively, in my modest opinion, but with more doctrine and more truthfully.36 Varchi goes on to praise Leone, claiming that the only sticking-point for him, his Judaism, can somehow be excused, given the quality of his positions: Many have written a great deal about love, some learnedly and some in a delightful manner, others in both ways. To all I prefer Filone - although on some points, especially in what concerns Jewish faith, I excuse him more than approve of what he says.37 Tullia, in her dialogue makes it clear that between the other great master of the trattati genre, Pietro Bembo, and Leone there is no contest. The Jewish author wins over the Venetian prelate in substance: I harbor the greatest love and respect not for Bembo but for his goodness. I admire and worship not Bembo but his virtues, which I never sufficiently praised as to believe that I had praised them adequately. Mind you, I do not deny that the Asolani - which I have extolled a thousand times - are splendid and that a very good judgement and a miraculous eloquence are combined with his great doctrine. Filone, on the other hand, had a different aim. In love’s taxonomy, more - I think - can be said and perhaps in more charming style, but I do not think it could be said better. But, pray, do not let it be known outside these walls, for people might start murmuring that I have changed my views and betrayed Bembo.38 In his own work, L’ercolano, which dealt with the question of the correct use of the Tuscan language in literature, Varchi lauds the content of Dialoghi but points out the deficiencies in their form: Ma se i dialogi di Lione Ebreo, dove si ragiona d’Amore, fossero vestiti come meriterebbero, noi non aremmo da invidiare né i latini, né i greci (Yet if the Dialogues of Leone Ebreo, which deal with love, were clothed as they deserved to be, we would not have to envy either the Latins or the Greeks).39 Varchi was an active defender of the Bembo side of the linguistic debate on Tuscan prose. Like the Venetian humanist, he also believed the Florentine model of the Tuscan language, based on the Boccacian model, to be the most perfect one for correct prose writing in Italy. Obviously
36 Aragona, T. d’, Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, R. Russell and B. Merry (eds and trans.), R. Russell (intro./notes), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 91. 37 Ibid., p. 92. 38 Ibid., p. 93. 39 Translation mine. LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 75
Leone Ebreo did not meet the mark, perhaps reflecting on his status as a foreigner, certainly as a foreigner in the Italian literary tradition, an outsider on account of his Jewish and Iberian origins.
The transmission of the text of the Dialoghi d’amore as a linguistic enterprise and a Jewish-Christian meeting place
The Italian literary historian and critic Carlo Dionisotti has remarked that there is no ‘Leone Ebreo style’, no phrases, ingenious uses of words or particular colouring which could reflect the specificity of the author, and that quite possibly it is precisely this that accounted for Leone Ebreo’s success.40 According to the Italian critic, a great part of his appeal was that he provided a seriousness and a rigor when, in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, just such characteristics seemed to be badly depleted in the Neoplatonic tradition. His text was bereft of the trappings and the pretence of Bembo’s and Castiglione’s forays into the realm of the question of love. There are no brilliant characters or exotic settings. What surprises the reader is the text’s absolute starkness. The only two interlocutors are called, appropriately enough, Philone and Sophia. There are few instances of rhetorical flourish and literary abandon. What is important about the interlocutors is that they are vehicles of metaphysical ideas and principles. Throughout the text Sophia’s continuous taunts lead Philone to expatiate, ever more elaborately, on his theory of divine love. Clearly, the whole appeal of the text must have been its content and not its form. Both Bembo and Castiglione’s works are looked upon as much as linguistic exercises as conveyors or diffusers of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Both try to present some ideal form of Tuscan prose. Such a consideration must have been far removed for Judah Abravanel, a Portuguese Jew who very likely penned the work with outside help if, in the end, he did write it in one of the linguistic varieties of the Italian peninsula. Whatever it became through the princeps and by the decision to adopt the form of the dialogue, by its circulation in an Italian linguistic variety, then the genre in vogue for civile conversazione in the literary milieu often centred around courtly life and learned academies, Abravanel obviously intended the work to circulate in Christian circles. Some readers adopted Varchi’s viewpoint, treating Leone Ebreo’s Judaism as simply an annoying detail while concentrating on the basic tenets of a work that, in the end, could be shared by people espousing the Christian faith. Others must have believed that Abravanel actually
40 Dionisotti, “Appunti.” 76 JAMES NELSON NOVOA converted to Christianity, something perhaps reinforced by the affirmation that appeared in the two subsequent editions of the work, from 1541 and 1545, both printed in Venice (as were the rest of the Italian language editions of the Dialoghi). On the title page of both we can clearly see the words: Dialoghi d’amore di Leone ebreo et dipoi fatto cristiano. We can only assume that such an affirmation would only have had an effect on potential readers for whom the author’s Jewishness was a problem. It must be said, in addition, that this appears on the title page of only two of the sixteen editions of the work put out between 1535 and 1607. For authors like d’Aragona and Varchi this did not pose any substantial difficulty. Such readers were concerned with expounding what they considered the truth regarding divine love and its place in the world, which, in Abravanel’s work, followed an emanative scheme. This in itself should not have posed a problem for Christian readers. Such elements were present in the works of all of the important theoreticians of love who penned their trattati d’amore throughout the sixteenth century. As we have had occasion to see, Tullia d’Aragona considered Leone’s ideas and text to be the most august representative of the Neoplatonic currents then in vogue. From Lenzi’s dedicatory letter we know that the Dialoghi were published posthumously. What state the text of the work was in when Leone was alive, his role in its transmission, his possible interactions with early readers and editors of the work are, of course, a matter of speculation and archival and textual evidence does not, so far, shed any definitive light on these matters. Nevertheless, the unprecedented interest in a work by a Sephardic Jew in the first three decades of the sixteenth century, which involved prominent members of the Sienese community in Rome, southern Italian prelates, prestigious printers, expert copyists, the most important humanists and litterati of the moment, as well as some of the key figures in the impassioned debate as to what language should be the norm for literary and cultural expression in Renaissance Italy, is not to be understated by any means. This interest is almost concomitant with the last few years in which we have news of Judah Abravanel´s activities in the Spanish dominated kingdom of Naples. The place where both editio princeps, Lenzi’s and Blado’s complete edition, and Marso’s and Giunta’s partial one, were published was Rome. It was the city that served as the meeting place for the diverse and disparate figures and contexts involved in the early manuscript and print publication of the Dialoghi. Of course, much remains unclear in this regard. Where did Leone’s text really circulate in its most primitive form? Naples or Rome? Was Leone privy to this circulation and what LEONE EBREO’S DIALOGHI D’AMORE AS A PIVOTAL DOCUMENT 77 role did he play in it? While recent scholarship has gone a long way toward a better understanding of Jewish-Christian relations in Rome during the early sixteenth century, we are still very much in the dark about what kind of Jewish-Christian interactions were actually involved in what was most certainly a singular example of Christian interest in a work by a Jew of the Renaissance period.
Part II
Philosophy and the Humanities
B - Philosophical Aspects 80
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AND OPENING UP TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD: A CHAPTER IN EARLY MODERN JEWISH-ITALIAN LITERATURE Alessandro Guetta
The immortality of the soul as a philosophical and religious subject
Inherited from a medieval debate and continuing well into the early modern period, the question of the immortality of the soul was one of the main issues in the philosophical and theological literature of the Renaissance. Both Platonism and Christian thought had developed the idea of separation between the body and the soul, and – as something of a correlate – of the corruptible nature of the former and the incorruptible nature of the latter. The body was made of matter, and was thus destined to decomposition and death; the soul had a divine essence, and therefore lived forever in a celestial world after departing from its earthly residence. To deny this idea entailed a commitment to a thoroughly materialistic vision of the world and, therefore, a disbelief in the partially divine nature of man, who was – according to the Bible – created in God’s image and resemblance. God had breathed the soul into Adam’s nostrils; as far as his body was concerned, then, man was subject to the natural laws of reproduction, whereas the soul was created anew by God for every man. Besides, the materialistic vision was problematic on ethical ground. According to the Christian doctrine, man – or, to put it better – his spiritual component, had to receive rewards or punishments for his behaviour during his life; since it was clear that this absolute, divine justice was not always implemented in this world, one had to assume another world, in which all blatant injustices would be corrected, once and forever. An epistemological dimension was added to this issue by the Aristotelian theory of knowledge. In his very detailed analysis of the process of knowledge in De Anima and in other works, Aristotle did not come to a clear conclusion as to the capacity of the intellective soul – supposedly able to formulate universal concepts devoid of material ground – to act independently of the body. The different interpretations of some controversial passages of the Stagirite philosopher, generally read in European medieval universities through the commentary of Averroes, served as basis to opposite conceptions, one spiritualistic, the other materialistic (the so-called Alexandrist position, after Alexander of THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 81
Aphrodisias). Furthermore, the Arabic reading of Aristotle’s theory of knowledge had led to the necessity of imagining an agent, or an active mind independent from man, of a divine nature, one which enabled the process of cognition by activating the universal notions that lay in potentiality within the human, or passive intellect. But if knowledge consisted in the union between the individual human intellect and the unique active intellect, then every formulation of universal notions entailed that man join with this active and unique intellect; through the act of understanding man himself became intellect and, in so doing, thereby lost his individuality. As an intellectual soul in action, man had to be united to other men who had developed the same, disembodied ideas. This concept, however, was the opposite of the Christian doctrine of punishment and reward, which looked to the individuality of man’s soul as a condition for his moral responsibility. The issue provoked a bitter theological and philosophical debate among Christians, leading to the dogmatic formulations that defined the Christian, orthodox position.1 As Paul Richard Blum has put it in his chapter on the immortality of the soul in the Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, we have here a multi-faceted question: the exegetic issue – the interpretation of Aristotle, with his undisputable philosophical authority – implied the epistemological one; this, in turn, led to the religious-ethical issue, which also implied a cosmological dimension: the place of the human soul in a well defined universe made of corruptible and incorruptible beings.2 The answers given to these questions produced effects that echoed well beyond the walls of the university. The danger for the official
1 The champion of the Christian orthodox position was Thomas Aquinas, who argued for the permanence of the individual intellect after death in his De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas (written in 1270; On the Unity of Intellect against Averroists, B. H. Zedler (trans.), Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1968). The polemics found little echo among the Jews, even if Maimonides seems to have held an “averroistic” position, i.e. a belief in the unique intellect; see Altmann, A., “Maimonides on the Intellect and the Scope of Metaphysics,” in his Von der Mittelalterichen zur modernen Aufklärung, Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1987, especially pp. 87-90. A remarkable exception to this Jewish lack of interest on this issue is Tagmuley ha-Nefesh by Hillel ben Shemuel of Verona (ca. 1220-ca.1295), in which the first chapter of Thomas’ work is translated into Hebrew. See Sefer Tagmuley ha-Nefesh, Y. B. Sermoneta (ed.), Jerusalem, Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1981, pp. 100-145. The first part of the book deals with theoretical issues, the second with practical ones such as the destiny of the soul according to its merits and faults. 2 Blum, P. R., “The Immortality of the Soul,” in Hankins, J. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 211-33. One of the best historical inquiries into the subject is still Di Napoli, G., L’immortalità dell’anima nel Rinascimento, Torino, Società editrice internazionale, 1963. 82 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
Christian doctrine did not result only from the possibility of a materialistic view – which was, after all, quite rare – but also, and maybe more hazardously, from the separation of the rational and the religious spheres: a view identified as “Averroistic.” As a result of his analysis of Aristotle’s texts, a philosopher could very well conclude for the mortality of the soul from a mere philosophical point of view, yet reaffirm his belief in immortality because that was the truth affirmed by the divine revelation and by the Fathers of the Church. The question became so sensitive that in the Fifth Lateran Council, in 1513, an authoritative declaration was issued on the immortality and individuality of the soul, imposing not only upon theologians, but also upon university philosophers, the task of proving rationally those truths. This is not the place to expand on the history of this issue in the Christian intellectual world. Let’s just comment upon two major works: Theologia platonica de immortalitate animorum by the Florentine humanist Marsilio Ficino (1469-74), and Tractatus de immortalitate animae by the university teacher Pietro Pomponazzi (1516). The first book is a true “summa,” the main reference for the Neoplatonic scheme that saw the human soul as being in an intermediate position, or “third essence,” between the superior level of God and the angels and the inferior one of matter and its qualities, and thus representing the link between those two levels: aspiring to divinity, while at the same time filling the corruptible matter of the body. The immortality of the soul was demonstrated by Ficino in many ways, following the method of the Aristotelian logic but assuming the Neoplatonic idea, which became a central notion of the Renaissance, accompanied and founding another important notion, that of the dignity of man. Pomponazzi’s Tractatus was of a completely different nature, not only because it was the output of a typical representative of the Aristotelian philosophy as taught at the university (Pomponazzi, who was a professor at Padua, was the most prestigious lecturer of his time), but also because it radically criticised the intellectual scheme followed by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’ method was held long after him (till our days) as the official position of the Roman Church as to the substantial agreement between the truths of reason and the truths of faith. According to Pomponazzi, one had to believe in the immortality of the soul because such was the teaching of the Church, depositary of the divine revelation; but philosophy could not reach the same conclusion, nor did Aristotle. This was the conclusion of the book of the Paduan philosopher. Pomponazzi’s book was burned: but as it was preceded by some other, less radical works, which opened the way for it, so it was followed by a THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 83 great number of texts reacting to it, all adhering to the official Catholic position and trying to use reason to prove the immortality of the soul. After the decline of Aristotelian epistemology, the issue of the immortality of the soul continued to be discussed: the first edition of Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641) bore the subtitle in qua Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstratur. Moreover, besides the strictly philosophical analysis, both the immortality of the soul and its purity and longing for God in the afterlife were at the centre of Christian devotion in the so-called Baroque period. What was the Jewish position on this issue? Did the Jews take part in the controversy? As far as the Renaissance and early modern periods are concerned, the subject has yet to be studied globally. Two cases, however, have been the object of several researches: firstly the controversy in Amsterdam, during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, fuelled by the anti-rabbinic position of Uriel da Costa, and secondly the debate between the Jewish poetess Sara Copio Sullam and the Catholic priest Baldassare Bonifaccio, which took place in Venice in the same years and which can be placed in relation to the Amsterdam controversy. Even though these cases have already been deeply investigated, they still deserve a brief comment in light of our concern with the issues of Jewish-Christian relations and of the growing secularization of European culture. Besides, they will be better understood if they are placed in continuity with the texts of other Jewish intellectuals of the Renaissance, specifically in Italy, who dealt with the same issue. It is difficult to find a common line of thought in these Jewish authors; there were Neoplatonists – who referred to Plato either directly or indirectly, through, for instance, references to the Kabbalah; and there were Aristotelians – who followed the Arab-Jewish tradition that encompassed Averroes, Maimonides and Gersonides. This intellectual tradition had similar, but not identical, concerns and methodology, as did Christian scholasticism. Nobody made the immortality of the soul a central issue of their work; or more exactly, of their Hebrew work. In other words, the “sub-genre” of the demonstrations concerning the immortality of the soul, so common in the Christian theology and philosophy of the period, seems not to be a Jewish-Hebrew genre. Among the Neoplatonic authors we can count Moses of Rieti (1388- 1465) and Yehudah Moscato (ca. 1530 – ca. 1593); according to both, the immortality of the soul was a fact, upon which a poet-philosopher like the first or an exegete-rhetorician like the second could elaborate, sometimes in a lyrical manner; but they never tried to prove it in an argumentative way. The writings of Yitzতaq Abravanel (1437-1508), the 84 ALESSANDRO GUETTA exiled Spaniard who lived his last years in Italy, must also be examined. In Renaissance Italy, Abravanel wrote extensively on that matter, and his position is clearly Neoplatonic; his Jewish references, on the other side, probably belong more to the Spanish than to the Italian tradition. As for an “orthodox” Aristotelian position, the main representative was doubtlessly Elijah Del Medigo (ca. 1458-93), whose assertions on the matter of the soul’s immortality were, to say the least, ambiguous, and deserve therefore a special attention. In order to understand the positions of these authors, we should bear in mind what – though at different levels – the most influential Jewish philosophers – Maimonides, Nachmanides, ণisdai Crescas and Yosef Albo, wrote on this issue.
The discussion among the Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages
Maimonides – the Maimonides, philosopher and author of the Guide of the Perplexed, not the jurist or the author of dogmas – admitted the difficulty of proving rationally the immortality of the soul: a notion even more difficult to prove than the creation of the world.3 In this context, he did not explicitly confront the issue, stopping at merely indicating that the Torah prepares for the perfection of the body and the soul and that the latter leads to a condition of eternal happiness.4 The soul, which separates itself from the body, is the form of that body (in Aristotelian sense), that is, it is the intellect that has reached true knowledge of God (according to its limits) and can thus avoid death.5 This is the true .aron) of the Torahۊobjective (takhlyth a As for his dogmatic affirmations, Maimonides writes more extensively, holding a position resolutely spiritual: the souls of the righteous will live in the world to come (‘olam ha-ba), rejoicing in the spiritual and intellectual contemplation of the divine presence. The resurrection of the dead is but an intermediate stage: the resurrected people will indeed end up dying again, according to Maimonides, and eternity will be reached only in the world to come, when souls will no longer be bound to bodies. Maimonides emphasizes the intellectual aspect of human behaviour. The merits of the soul are essentially intellectual, and consequentially the highest reward in the afterlife consists of pure intellectual contemplation of the divine, without the burden of the body and the duties of earthly life:
3 Guide, I, 74. 4 Ibid., III, 27. 5 Ibid., III, 51. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 85
The soul will continue to exist for eternity, just like God, who was its cause, having perceived it, as has been explained by the first philosophy. This constitutes the greatest good to which no other good could be compared, since how could one compare eternity without end to something ephemeral?6 The Catalan Nachmanides (Moshe ben Naতman, 1194-1270) is, for his part, fond of the description of man’s destiny after death as recounted by the Jewish tradition, which he considers of divine origin, and as such, superior to human philosophy; he is not therefore interested in the rational foundation of the notion of immortality. Referring to the azal) in the Talmud and the Midrash that he isۉ) teachings of the Rabbis often compelled to interpret, the Catalan author provides a very precise description of the rewards and punishments of souls in the afterlife, their characteristics and their duration in the various sections of what may be called inferno and heaven. As for the relationship between the resurrection and eternal life, Nachmanides objected to Maimonides’ assertion that in the future world the souls of the righteous, after living in the celestial paradise (gan ‘eden), will be reunited, and forever, to their bodies. What need did he [Maimonides] have to try and prove that in that world there are not bodies but only souls? Even a Jewish schoolchild knows that the soul of a just man who dies remains in the good, that is, the good of the superior world in which there is no matter and no body.7 Nachmanides concludes that Maimonides wanted to draw attention to the fact that, even after the reconnection of the souls with the bodies at the time of resurrection, people (including the Messiah) will die anew and will obtain their reward in the spiritual world of the soul. For Nachmanides, however, after the resurrection, the risen people will live for eternity, with a body of angelic characteristics and separated from corruptible matter. Besides, commenting on the book of Job, Nachmanides makes allusions – without insisting on its importance, following his custom – to the kabbalistic theory of the transmigration of souls.8
6 Maimonides, commentary to the Mishnah, introduction to Sanhedrin X (Pereq ”,eleq); Mishneh Torah, Hilkhoth teshuvah, 8; “Epistle on the Resurrection of the Deadۊ in Y. Shelat (ed.), Iggeroth Ha-Rambam, Jerusalem 1995, pp. 319-76 (Hebrew). Cf. Davidson, H. A., Moses Maimonides. The Man and his Works, Oxford, 2005, 241-3; 377. 7 “Sha‘ar ha-gemul,” in ণ. D. Chavel (ed.), Kitvey ha-Ramban, Jerusalem 1964, p. 309 (Hebrew). 8 Ibid., 264-311. 86 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
The position of Gersonides (Levy ben Gershom, Provence 1288- -amoth Haۊexpressed in the famous and controversial treatise Mil ,(1344 Shem (The Wars of the Lord, 1st ed. Riva di Trento, 1560) can be considered a clarification and accentuation of the rationalistic position of Maimonides. In fact, in the first part of this work, the Provençal philosopher and scientist offers a long and complex demonstration of the necessity of the immortality of the “acquired intellect,” that is, the material (human) intellect that is appropriated by the eternal intelligibles, present in the “Agent Intellect.”9 “The acquired intellect,” writes Gersonides, “is immortal; for what it apprehends of these objects of knowledge is itself an intellect in the Agent Intellect.” And he proceeds with a syllogism: “The acquired intellect is immaterial, and an immaterial substance does not have the conditions requisite for corruption; and whatever lacks these conditions is incorruptible.”10 Immortality is therefore a function of learning and concerns the intellect, not only the soul. For the Catalan philosopher ণisdai Crescas (ca. 1340-1410/11), discussion on the immortality of the soul is comprised within a more ample reflection on the perfection required by the Torah: this reflection leads to a sum condemnation of the intellectualistic school of Maimonides, and to a shifting of emphasis from intellectual perfection to love of the faithful towards God. That the intellect augments its capacity until it reaches immortality thanks to the intellection of the universals; that the intensity of its beatitude in the afterlife depends on the loftiness of its intellections: these are two typical affirmations of Maimonides’ intellectualism that, according to Crescas, are in complete opposition with the Torah and with tradition, as well as absurd from a rational point of view. The conflict of intellectualism with the Torah and tradition is rather simple to demonstrate. The texts show abundantly that action, not intellection, and especially execution of the mitzvot, leads to a reward in this world and the next. Demonstrating the rational absurdity of the intellectualistic optics is a little more complicated; it relies on a great number of dialectic proofs based on Aristotelian premises and articulated in syllogisms. What Crescas aims to prove, above all, is that not the intellect but rather the soul in its entirety – which also possesses intellectual faculties – is immortal, as a substance separate from matter that survives material
9 Seymour Feldman has translated this part into English: cf. Gersonides, The Wars of the Lord. Book One: The Immortality of the Soul, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1984. 10 Ibid., p. 213. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 87 corruption.11 The soul is, therefore, immortal by nature – even if it can perish by some evils – and remains individual after it abandons the material body. The idea of one universal intellect resulting from the union of single “Passive Intellects” (human) with the “Agent Intellect” (divine), that had stirred many polemical storms in the Christian world of the thirteenth century, is discarded as impious and absurd.12 Having developed the idea that action is superior to intellection, Crescas then arrives at the notion of love for God as man’s authentic objective. The soul that loves God, pursuing its true objective, perfects itself, and in this way obtains eternal immortality and happiness. It is therefore clear that the perfection required by the Torah is to obey [God] with the greatest zeal, observing His commandments and being careful not to violate His prohibitions; with joy and light heart, which are the secret to service and true love. This is apparent in many rabbinic texts. Since this is the perfection required by the Torah, it necessarily results in eternal happiness and immortality [for the soul].13 The causal bond between love for God and immortality is argued by Crescas rationally as well. If the soul’s perfection lies in loving the Good, love for the Summum Bonum, which is God, leads to the maximum perfection of the soul. Moreover – and here Crescas refers to the thought of Empedocles14 – if, in nature, love is cause of the unity among the elements, that must be true for the spiritual realm as well: the more intense is the love for God (until it becomes passion; the Hebrew eshek will enter the discussion further ahead) the stronger theۊ word bond (devequth) of the soul with God will be. Perfection and bond with God are worth, equally, immortality and beatitude.15 The shifting of the emphasis in respect to Maimonides is evident. After Crescas – with rare exceptions such as Eliyah Del Medigo – the immortality of the soul will be treated in the devotional religious sphere, even if – occasional – demonstrations are conducted in accordance with the scholastic dialectic. The intellectualistic concern, which linked immortality to intellectual knowledge, will be definitively abandoned.
11 ণisdai Crescas, Or haShem, Maamar 2, Kelal 6, pereq 1, Sh. Fisher (ed.), Jerusalem, Ramot, 1990, p. 239 (Hebrew). 12 Ibid., Maamar 3, তelek 1, kelal 2, pereq 1, pp. 318-23. 13 Ibid., Maamar 2, Kelal 6, pereq 1, pp. 238-9. 14 The so-called pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles (490-30c. B.C.) theorized that life and death are a result of the tension between Love and Hatred (Strife), that act on the four basic elements, binding and separating them. 15 Ibid., p. 244. Crescas is extremely reserved on the notion of the transmigration of the souls (gilgul; see infra), affirmed by tradition but not by dogmatic religion. As for the physical or spiritual nature (or both) of Gan ‘eden (Paradise) and Gehynnom (Inferno), he evaluates all possibilities on both a traditional and a rational basis. 88 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
Love for God, religious zeal and fear of sin, not intellectual comprehension of the divine (even if it eventually flows into love) become then the most defused religious values within the Jewish world, including the Italian one. As for the author of the best-known list of Jewish articles of faith, Yosef Albo (1380-1412), he is not concerned with finding a rational justification for the idea of immortality. His preoccupation is exclusively dogmatic. In Sefer ha-‘ikkarym16 (IV, 29-30), Albo states four possible opinions on the remuneration of human actions from which can be extracted his conclusions regarding the nature of the soul. The first postulate (inspired by Aristotle) negates the existence of remuneration; the soul is, in effect, a function of the body and dies along with it. The second (inspired by Alexander of Aphrodisias’ reading of Aristotle) admits to a material remuneration; the soul is a function of the body – and consequently vanishes with its death – but thanks to the intellectual faculty it can enter into contact with God, who rewards man in the course of his life. The third (which is Maimonides’) maintains a uniquely spiritual remuneration in the world to come on the basis of intellectual results achieved during life on earth; according to this conception, the soul is separate and immortal and its most noble part is the intellectual one. Albo objects that, embracing this extremely elitist conception would exclude from immortality people who are not particularly gifted intellectually but who have merits on the basis of their religious devotion. The fourth postulate, which is Albo’s and, according to the Spanish philosopher, also the authentic position of the Torah and the rabbis, contemplates a material remuneration during the earthly life, as well as a spiritual remuneration destined for the soul after the death of the body. The texts of the Torah and the masters of the Talmud, according to Albo, speak explicitly to that end.17 These, then, were the theological suppositions reflected upon by the Italian Jewish thinkers. None of them, until the spread of the Kabbalah of Safed in the seventeenth century, concerned themselves with the destiny of the soul after death, the pleasures of paradise and the torments of hell.18 There were indeed various attitudes, but for the most part the
16 First edition, Soncino 1485; critical edition and English translation by I. Husik, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1946. 17 Note the synthesis in the introduction of Maimonides, Immortalità e Resurrezione (Immortality and Resurection), G. Laras (ed.), Brescia, Morcelliana, 2006. 18 Tofteh ‘arukh (The Prepared Inferno, Venice, 1743) of the important kabbalist Moshe Zacuto (ca. 1610-1697) is a long poem on the infernal sorrows that await the sinner, based on Midrashic and Kabbalistic sources. Moreover, the important work of Aharon Bereতiyah of Modena, Ma‘avar Yabboq (The passing of the river Yabboq, Mantova 1626) must be noted: it is a collection of rites and prayers for the sick and the THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 89 immortality of the soul was taken by them as an indubious belief that sustains and justifies religious devotion. This belief, in time, becomes one of the hinges of their faith, which allows the opening of – or at least the will to open – a religious dialogue with the Christians.
Neoplatonists and Aristotelians
(aq of Rieti (1388 – ca. 1465ۊThe poetic treatment of Moshe ben Yitz
Moshe ben Yitzতaq of Rieti was a poet, philosopher and an extremely prominent medic among the Italian Jews in the fifteenth century, well known until the end of the sixteenth century. He was later forgotten and rediscovered only in the years of the modern “science of Judaism,” but the full extent of the value and originality of his work, in verse as well as prose, is probably still unknown. In almost all of his writings the soul plays an important role. It is probably the protagonist of Ya‘ar ha- Levanon (Forest of Lebanon),19 a difficult and interesting text, written in rhymed prose, in which a female character, No‘ah (translated as “wandering”), identified as the “daughter of the King,” laments being separated from her father and compelled to roam a hostile land. The allusion to the separation of the soul from its celestial source is rather clear; this female character, however, also possesses typical traits of the spiritual projection of the people of Israel, the Shekinah, also in exile, awaiting redemption, which will restore her affectionate closeness to the divine father. The inspiration behind the lyrical narration of this double exile is clearly Neoplatonic and kabbalistic. Without a doubt, Moshe of Rieti believed in the immortality of the soul; a position in itself evident for a rabbi, but one that would have been true for any observant Jewish person as well. As Nachmanides had noted, even a Jewish schoolchild knew that after death the soul separates itself from the body and returns to its celestial sphere.
dead, which synthesizes the Kabbalistic beliefs regarding the passing from life to death. Another text on the afterlife is Sha‘arey gan ‘eden (Oxford, Bodl. 1307; The Institute for Microfilm of Hebrew Manuscripts 22121), written in 1574 probably by Yehudah Saltaro; but the main interest of the book is geographical, as the exact sites of the gan ‘eden and of the ten lost tribes are the center of the research. I am grateful to David Berns for having drawn my attention to this manuscript. 19 Guetta, A.,“Ya‘ar ha-Levanon, ou la quête de la connaissance perdue. Un texte en prose rimée de Moshe de Rieti,” critical edition with introduction, French translation and notes, in Revue des études juives 164, 2005, pp. 67-129. 90 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
His most ambitious writing, Miqdash me'at (Little Sanctuary), a “Jewish response” to the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri,20 consists, for the most part, of a journey to the afterlife, more precisely to the Jewish paradise, where the author encounters the souls of saintly Jews: prophets, teachers, martyrs and children who have died innocent. His guide on this celestial journey is his father, who had died when Moshe was a young boy. It is apparent that such an imaginary journey implied the idea of the immortality of the souls or at least of the just ones. An entire chapter of the poem consists of a direct discourse between the author and his soul (nefesh), until the latter becomes cognizant of its sins in view of divine justice. The soul is described as “celestial prisoner,” “a fleeing shadow that stays behind in a cadaver” but will rise up again when its chalice becomes full of earthly water. It must assume consciousness of how man’s neshamah, corresponding here to the vegetative soul, can be punished after death, burning in fire and pushed far away from the world of sanctity. My soul (nafshy), be careful (esheqۊ) Until the stretched out wings of passion Have not grown tired in their motion Until the bitter spirits do not encounter it To tear its feathers; or demons Who will corrupt its qualities My soul, haven’t you heard how the soul (neshamah) Burns in the fire of wrath? And is thrown out of the holy place to a profane one.21 In a previous chapter of the poem, in the context of a eulogy of Aristotle, Moshe da Rieti had sharply settled scores with the thought of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which constituted a dangerous deviation from the thought of the Stagirite: “In one part of the sciences, there is a root that gives off poison: it’s Alexander. / Even the Guide [allusion to the Guide of the Perplexed by Maimonides] brings back the arguments.”22 The reference is certainly made to the idea, attributed to Alexander, that the soul is nothing but a disposition of the body and therefore dies with it.
20 The sole printed edition is by Y. Goldenthal, Il Dante ebreo, ossia Il Picciol Santuario, Vienna, 1851. A presentation of the poem and its meter, the Hebrew text vocalized with an English translation and notes on the first two chapters can be found in Scheindlin, R. P., Guetta, A., Bregman, D., “Miqdash Me'at by Moses de Rieti (1388-c. 1460),” Prooftexts 23, 1, 2003, pp. 1-93. 21 Il Dante ebreo, ff 43a-43b. 22 Ibid., f. 22b. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 91
Moshe returns to the question of the survival of the soul post-mortem in an elegy composed on the occasion of the death of his wife.23 The questions that are posed in this case are existential, not theoretical in nature. They arise from suffering, are posed in a direct way and in an urgent and anxious tone: will the souls of the two lovers find each other in the afterlife? Will the actions taken during the earthly life attain for them different destinies? Philosophy and dogma do not come to the author’s rescue here: his questions remain without an answer. It is necessary to note that the author does not cast a doubt on the immortality of the soul but on the forms of this immortality, the way in which the soul will live in the dimension beyond the earthly life.24 Moshe da Rieti had received a traditional philosophical education, founded upon Arab and Jewish Aristotelianism, whose most prominent figures were Aristotle, Porphyry (the author of Isagoge), Al-Ghazali, Averroes, naturally Maimonides and, finally, Moshe Narboni and Gersonides (with whom he is in partial disagreement on some non- specified points).25 For him, philosophy and religion are not in conflict, but are rather complementary: the former is not “impure” but rather constitutes a neutral instrument, necessary to ascend the ladder of knowledge that culminates in the Torah. Moshe associates the conceptual instruments that Aristotelianism offers him with a dimension that is clearly Neoplatonic, in accordance with his lyrical propensity. On this subject, besides the importance he attributed to the subject of the soul and its exile in the body, one must also remember the insistence on the esheq, or desire, eros, the stimulus placed in man that aspiresۊ notion of
23 Guetta, A., “Lev levavy ha-neehav: ha-qinah shel Mosheh-mi-Rieti 'al petirath ishto,” (Critical edition and notes of the unedited elegy of Moshe of Rieti on the death of his wife, with an introduction of the author and his work), in Rosen, T. and Holzmann, A. (eds), Studies in Hebrew Literature of the Middle Age and the Renaissance in Honor of Professor Yona David, Te'udah 19, 2002, pp. 309-27 (Hebrew). 24 A similar relationship between a firm conviction in the immortality of the soul and, on the other hand, simple suppositions on the details of the afterlife, such as the possibility of encounter among the souls, can be found in the first and third dialogue of Phaedo by Moses Mendelssohn, first and third dialogue (1st ed. Phaedon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele in drey Gesprachen, Berlin-Stettin, bey Friedrich Nicolai, 1767, reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumausgabe III i, Stuttgart, 1972, pp. 5-9, 39-128). In his Phaedo, Plato affirmed with certainty the immortality of the soul: but, as far as the specifics of its fate in the afterlife, he tells a "fable" (113-114c), and concludes with the following words: “I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true – a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true” (trans. B. Jowett, classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html). 25 Il Dante ebreo, f. 102v. 92 ALESSANDRO GUETTA to lift itself towards the superior spheres of knowledge and being.26 Two successive Italian Jewish thinkers, Yoতanan Alemanno (ca. 1435-ca. 1504)27 and Yehudah Moscato, both with Neoplatonic inclinations, will esheq, which dates back to Platoۊ also insist on the importance of the (particularly in the Phaedo and the Symposium) and which was taken up again in Italy and developed poetically by Dante (the model of Moshe of Rieti).28 Another important Jewish philosopher, originally from Iberia but active in Italy, Yehudah Abravanel (Leone Ebreo, son of the already cited Yitzতaq) makes such a notion the subject of the famous Dialogues of Love (published for the first time in their entirety in Rome in 1535). Oftentimes the Neoplatonic sensitivity of the Jewish thinkers is expressed through a kabbalistic language, and Moshe of Rieti – as we have seen – is not an exception. In his writings, the references to the wide-spread kabbalistic literature in Italy of his time – such as the Sefer Yetzyrah, perceived as a kabbalistic text, the Sefer ha-Bahir, the Castilian Kabbalah, among which is found the Sefer ha-Zohar, and the works of Nachmanides – are associated, in a harmonious way, with Neoplatonic notions: here can be found the beginnings of a synthesis that is destined to unfold among both Jewish and Christian thinkers in the following period of the so-called Renaissance. It should be noted that this complementarity between Aristotelian philosophy, Platonic subjects and Kabbalah will subside between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, when the Jewish kabbalists would proclaim themselves enemies irreducible to philosophy.29 To summarize, for a philosopher-poet such as Moshe of Rieti, the subject of the soul and its relation to the body and the divine is central, but it is treated in a more lyrical than argumentative manner. This approach would be appreciated between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the emphasis would be placed on an internalized and spiritualized religious devotion. The pages from Miqdash me‘at cited above, in which the poet addresses his own soul, are the only ones that have survived the oblivion of his work; they
26 Guetta, A.,“The Crisis of Medieval Knowledge in the Work of the Fifteenth-Century Poet and Philosopher Moses da Rieti,” in Brann, R. and Sutcliffe, A. (eds), Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture. From al-Andalus to the Haskalah, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, pp. 59-68. .esheq, Livorno, 1790ۊ-Alemanno, Y., Sha‘ar ha 27 28 Inglese, G., L'intelletto e l'amore. Studi sulla letteratura italiana del Due e Trecento, Milano, Nuova Italia, 2000. 29 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, one can witness a hesitant propinquity between Kabbalah and philosophy; no longer an Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy but rather a post-Cartesian rationalism. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 93 were copied as a model of Jewish poetry30 and translated into Italian in four different versions by Jewish authors, who evidently considered them an example of “spiritual poetry”31 befitting the Baroque sensitivity of the time.
aq Abravanel (1437-1508), the philosophical justification of gilgulۊYitz
Yitzতaq Abravanel was one of the most prominent figures of the Spanish community before and after the expulsion of the Jews from that country in 1492. This “philosopher and man of the State”32 is considered one of the Jewish thinkers most open to non-Jewish cultures, in particular, the cultures of Hellenistic and classical Greece and the Christian theology of the patristic and medieval period. The culture of the Renaissance certainly had an important influence on Abravanel, who lived the last years of his life exiled in Italy. At the same time, he is an heir to the Spanish Jewish culture in which the Kabbalah, considered a traditional revealed teaching, occupies a central place. It is exactly by going back to the Kabbalah that Abravanel affirms the idea of the transmigration of souls (gilgul ha-nefashoth) that circulate within their celestial world and reincarnate themselves in different human bodies – perhaps, actually in animals – in accordance with their merits and faults. A further elaboration of this conception concerns the reincarnation of the souls at the beginning of each new cosmic cycle.33 At the end of each cycle of 4,900 years, in fact, in the next millennium or
30 Cf. Bonfil, R. (ed.), Selected Chapters from Sefer Me’or ‘Einayim, Jerusalem, Bialik Institute, 1991. p. 30 (Hebrew). 31 Cf. Pagis, D., Change and Tradition in Hebrew Secular Poetry: Spain and Italy, Jerusalem, Ketter, 1976, esp. 283-5 (Hebrew); Andreatta, M., Poesia religiosa ebraica di età barocca, Padova, studi editoriale Gordini, 2007. 32 Cf. Netanyahu, B., Don Isaac Abravanel, Statesman and Philosopher, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953. 33 The idea of the transmigration of the soul is treated in his Commentary on Deuteronomy 25, 5-6, Jerusalem, Horev Publishers, 1997 (Hebrew); the idea of the reincarnation at the beginning of the cosmic cycles is in Mif‘aloth Elohim (The Deeds of God, Venice, 1592). On Abravanel's conception of the soul, compared with that of his contemporary Marsilio Ficino, see the ample analysis, Ogren, B., "Circularity, the Soul- Vehicle and the Renaissance Rebirth of Reincarnation: Marsilio Ficino and the Possibility of Transmigration,” in Accademia. Revue de la société Marsile Ficin VI, 2004, pp. 63-94 (now a chapter of Ogren’s Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2009). Ogren dwells particularly on the relationship between philosophical and theological thought in Ficino and in Abravanel. While the first, in order to justify the Platonic and Neoplatonic theory of transmigration from a Christian point of view, considers it a metaphor, the latter accepts the kabbalistic teaching without problems, which he sees as origins of analogous philosophical conceptions: Plato was a pupil of Jeremiah. 94 ALESSANDRO GUETTA cosmic jubilee, as matter becomes annihilated, the souls lose their individuality in order to become reabsorbed into the divine world. Everything begins anew – back to being materialized and the descent of the souls into bodies assigned to them – at the start of the next cycle. Despite attributing these doctrines to the Jewish tradition as revealed by God to the prophets, Abravanel feels compelled to justify them according to philosophical criteria. As has been noted,34 his sources are more Renaissance-Platonic than kabbalistic in the true sense: his continuous references to prisca theologia, to Hermes Trismegistus (who he identifies with ণanokh), to the “divine” Socrates and to Plato, render him as very likely a reader of Marsilio Ficino. Abravanel’s doctrine on the soul, therefore, belongs to a Renaissance thinker par excellence. Nevertheless, it does not seem that Italian Jewish thinkers of that period, or of successive periods, at least until the seventeenth century, were formulating such precise and articulate conceptions of the soul’s destiny in the afterlife, nor that they were embracing in such an explicit way the theory of transmigration, which, in the Jewish sphere, was only maintained by the kabbalists. Before the spread of Lurianic Kabbalah and the teaching of influential figures such as Moshe Zacuto (ca. 1610-1697), there are no comprehensive visions in Italy of the afterlife that are directly inspired by the Kabbalah.35 As a Jewish thinker, Yitzতaq Abravanel, although engaged in a philosophical culture of the Renaissance that was essentially Italian in origin, nevertheless should be considered as fully belonging to the Spanish philosophical-kabbalistic tradition.36
Elia Del Medigo (ca. 1458 – 1493), the ambiguity of a late Aristotelian
It is not surprising that Del Medigo, who can be identified as one of the last Jewish philosophers entirely faithful to the Aristotelian perspective,37
34 Ogren, “Circularity,” p. 90. 35 On the different attitudes of the Italian and Spanish Jews in regards to Kabbalah, see Idel, M., “Particularism and Universalism in Kabbalah,” in Ruderman, D. B. (ed.), Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, New York, New York University Press, 1992, pp. 324-44. 36 Leone Modena composed a book in 1636 against the belief in gilgul¸ Sefer Ben David, still in manuscript. Talya Fishman (Shaking the Pillars of Exile, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 204) assumes that with this book the Venetian Rabbi participated in the controversy between Saul Levi Mortera and Isaac Aboab de Fonseca on the destiny of the soul (on which, see below). 37 The judgment is commonly accepted by the historians of Jewish philosophy. Among the most recent, see Zonta, M., La filosofia ebraica medievale. Storia e testi, Roma, Editori laterza, 2002, p. 210. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 95 treats the subject of the immortality of the soul in an entirely different way. Del Medigo, originally of Crete, lived in Padua, possibly teaching at the prestigious university, a bastion of Aristotelianism, in which the most significant debates on the question of the soul took place. At the same time, he was the heir to a Jewish philosophical tradition that read Aristotle through Averroes’ commentaries and shared a great part of the positions of the Cordovan philosopher.38 Del Medigo expressed his thoughts on the question of the soul at the invitation of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, writing two treatises in Latin which he then himself translated into Hebrew: known as the “Questions on the soul.”39 As a good Aristotelian philosopher, Del Medigo assimilates the question of the soul into that of the intellect, bringing the subject of immortality back to a gnosiological level. The questions that he poses are the same that had occupied the Christian theologians: is the acquired intellect – a product of the union between the passive and active intellect – unique for all individuals, or should only individuals who reach such a condition be counted? In other words, do single intellects lose their individuality when they conceive of universal notions? The question was implicitly linked to that of the individual immortality of the soul – for Del Medigo does not note it – which would be inconceivable if the intellects united themselves in a universal intellect. The response of the Cretan philosopher is inspired by the “moderate” position of Averroes: the intellect under way is unique, but the paths to attaining the intelligible are numerous. It seems the reader is left to draw his own conclusions from this as to the immortality of the soul. One interesting aspect of these writings is the ambiguity with which the relationship between philosophy and religion is formulated. On the one hand, Del Medigo criticizes the Christian theologians, as well as the Jewish and Muslim ones, for mixing religion and philosophy: the idea that God has miraculously created individual and eternal souls, for example, could be, according to him, exactly what the Torah requires of every Jew to believe, but is unsubstantiated from a philosophical point of view. It is not surprising that the masses embrace such beliefs, argues Del Medigo, but the theologians should abstain from seeking rational justifications. Philosophy and religion, to which we can respectively
38 The most recent synthesis of Del Medigo’s thought is Feldman, S., “The End and Aftereffects of Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in Frank, D. H. and Leaman, O. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 414-45 (416-20). 39 Bland, K. P., “Elijah Del Medigo, Unicity of Intellect, and Immortality of Soul,” American Academy for Jewish Research LXI, 1995, pp. 1-22. 96 ALESSANDRO GUETTA apply reason and faith (emunah), should remain separate. On the other hand, having praised Aristotle and Averroes on their position vis-à-vis the intellect and the soul, Del Medigo denies that theirs is also his position. His belief, he states, is that of the Torah, and philosophy may contain elements that are contrary to it. This position must be compared with the one put forward later in ynath ha-dath (Examination of religion; composed in Candia in 1490ۊBe and published for the first time by Yitzতaq Shemuel Reggio in Vienna in ynath ha-dath is a book of small dimensions but remarkableۊBe .(1833 historical significance, such that it was considered by various scholars to be the swan song of medieval Jewish rationalism and the attempt to harmonize reason and revelation.40 In this work, Del Medigo refutes the claim that the method to apply to notions revealed prophetically (at least to the principal ones) is different from the method applied in philosophical research.41 This is not a question of theorizing a “double path” that leads to the same results: revealed religion and philosophy can in effect lead to different conclusions, and the attempts of rationalistic theologians (including Maimonides) to achieve a harmonization between the two ways are criticized for being neither truly religious nor truly philosophical.42 In case of contradiction between the two dispositions, the Jew must adhere to the Torah, which is certain, while philosophy – especially in the final phase of its research – has uncertain boundaries. The preference for religion, however, is valid so long as it does not oblige one to believe conceptual absurdities or to negate reasonable evidence, as is the case with Christianity: that irrational religion must be refuted. The fundamental notions of the Jewish religion, according to Del Medigo, even if they cannot – and should not – be demonstrated in a rational way, do not enter into opposition with the “first intelligibles,” which are naturally present in the human intellect.43 It is evident, he continues, that the ideas of the Jewish religion (including those concerning the soul) do not contradict those fundamental laws of the working of human thought: “Our holy Torah does not oblige us at all to believe in contradictory principles, nor to refute the first intelligibles, or to believe in concepts like to those first ones, or in reasonable
40 Cf. Sirat, C., La philosophie juive médiévale en Pays de Chrétienté, Paris, Presses du CNRS, 1988, p. 227. 41 Elijah del Medigo, Sefer Behinat ha-Dat, J. J. Ross (ed.), Tel Aviv, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1984. p. 78. 42 Ibid., 84. 43 Ibid., p. 81. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 97 experience”;44 an affirmation which seems in partial contradiction with that of his Latin works on the soul, and which casts some doubt on Del Medigo’s actual position.
Rhetoric and Religion: Yehudah Moscato (ca. 1530-ca. 1593)
The spiritual fervour of Moshe of Rieti, who makes use of both Neoplatonic and kabbalistic elements and builds upon an Aristotelian base, can be found a hundred years later in the work of one of the most refined intellectuals of sixteenth-century Jewish Italy, the Mantuan Yehudah Moscato.45 Moscato’s name is connected with two important works: the Qol Yehudah (The Voice of Yehuda, Venice, 1594) a comment in the Kuzary by Yehudah ha-Levy, that became classic, and the collection of sermons Nefutzoth Yehudah (The Dispersion of Yehudah, Venice, 1588). The issue of the soul is confronted directly in the second sermon of the collection. Here, one can find the same references as in Rieti, first of all to the desire (teshuqah)46 that God has placed in man so that he can rise up from the material objects to their first form and cause, God; then to the soul, also called in this text “daughter of the King”47, which has to be brought back to its celestial seat, but with care taken that it not sink into the material abyss; and finally to the intellectual character of this perfection, which corresponds to the eternal happiness described by the “medieval” philosophers, yth.48 The tzaddyq, the just man, is the one thatۊah nitzۊosher we-hatzla’ knows how to contemplate the divine truth in the correct way, “without distortion or confusion.” The contemplation that Moscato alludes to is probably not a simple knowledge of the argumentative type, but a disposition of the soul, which focuses on the eternal object of knowledge: Derekh tzaddyqym la‘ad, the path of the just is eternal... The just contemplate the firmament of the knowledge of His truth, which is blessed, without distortions or confusion, in such a way that their very direction
44 Ibid. 45 See Moscato, Judah b. Joseph, Sefer Nefutzoth Yehudah (The Book of The Dispersed Judah), Venice, 1589 (Hebrew); English: Judah Moscato’s Sermons: Edition and Translation, G. Veltri and G. Miletto (eds), Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2010; Shear, A., The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167-1900, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 135-68. 46 Nefutzoth Yehudah, f. 49v. I would like to thank Giuseppe Veltri, who drew my attention to these sermons. 47 Ibid., f. 52v. 48 Ibid., f. 52r. 98 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
(derekh) is the permanent and eternal intelligible. Their way of searching thus reaches a just and true knowledge of God.49 This contemplative outcome of knowledge, inspired by Maimonides, but also by Plato, does not exclude, or devalue, matter. On the contrary, for Moscato, only through an “internal alchemy” capable of transforming the elements without value into gold, or, in other words, elevating the lower components of the soul, will man “be united with his Creator in an eternal beatitude,”50 saved from the stormy ocean of the earthly world (zeman).51 If he does not practice this elevation of the material components of the soul, a reversal will occur and “its gold will become dull.” The elevation of the body, rather than its refusal, can be seen as a typical feature of the humanistic sensitivity, which disconnects itself from the ascetic disposition of medieval culture, be it Christian or Jewish. The immortality of the soul is not, in the work of Moscato, the result of rational argumentation typical of scholasticism, but rather the fundamental nucleus of a complex exegetical and rhetorical discourse.52 This is in agreement with the typology of these writings – that are sermons, not lessons – and is, on the other hand, in harmony with the Platonic inspiration of a good part of the Christian literature of his time known as “humanistic.”
The attempted dialogue with Christians
David de Pomi (1525 – 1593): Judaism as a religion based on ethics
The second half of the sixteenth, and the seventeenth century in Europe, are not only marked by the birth of a new science and a new rationality: this is also the period of a new devotion based on an interior vision: an exploration of the landscape of the soul. The transient nature of life as a valley of deception, corruption and sin, together with the longing for another purer dimension, not subject to the ravaging of time, were also commonplaces of the religious literature of the time. The Italian Jews shared the same sensitivity as the Christians; or at least, this was the face that they showed to the Christians when they wrote in Italian or translated into Italian some of their religious poetry. Indeed, many of the poetic translations made by Italian Jews from the
49 Ibid., f. 52v. 50 Ibid., f. 50v. 51 Ibid., f. 51v. 52 A more "technical" and traditional discourse on the remuneration of the soul in the afterlife can be found in sermon 41, ff. 193r-195r. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 99 end of the sixteenth to the first half of the seventeenth century had the soul as their subject or protagonist.53 The biblical translations and commentaries followed the same token. In 1572, the physician and lexicographer David de Pomi published a book in Venice entitled Discorso intorno a l’humana miseria, e sopr’al modo di fuggirla (Discourse on Human Misery, and on the way of escaping from it), which accompanied his Italian translation and commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes was seen (quite curiously, considering its plain meaning) as a text warning men against scepticism, pessimism and guilty over-indulgence in worldly pleasures. In his Discorso, De Pomi writes about the physical misery of man, from birth to old age, on man’s more common sins – particularly sexual ones – and on the behaviour of the righteous. The first part of the book “shows that human happiness is in the future, not in this transient and frail life.” The commentary on Ecclesiastes itself is replete with references to the true happiness of the afterlife. The verse 10, 15, “The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city” has, for example, this commentary: As it occurs to the peasant, who, not aware of the refined pleasure of the town, does not want to leave the freedom of the farm, in spite of the efforts it demands, it happens to the stupid man: he does not understand the delights of Paradise and therefore devotes himself to earthly pleasures. At the end of the day, he will receive eternal suffering.54 In this commentary De Pomi, as had Ficino and all the spiritualist thinkers, takes Epicurus and his materialist followers as the main adversaries because, De Pomi writes, they affirmed that the soul perished with the body and followed the concupiscent desires because they did not believe in the eternal good. (f. 12v). De Pomi was a Jew who wrote in Italian and addressed a Christian- Italian audience. Interestingly enough, he chose a philosophical-moral text from his own Jewish tradition in order to illustrate a universal moral discourse. He probably assumed – as more explicitly demonstrated by another Latin work of his, De medico haebreo enarratio apologica
53 Besides the Italian translations of the chapter of Rieti’s Miqdash Me‘at mentioned above, an interesting work is L’angelica tromba, Ferrara, 1589, by Yoতanan Yehudah ben Shelomo Alatrini, which contains the Italian translation in terza rima (the meter of Dante’s Divina Commedia) of the piyyut Barekhy Nafshy by R. Baতya b. Joseph. 54 “Si come interviene al rustico, che per non conoscere le delicattezze della città, non si vuol partir dalla libertà della villa, ancor che piena di fatica gli sia, cosi parimente occorrere allo stolto: il quale, per non comprendere le delicie del paradiso, se dà agli piaceri terreni: onde poi gli ne succede un’eterno stento” (f. 37r). 100 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
(Apologetic Discourse on the Jewish Physician, Venice 1588) – that fundamental religious and moral values were shared by Christians and Jews, especially the condemnation of the flesh and the exaltation of the immortal spirit, and that these values were rooted in the Jewish tradition. In De Pomi’s work as a whole, some clear hints to a common religious outlook can be found, going back to the biblical figure of Abraham, albeit with some reservations, Islam is not excluded from this “universal” attitude.55
Sara Copio Sullam: the immortality of the soul as a shared value of Jews and Christians
One of the more interesting examples of a common ground based on the belief of the immortality of the soul, is the debate that took place in Venice in 1621.56 In that year, a young Jewish woman, Sara Copio Sullam, published a Manifesto in which she publicly defended herself against accusations of denying the immortality of the soul.57 Renowned for her literary skills, and for presiding over a salon littéraire, Sara Copio was herself a poet writing in Italian. Her well-known correspondence with the poet Ansaldo Cebà, started by Sara who read and admired Cebà’s poem ‘Ester,’ is an eloquent example of Baroque literature, and illustrates how Christians were not ready to accept the idea that a talented Jew could participate in the world of general culture while remaining a Jew: Cebà tried in almost every letter to convince the “beautiful Jewess” to convert to Christianity, but with no success.58 But let us go back to the debate that took place in 1621. The Christian intellectual, Baldassare Bonifaccio, who would later become Bishop of Capo d’Istria, began a religious-philosophical exchange with Sara Copio on the questions of the immortality of the soul and original sin. The Venetian Jewess addressed him in a letter in which
55 Cf. Guetta, A., “Ebraismo come nazione e come religione universale,” Italia 19, 2, 2009, pp. 23-42. 56 The bibliography on Sara Copio Sullam is by now quite rich. The most comprehensive contribution is Fortis, U., La “bella ebrea”. Sara Copio Sullam poetessa nel ghetto di Venezia del ‘600, Turin, S. Zamorani, 2003, with Sara’s sonnets. The controversy between Bonifaccio and Copio Sullam is acutely analyzed against the context of the philosophy and theology of the time by Giuseppe Veltri, in Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb: Foundations and Challenges in Judaism on the Eve of Modernity, Leiden, Brill, 2009, pp. 226-48. 57 Manifesto di Sarra Copia Sulam Hebrea. Nel quale è da lei riprovata e detestata l’opinione negante l’immortalità dell’anima, falsamente attribuitale dal Sig. Baldassare Bonifaccio, Venice, 1621. 58 Cebà, A., Lettere di Ansaldo Cebà scritte a Copio e dedicate a Marc’Antonio Doria, Genoa, 1623. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 101 she denied the hereditary character of Adam’s sin. A soul, she argued, is not passed on to the next generation, and furthermore the stain of the original sin is not transmitted. In addition to these arguments, most probably inspired by the Venetian Rabbi Leon of Modena – a close acquaintance of Copio59 – she added some additional hypotheses concerning the eternal nature of matter; which elicited in turn a strong reply from Bonifaccio. In his reply, the Discorso sull’immortalità dell’anima, a work trying to synthesize the traditional demonstrations of the theological- philosophical tradition, Bonifaccio denounced publicly the heterodoxy of such ideas.60 He stated that, by denying the immortality of the soul, Sara Copio chose to accept the authority of Aristotle and the plague-ridden doctrine of Epicurus over the “oracles of the prophets.” Bonifaccio added that these doctrines were clearly affirmed in the scriptures, and that by denying them Sara separated herself from her own people. Even though Bonifaccio was adamant that Sara should convert if she wanted her soul to become immortal, one nevertheless notes that the controversy was based much more upon a difference of ideas than it was upon religious affiliation. As a matter of fact, argued the Christian Bonifaccio, by not accepting the immortality of the soul Sara was renouncing a doctrine of her own religion, a doctrine that her fellow Jews
59 Cf. the translation of Qol sakhal (“Voice of a Fool”), possibly written by Leone Modena, and particularly the chapter on the immortality of the soul, in Fishman, Shaking the Pillars of Exile, pp. 90-92. For the Hebrew version, see Isacco Reggio, Examen Traditionis. Duo inedita et poene incognita Leonis Mutinensis Opuscula Complectens, Gorizia, 1852, pp. 13-15. The author of Qol sakhal argued – probably quoting a passage from Gersonides (The Wars of the Lord: Book One: The Immortality of the Soul, S. Feldman (trans.), p. 120) – that there are no decisive demonstrations of the immortality of the soul, and even less scriptural proofs. He nevertheless writes, “analysis greatly inclines – if it does not compel us – to believe that the soul has existence after the death of the body” (Shaking the Pillars of Exile, p. 91). This analysis was grounded on the superiority of Man – as an intellectual being – over other animals. Were his intellect mortal, Man – who foresees his physical death – would be less happy than other animals, and therefore inferior to them. In the same period and in the same city, Paolo Sarpi, the official religious consultant of the Venetian Republic, denied human superiority based on intellect, and maintained that the immortality of the soul was but a human projection. See Frajese, V., “Maimonide, il desiderio di immortalità e l'immagine de Dio. Problemi di interpretazione dell'insegnamento esoterico di Sarpi,” in Ripensando Paolo Sarpi, Venezia, 2006, pp. 153-81. This idea, together with other similar conceptions that crossed the frontiers of atheism, was contained in the so-called “esoteric writings” of Sarpi, obviously unpublished during the author’s lifetime. Cf. Sarpi, P., Pensieri naturali, metafisici e matematici, L. Cozzi and L. Sosio (eds), Milan, R. Ricciardi, 1995. 60 Bonifaccio, B., Dell’immortalità dell’anima. Discorso di Baldassare Bonifaccio, Venice, Pinelli, 1621. Available at the digital library of Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/83-12-quod-3 (accessed November 2010). 102 ALESSANDRO GUETTA subscribed to. The controversy had thus, implicitly, and notwithstanding the declarations of the Christian side, crossed the boundaries of religions. Sara replied with her Manifesto, in which she vigorously denied that she was questioning the immortality of the soul. In the context of her argument, the inter-religious character of this religious idea is stressed. Sara Copio places this emphasis in strategic parts of her text, both at the beginning and at the end of it. In her address “To the reader,” she announces that the controversy is vain, because no one, Jewish or Christian, can contradict the immortality of the soul. The text itself starts with a series of vigorous affirmations: The soul of man, Mr. Baldassare, is incorruptible, immortal, and divine. It is innate, a creation of God in our bodies at the very moment when our organized being is ready, in the maternal womb, to receive it. This truth is as certain and infallible for me as it is – I believe – for every Jew and every Christian … so much so that I have asked myself, what good does it serve to present such a treatise now, and especially here in Venice, what purpose does it serve to publish such things among Christians? As a conclusion, Sara wrote: “Live happily and hope that the immortality that you preach will be yours if you indeed live by following your Christian law, just as I declare to follow my Jewish law.” Sara Copio thus defended the legitimacy of her own religion, while simultaneously expressing her respect for an equally legitimate Christianity. Incidentally, in another passage of her Manifesto she referred to Jesus as the “Christ,” that is, the Messiah, and she praised him for his response to the Sadduceans, who themselves denied the immortality of the soul (the same Sadduceans who had aroused the sympathy of Uriel da Costa, as we shall see). At the same time, Sara Copio demonstrated her fidelity to Judaism, writing that devotion to Jewish Law constrained her from attacking Baldassare too vigorously: let us note here the moral dimension of this remark, which a Christian reader could perfectly understand. In other words, she suggested that Judaism, no less than Christianity, was a religion of humility and of authentic devotion. Sara explicitly refused to engage in a religious controversy with Baldassare, as she did in correspondence with Cebà.61 The only religious values she was ready to share with their Christian correspondents were devotion and the immortality of the soul.
61 Cf. Da Fonseca-Wollheim, C., “Acque di Parnaso, acque di Battesimo: fede e fama nell’opera di Sara Copio Sullam,” in Honess, C. E. and Jones, V. R. (eds), Le donne delle minoranze. Le ebree e le protestanti d’Italia, Turin, Claudiana, 1999, pp. 159-70. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 103
This moral and devotional aspect of Judaism, which would have confused Christians who regarded Judaism as a lower form of religion – or a sort of sub-species in the Homo-religiosus category – is illustrated by some of the sonnets that Sara Copio composed for other occasions. One of the sonnets begins with an invocation to God: O Lord, You who observe the perpetual burning of My heart for You as an holocaust; You who know that a desire other than a fragile honour Pushes me to implore You, shedding tears.62 In another sonnet she addresses the soul: O you, divine form of the mortal life And sublime goal of God’s work.63 She ends with a reminder of the impossibility of human reasoning comprehending the ephemeral as well as the divine worlds. In this common-ground dialogue (the sonnets of Sara Copio make no mention of sectarian affiliation), and within the context of those Italian and European intellectual and religious scenes that departed progressively from scholasticism, Jewish religious spirit is described as equally intense as Christianity, and thus fully comprehensible to Christians. A dividing line was increasingly drawn, not so much between different religions, as between believers and non-believers, between religious men and atheists. Concerning the question of the immortality of the soul, Jews and Christians could fully concur with each other, together differentiating themselves from materialists.
The tragic consequences of the issue: the case of Uriel da Costa
The dramatic episode of the converso Uriel da Costa is the only case of a public controversy on the immortality of the soul that took place within the Jewish community; but this happened in the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, whose social and intellectual composition was very peculiar. Uriel da Costa believed that the soul was not at all a separate substance but resided in the blood, and therefore was mortal: a position that stood in total contradiction with the rabbinic teaching. Materialism – if not atheism – penetrated into Judaism, via the former Iberian
62 In Fortis, U., La bella ebrea, p. 115: “Signor, che dal mio petto arderti avanti / Mai sempre scorgi in olocausto il core / E sai ch’altro desìo che frale onore / M’instiga a porger preghi, a versar pianti.” 63 Ibid., p. 123: “O di vita mortal forma divina / E dell’opre di Dio mèta sublime.” 104 ALESSANDRO GUETTA conversos.64 Rather than enter into details of this process here we need only remark that the intense polemic was carried out primarily in Portuguese: both da Costa’s Exame das tradições phariseas (1624) and the related Samuel da Silva’s Tratado da immortalitade da alma (1623) were written in this language;65 so also were the texts on the same issue authored by Moses Raphael d’Aguilar66 and Isaac Cardoso67. Menashe ben Israel wrote in Spanish and Latin. In 1568, Daniel Arón Afia had already published in Spanish Las Opiniones sacadas de los más auténticos y antigos philósofos que sobre la alma escrivieron y sus definiciones (The Opinions of the most authentic and ancient philosophers who wrote about the soul, and their definitions).68 To sum up: when the Jews devoted specific texts to the immortality of the soul, either emphasizing the ethical and devotional aspect of the topic, or its problematic side, they did so in Latin or in their various vernacular languages, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and not in Hebrew. An exception are the books written in Hebrew by the three main rabbis of Amsterdam, Saul Levi Morteira, Isaac Aboab de Fonseca69 and Menashe ben Israel; but Levi Morteira’s text was never published and is now lost70; and as for Menashe ben Israel’s Hebrew text, Nishmath
64 Yosef Kaplan uses the word “karaite,” referring to the texts of some excommunications pronounced in Amsterdam. See Kaplan, Y., An Alternative Path to Modernity. The Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2000. 65 Costa, U. da, “Examination of Pharisaic Traditions. Exame das tradições phariseas.” Supplemented by Semuel da Silva’s “Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul. Tratado da immortalidade da alma,” translation, notes and introduction H. P. Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon, Leiden, Brill, 1993. 66 Aguilar, M. R. d’, Reposta a certas propostas contra a tradição, still in manuscript. Cf. An Alternative Path to Modernity, p. 245. He also wrote a Tratado da immortalidad da alma (Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul), on which see De Jong, M., “O ‘Tratado da Immortalidade da Alma’ de Moses Rephael de Aguilar,” Biblos 10, 1934, pp. 488-99. I thank Mrs Sina Rauschenbach, who is preparing a book on Menashe ben Israel, for her kind advice and help on bibliographical questions. 67 Cardoso, I., Las excelencias de los hebreos, Amsterdam, 1679. On Cardoso see Yerushalmi, Y. H., From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto. Isaac Cardoso: A Study in Seventeenth Century Marranism and Jewish Apologetics, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1981. 68 Nelson Novoa, J. W., “Las Opiniones sacadas de los más auténticos y antigos philósofos que sobre la alma escrivieron y sus definiciones, de Daniel Arón Afia,” Sefarad 68, 1, 2008, pp. 89-103. 69 On Aboab, see Orfali, M., Isaac Aboab da Fonseca. Jewish Leadership in the New World, Brighton, Sussex Academic Press, 2010. 70 See Saperstein, M., “Saul Levi Morteira’s Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul," Studia Rosenthaliana 25, 2, 1991, pp. 131-48. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 105
ayyim (Living Soul),71 it was apparently more successful among theۉ Christians than among the Jews.72 We can thus speak of a common Jewish-Christian view on the immortality of the soul in Italy, and an internal Jewish controversy in Amsterdam, which ended with the opening of a dialogue with the Christians. We can consider these two historical events as the manifestations of the same phenomenon: a growing commonality of religious interests among Jews and Christians focused on that issue. After all, the Jewish reaction in Amsterdam against the materialistic positions of Da Costa was in unison with the Christian position and, indeed, was possibly determined by it, as Steven Nadler convincingly argues with regard to the partially similar case of Spinoza.73 Another possible conclusion is that the Jews did not consider the immortality of the soul to be a problematic issue of their own religious and philosophical thought: they did not write specific texts on it, nor did they engage in any controversy. When they did, they wrote for non- Jewish readers – like Pico della Mirandola – or for Jewish readers with a Christian education, as was the case in Amsterdam. After all, Menashe ben Israel was turning towards the Christians in order to create, along with them, a common front against those who denied the immortality of the soul, exactly as was happening in Venice at the same time, albeit in a less direct way, in the polemic between Sara Copio and Baldassare Bonifaccio.74
.ayyim. Kolel derushym ‘al ‘inyian ha-neshamah (Anima viventeۉ Nishmath 71 Discorsi sulla questione dell’anima), Amsterdam, 1651 or 1652. 72 An important controversy, linked to the subject of the immortality of the soul, took place in Amsterdam between two rabbis: Saul Levi Morteira and Isaac Aboab de Fonseca; the first maintained the eternity of punishment for great sins, such as apostasy, which included the numerous ex-conversos present in the city. The second, through the kabbalistic theory of the gilgul, affirmed that even a sinful soul could end up being completely purified. Cf. Altmann, A., “Eternality of Punishment: A Theological Controversy within the Amsterdam Rabbinate in the Thirties of the Seventeenth Century,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 40, 1972, pp. 1-88. 73 Nadler, S., Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002. 74 I quote from Sina Rauschenbach’s paper "Mediating Jewish Knowledge. Menasse ben Israel and the Christian Respublica Litteraria" still unpublished. Menasse himself explained: denial of resurrection implied the denial of religion as such, and denial of religion implied the denial of law and thus the denial of any ordered human society. Jews and Christians should ally to defend the notion “because we all do worship one God, submit to His commandments and expect a better life after the difficulties of this life on earth. Hence, our effort aims at nothing less than having everybody eventually arrive at an understanding that in dealing with that most necessary resurrection we must find a common position against the Sadducees, who are destroying souls and states in an 106 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
The Jews generally believed in the immortality of the soul, shared quite naturally this conviction with the Christians, and both were concerned with the dangers of materialism and atheism to the extent of making the basis of a common intellectual ground. But they did not live the experience described by Uriel da Costa when he wrote about his “Christian years” in Portugal: In truth, the most distressful and wretched time in my life was when I believed that eternal bliss or misery awaited man and that according to his works he would earn that bliss or that misery.75
Salomone Fiorentino: Jewish ideas in Italian poetry
Salomone Fiorentino (Monte San Savino, Arezzo, 1743-Florence, 1815) lived in a later period than the one taken into consideration for the purposes of this chapter. Nevertheless, this poet, who despite his excellent knowledge of Hebrew wrote exclusively in Italian, can be seen in a line of continuity with the other authors considered thus far; at the same time, he represents, in a certain sense, the point at which Italian Jews arrived at modernism. Fiorentino was at the same time, culturally and politically, a Francophile and anti-materialist, an admirer of scientific progress, and of a profoundly religious spirit.76 The histories of Italian literature, though not neglecting him completely, reserve a very limited space for him and do not sufficiently explicate the contribution that he made to Italian literature by his use of some typically Jewish subjects; while histories of Jewish culture – which pass him by almost completely – might profit were they to see him as the one who, having stripped himself of the abnormal way.” (M. Ben Israel, De resurrectione mortuorum libri III, Amsterdam, 1636, Epistola dedicatoria.) 75 Da Costa, Examination of Pharisaic Traditions, 34. 76 In 1799 Fiorentino witnessed the anti-Jewish violence of the reactionary groups called "Viva Maria!" and found refuge in Florence, which was occupied by the French at the time. In the Tuscan capital he found the support of the commander of the French detachment, general Sextius Alexandre de Miollis. Cf. Milan, G., under "Fiorentino, Salomone,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto della enciclopedia Italiana, 1997, vol. 48, pp. 160-62. In 1805 he composed the short poem "La giornata di Austerlitz " (Austerlitz day) (published in Livorno, 1840) and translated "Il Tempio di Gnido" (Gnido's temple) by Montesquieu (in Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, Florence 1826, vol. 2, pp. 52-114), a poem in which sentiment is exulted while sensuality is criticized. For historical context on Fiorentino, see also, Gli Ebrei a Monte San Savino, Comune di Monte San Savino, 1994, with bibliography; Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2007, sub voce; and, for literary history, Nicoletti, G., “Le ‘Elegie’ di Salomone Fiorentino: una fonte per i Canti pisano-recanatesi?” in Martelli, M., (ed.), Una giornata leopardiana in ricordo di Walter Binni, Rome, Bulzoni, 2000, pp. 123-30. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 107 language of his own religious tradition, and avoided explicit references to it, presented nevertheless its values in a Western language, translating them both linguistically and conceptually. Jewish subjects are already present in Fiorentino’s youthful sonnets. In fact, it was not common, at the end of the eighteenth century, to put in verse such subjects as the universal flood, Elia’s ascent to Heaven, a “Comparison between Jefte and Abraham,” or to respond poetically to the question: “One searches for the reason why the Mosaic law instils the duties of the son towards the father and silences the duties of the father towards the son.”77 We should not let ourselves be misled by these themes: despite their didactic-moralistic character, the fluidity of expression and the sincerity of the author render these compositions perfectly appreciable even for a modern reader. The relative fame of Fiorentino, however, has to do with the Elegie (elegies), written on the occasion of the death of his wife, especially the first three of the six he composed: ‘The disease,’ ‘The death,’ and ‘The vision.’78 With utmost sincerity, without hesitating to capture his most painful emotions, which in some cases were contradictory, Fiorentino runs through the stages of an event fundamental to his existence, as well as for his philosophical-religious conceptions. It is a cathartic journey which attempts to give sense to an incurable injury and, in effect, even after having received a nocturnal vision of his wife, who reveals to him how unjustified is suffering for an earthly loss, the author still finds no peace: “But sighing, I still search for comfort.”79 Written in hendecasyllabic tercets – the meter of the Divine Comedy – these Elegie are rich in references to Dante and Petrarch. In her posthumous apparition, the wife exhibits many of the characteristics of Dante’s Beatrice: the poet does not see her again as she was at her death but “[i]n that amorous state, and that countenance / that would transform men into gods.”80 This donna angelicata, who transforms men into divine beings, is seen glowing with celestial light, while remaining, at the same time, humble and noble: The face seemed lovingly humble: And from the damp eyes a certain ray Superhuman, it rained, noble.81
77 Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, Pisa, 1803. 78 Elegie di Salomone Fiorentino in morte di Laura sua moglie, Arezzo, 1789. 79 Ibid., p. 24 “Ma sospirando ancor cerco il conforto.” 80 Ibid., p. 20 “in tal atto amoroso, e in tal sembiante / che trasformati avria gli uomini in Dei.” 81 Ibid., p. 21 “Serbava il volto amabilmente umile / E dagli occhi umidetti un certo raggio / Sovrumano piovea, e signorile.” 108 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
This eighteenth-century Beatrice, however, was also reminiscent of Petrarch’s Laura (Fiorentino’s wife was indeed called Laura Gallico): “Her dress was white and scattered in the aura,”82 and the poet, prey to his unsatisfied desire to find his wife again, “pushes like mad, the wandering and empty foot.”83 In these Elegie, the reference to God is both discrete and evident at the same time, for despite the pain, the author worships with devout thoughts and words a God “arcanely just,”84 Power and Will, that liked to separate the two halves of one whole.85 There is not a single reference that is explicitly Jewish in these verses; a Christian could equally well have written the Jewish Fiorentino’s declarations of intense religiosity. It is the social references of his poetry that render Fiorentino an explicitly Jewish author. The loved woman in this Elegia is not a young and beautiful lover to whom the author is linked with a consuming passion, but a wife who passes away at the age of forty-five. The spectators to the author’s pain are his children: reunited around the dinner table, they recall to reality – and to his responsibility – the father who dreamily sought, in their manners, something of his dead wife. The theatre and witness of his excruciating solitude is the nuptial bed; a “disturbing pity” pushes the poet to rediscover what, by now, was only “a field devoid of love.”86 It can be noted that these are the elements of a bourgeois poetry, in which there is nothing typically Jewish. Yet, it is exactly these elements that betray a mandatory choice, dependent upon the social situation and the cultural tradition of the Italian Jews. Along with Jews in other countries, Italian Jews saw in the family the initial – and fundamental – nucleus of society, without possible deviations. The Jewish community, it should be noted, was a micro-society, founded upon religion, which admitted the bond, even if only sentimental, between man and woman only within the limits of marriage. Only the comic literature of medieval Spain and that of Immanuel da Roma (ca. 1261, after 1328) alluded to extra-marital love, usually in the form of erotic adventures. Stories of amorous passions are, therefore, almost entirely absent in the Jewish literary corpus and no inspirational muses exist. On the other hand, one cannot find in the history of Jewish
82 Ibid. The expression is clearly inspired by the famous verse of Petrarch "Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi" (Canzoniere, sonnet XC). 83 Ibid., p. 19. Compare with sonnet XXXV of Petrarch's Canzoniere: "Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi / vo mesurando a passi tardi e lenti.” 84 Ibid., p. 22. 85 Ibid., p. 19. 86 Ibid., p. 15. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 109 culture – again, apart from medieval Spain and the brief period in which Immanuel wrote – an autonomous artistic sphere. The Jews did not have circles, academies, literary currents and clubs, or patrons.87 Moreover, the artist, as such, did not have his own legitimacy: in order to write poetry, he first had to demonstrate that he had been engaged in the study of the Talmud and religious law. Literature was a hobby, not a profession, and allowed only if religious duties had been fulfilled. The absence of a cultural and artistic sphere from the socio-religious sphere, which itself was founded upon the family and the community, leads to the superimposition of the two spheres. The inspiration behind poetic verses could then be a wife; the drama and the events, the subject of the poetry, would be those that make up family or community life: a wedding, the death of an eminent rabbi or a wife. Being inspired by the death of a wife to write poetry is an extremely rare circumstance, almost non-existent, in the history of Italian literature.88 Salomone Fiorentino, however, has an illustrious precedent in the history of Italian Jewish literature, the poet and philosopher Moshe of Rieti, whom we have already mentioned. Moshe’s elegy, composed on the death of his wife and cited above, is a text, interwoven, as was customary, with biblical and Talmudic references but written in original meter and, above all, expressing a strong and sincere emotion. This poem, too, just like Fiorentino’s, presents different stages of the process of loss of a loved one: the announcement of death, the pain of the poet and the lengthy elaboration of the bereavement. A celestial vision of the wife, which contains not Dantesque but kabbalistic references, is present as well. If Fiorentino’s wife passed away at the age of forty-five (and the husband feels the duty to justify the composition of a poem in memory of a wife who is not much younger89), the wife of Rieti was actually seventy on her death: this, however, did not diminish the pungent
87 An exception is represented by the literary and scientific academies, created by the former conversos in the Sephardic communities, such as Amsterdam and Livorno. These academies were inspired by the Spanish model and their activities and productions were essentially in Spanish. For Livorno, see Frattarelli Fischer, L., Vivere fuori dal ghetto. Ebrei a Pisa e Livorno (secoli XVI-XVIII), Torino, S. Zamorani, 2008, p. 167. 88 A remarkable exception is the case of the humanist Giovanni Pontano (1426-1503), author of the collection of lyric poems De amore coniugali. On this work, see Monti Sabia, L., "Un canzoniere per una moglie,” in Catanzaro, G. and Santucci, F. (eds), Poesia umanistica latina, Assisi, Centro studi poesia latina, 1999. 89 Elegie, op. cit., 3: “Che un Marito pianga la propria Moglie rapita da morte nel fiore degli anni è certamente facil cosa a truovarsi; ma che un Marito pianga una Consorte quasi novilustre, e colle lacrime del più acerbo dolore, non è facil pruova della moderna coniugale sensibilità.” 110 ALESSANDRO GUETTA emotions of the surviving husband. In this fifteenth-century elegy, the wife is also described in a familiar context, as a wise educator of the children. Here too, the drama of the insane and useless search of the widower is domestic. It is his own house that admonishes him: “I look for her, agitated, as a madman, all over the house, saying to myself: ‘My sister90, perhaps I will find you, I have been accustomed to your image in this place, for more than fifty years.’ But at the fall of night, a stone screams from the wall: ‘What are you looking for? The superior forces have won, they have imprisoned her in a coffin, stretched out.’” The resemblance between the two poems, so distant in time, is remarkable. As mentioned above, the wife of Salomone Fiorentino appears before the husband in a nocturnal vision. In her visit she announces a consoling truth: the true life is not the earthly one; mourning the death of a dear person, therefore, is unjustifiable: Life is this one that Time does not measure The one whose face is the Always, and its reverse is the Never While it runs blessed and goes secure91 In this life without time, the immortal souls of the husband and wife will reunite in happiness. In a fourth elegy, entitled ‘La rimembranza’ (Remembrance), the poet returns to his mistake, a result of the senses, which consists of taking a divine favour for an injury: instead of suffering over the death of his wife, he should have been happy about the passing of her soul on to eternal life. The fifth and sixth elegies are entirely dedicated to a reflection upon time and eternity. The subject of the immortality of the soul is present in other writings by Salomone Fiorentino: a lengthy composition entitled ‘The spirituality and immortality of the soul,’92 and an intervention in a polemic on the subject with several Italian rabbis.93 In none of these texts does the author refer to the sources of the Jewish tradition – biblical or rabbinic – as authoritative. The arguments are always either rational or religious, but never confessional. Eighteenth-century rationalism no longer ran in parallel to revealed religion, as had been the case in medieval theology, but was completely disinterested in revelation as a source of truth, even when it evidently took on a religious tone. Mendelssohn’s Phädon is the
90 Reference to Song of Songs, 4, 9: “My sister, my bride.” 91 Elegie, p. 22, “Vita è quella che il Tempo non misura / Quella che in faccia ha il sempre, e a tergo il mai /Mentre scorre beata, e và secura.” 92 In Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, Florence, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 7-52. 93 Cf. Malkiel, D., “The Rimini Papers: A Resurrection Controversy in Eighteenth Century Italy,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 11, 2, 2002, pp. 89-115. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 111 best example of a work on the immortality of the soul, founded on rational arguments while permeated with religious spirit. At the time, the Athenian setting of the dialogue obviously (and voluntarily) impedes any recourse to the texts and traditions of the European religions, Christianity and Judaism. One of these texts by Fiorentino has, in actuality, an explicit religious content: in order to write on a noble subject such as the immortality of the soul, the poet evokes God in a way that is reminiscent of Maimonides’ conception: “Of each cause first Cause / Being necessary and infinite.”94 Criticizing several materialist conceptions, the poet insists on the idea that “beyond the tomb / life can be found.” One of the most significant arguments used to sustain this idea is based on the claim that in nature nothing is destroyed but everything is transformed; life and death are not as disjointed as they appear to the senses but exist in reality in a relationship of continuity. If this is true for matter, why should it not be true for the soul as well?95 What happens to the soul after death, however, remains a mystery, as is its connection to the body; the only thing that can be affirmed is its immortality. All the ways of the Lord are likewise mysterious – here we are reminded of God “arcanely just” of the first elegy. A century and a half after Sara Copio, Fiorentino insists on this aspect of divinity: His laws and His designs are “arcane” and incomprehensible to the limited knowledge of humans. This, however, can be confirmed of God with certainty: that He is absolutely just and infinitely good. A good and just God, wrapped nevertheless in mystery as to his essence (which does not hinder rendering him the possible subject of a fervent cult); an immortal soul: these seem to be the religious notions that the Italian Jews bring with them when, stripped of explicit references to Judaism but undoubtedly nourished by its conceptions, they turn towards a non- Jewish audience.96
94 Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, op. cit., p. 7. 95 This argumentation is similar to the one developed at length by Mendelssohn in his Phädon. 96 In 1924, Emmanuele Benamozegh gave a lecture entitled Behind the Curtain of Life, or about the Immortality of the Soul (“Dietro il sipario della vita, ovvero della immortalità dell’anima umana,” Livorno, 1924). Emmanuele was the son of a well-known Rabbi, the philosopher and kabbalist Elijah Benamozegh, a prolific author who wrote a text deducing the immortality of the soul from implicit Biblical allusions. See Benamozegh, E., Dietro il sipario della vita ovvero della immortalità dell’anima umana, Livorno, 1924. The son, while insisting on the presence of that belief within traditional Judaism, also believed that the immortality of the soul was a universal truth and could possibly establish a common religious ground. 112 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
The religious language of the Italian Jews, from the end of the eighteenth century onwards, should very likely not have been very different, whether it was directed inward, to their community, or outward. The Mantuan poet, translator, and “anthropologist” Shemuel Romanelli (1757-1814), an “intellectual” in the modern sense, is an eloquent example of this orientation. He published, in Berlin in 1792 a nakhon (A just ۊshort Hebrew poem of thirty sestinas, entitled Rua spirit) and was dedicated to a protagonist of the Berliner Haskalah, David Friedländer.97 In this composition, Romanelli took on the religio-philosophical subject of the immortality of the soul or, more precisely, the existence of an entity called soul that transcends matter. He did so in a sophisticated biblical Hebrew – so much so that he felt compelled to clarify his own verses with annotations – and, therefore, with evident references to the Jewish tradition. His form of argumentation, however, has nothing confessional. Just like Fiorentino, Romanelli does not impart the biblical text, nor the rabbinic affirmations, as sources of authority; his argumentation is based on logic and observation; a method that does not, however, succeed in arriving at exact and certain results. If the enemies are indeed the materialists, who maintain that soul and thought are one unique whole, and are tightly connected to the body, the response of the author, beyond the statement of an admired vision of the universe in which all elements are connected among themselves in a beautiful harmony, cannot go beyond the proclamation of the mystery: But what is this link, and what is the soul? And matter, what is it? Who could say, who would know it all and could explain it? … Everything has a force (an invisible hand operates in it with its law) which maintains it: this is its soul, its life, without which there would be chaos.98 Every being, therefore, has a soul, and the universe is described as a hierarchy of beings equipped with forces, that is, of more and more noble
97 In Shemuel Romanelli, Masa‘ ba-a‘rav, J. ণ. Schirmann (ed.), Jerusalem, Schocken Institute, 1968, pp. 158-69 (Hebrew). Masa‘ ba-‘arav, Romanelli's most famous work, which lends the title of this collection of writings, is the chronicle of a long sojourn of the author in Morocco. It has been translated by N. Stillman and Y. Stillman, Travail in an Arab Land, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama, Press, 1989. On Romanelli see Schirmann, J. ণ., Romanelli, ha-meshorer we-ha-noded (R., the Poet and the traveller), Jerusalem, Bialik Institute, 1969 (Hebrew); and Romanelli, S., Visioni d’Oriente. Itinirerari di un ebreo italiano nel Marocco del Settecento, A. Salah (ed.), Florence, Giuntina, 2006. 98 Masa‘ ba‘rav, p. 165. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 113 souls that little by little go up in the hierarchy. This is as far as human knowledge can reach, no further; whoever is pushed by arrogance beyond these limits runs the risk of being intellectually affected, affirms Romanelli in a manner reminiscent of another Mantuan poet of the previous century, Ya‘aqov Francès.99 Having once affirmed – without having explained – the existence of the soul, Romanelli asks himself if it is indeed immortal. Even here, apart from an attempt to show proof based on this very question that men pose, thereby showing themselves different from animals, the author is not capable of furnishing real demonstrations. His argument comes down to a version of the famous “bet” of Pascal: What do you lose, if you believe? What do you not lose, if you do not believe? You could not, however, understand, even if you give it your best.100 Quite paradoxically, Romanelli’s religiosity, though expressed in Hebrew, is not directly inspired by Jewish sources, while that is not the case with Fiorentino. Salomone Fiorentino, who wrote exclusively in Italian, was no doubt a religious man. While his religious fervour went beyond the boundaries of one religion, it was nevertheless grounded in Judaism. The exchange of sonnets between the poet Corilla Olympica, who presided over a literary academy, and Fiorentino, who had just been admitted into it, is revealing. Olympica is surprised by the personality of the poet: Destiny has looked kindly on my wish It has allowed me to finally meet you And to discover that in your poems there is a God Who inspires you with strange and unknown grace … If I were to gaze upon you with surprise What would then occur if by the same path I was to rediscover the truth?101
99 Francés, however, called for prudence in the polemic with the affirmations of the kabbalists, who claimed to know the secrets of the universe and the divine world. See Ruderman, D. B., Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995; Guetta, A., “Un cabbalista nel secolo della scienza,” in Luzzatto, G. and Locci, A. (eds.), Ramhal. Pensiero ebraico e Kabbalah tra Padova ed Eretz Israel, Padua, Esedra, 2010. 100 Masa‘ ba‘rav, 168. It is interesting to note that Romanelli refers, in the notes, to the book of Menashe Ben Israel De la Resurrección de los muertos, Amsterdam, 1636. 101 Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, Pisa, 1803, p. 17. “Fu propizia la sorte al desir mio, / Che pur mi dié di rimirarti alfine, / E ne’ tuoi carmi, ravvisar che un Dio / Grazie t’ispira 114 ALESSANDRO GUETTA
The God that is described here could well have been Apollo, who allowed Fiorentino to compose new poetical forms. It is possible, however, to read “the strange and unknown grace” as referring to poetry that is, surprisingly, both familiar and unexpected, a poetry written by a Jew expressing himself in Italian and with his faith grounded in Judaism. It is a “strange” culture that is nevertheless perfectly understood by a Christian. Fiorentino’s response reveals just how important was the religious element in his work. Instead of thanking or even flattering his distinguished correspondent, he elaborates on the final lines of Olympica’s sonnet, in which she sees the possibility of understanding the truth. In the sonnet that he composed in response to hers, he speaks of only one topic – how the acts of God seem unfathomable for humans. He concludes by describing the limits of poetry, which, while it may have a certain brilliance, is nevertheless unable to pierce through the secrets of the divine. Arcane, impenetrable, profound Are the ways of the one who gave the being to nothing And to his justice and goodness corresponds What he did, and wanted, and accepted. … You may be able to follow these brilliant poems But you will see that a veil which is covering over many truths Has written on it the words: Adore and keep silent.102 What we have here is an image of the Jew very different from the one to which we are accustomed in Christian literature: the Jew as blind and obstinate, who refuses to see the light; the unhappy Jew bearing the burden imposed by God the Legislator. We can, therefore, well appreciate how the poet Olympica was surprised by the fact that she could receive religious instruction from a Jew. The other intervention on the subject of immortality by Fiorentino occurs – not in poetry but in philosophical-scientific prose – in the context of an exchange of opinions among rabbis of central Italy on the subject of the resurrection. The debate, as David Malkiel notes, takes place against a scientific backdrop, despite the fact that the interventions refer to religious concepts (in this case kabbalistic).103 His point of departure was the book of the English theologian Thomas Burnet (ca. ignote, e pellegrine. / […] Or se attonita in te fisso il pensiero; / Che fora mai, se per la stessa via / Meco venissi a rintracciare il vero?” 102 “Segui tra I carmi pur gli estri vivaci; / Ma il vel che cela tante sorti e tante / Vedi che in fronte ha scritto: Adora e taci.” 103 “The Rimini Papers,” op. cit., p. 104. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 115
1635 – 1717), De statu mortuorum et resurgentium, published in 1723. Burnet’s works were characterized by an attempt to reconcile modern post-Christian science with the Bible; the fact that some representatives of Orthodox Judaism in Italy were freely referring to these subjects and texts, originating in the Protestant world, is quite remarkable. Finally, a profoundly religious person such as Salomone Fiorentino, who actively participated in the life of the Jewish community,104 wrote a poem in praise of Galileo Galilei at a time when the Church condemned his theories.105 The same Fiorentino adamantly criticized religious fanaticism, without outlining its origin and characteristics. The fanaticism of the black crest Polishes the iron with the cloth it wears Blooded by religion.106 An intense faith, a mentality decisively open to scientific progress and religious and cultural tolerance – these are some of the characteristics that several men and women of Jewish culture brought forth as contribution to nineteenth-century Italy, in the years just before the opening of the ghettos.
104 Fiorentino taught at the Hebrew school in the Jewish community of Livorno and made an Italian translation of the Hebrew book of prayer. Some of these translations were published among his poems Poesie (Florence, 1826), and are beautiful examples of religious poetry. 105 “In lode di Galileo Galilei,” Poesie, Florence, 1826, pp. 143-7. 106 VI Elegia, “La visione,” in Poesie di Salomone Fiorentino, Pisa, 1803, p. 71. 116
AUTHORITY VS. AUTHENTICITY THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW (1575-1650) Arthur Eyffinger
Political Revolt & Religious Reform
Around 1650, with Amsterdam glorified as a European metropole of Jewish life, thought and trade, and home to some of the world’s most reputed Jewish printing houses, Leiden University stood out among the foremost centres of biblical research and Hebrew studies in Europe. Nothing of the kind could possibly have been anticipated three-quarters of a century before, at the impromptu launching of Leiden University in 1575. Nor had the decades in-between exactly been plain sailing. Mid- way, from 1609 to be precise, the political experiment of the Dutch Republic had experienced a severe crisis. This crisis had triggered social infighting beyond compare. The outcome, to a large extent, has moulded the face and figure of the Netherlands as we know it today. Two elements co-militated to bring about Leiden’s prominence. The first was of a political nature. In the late 1570s, the conservative nobility in the area covering what is nowadays Belgium and the Netherlands – after a full decade of desperate trench warfare in defence of its former prerogatives as against the modernity of overruling Hapsburg imperialism – gradually gave in to political reality and the onward march of Parma’s superior Spanish war machine. Grudgingly evacuating Brussels, Louvain and Antwerp – their political, intellectual, and commercial citadels – and despairing of securing the fervently envisaged unity of the Seventeen Provinces, the stubborn rebels gathered in Utrecht in 1579 in order to harness the remaining Seven (northern) Provinces into a would-be union, subsequently withdrawing their banners and ideals to far-out The Hague.1 At the time, it seemed a last stand without much prospect. Struggling for their sheer existence, the blatant religious, cultural and commercial incongruities of the Seven Provinces were the least of their leaders’ many concerns.
1 The story has been told in full detail from various angles. See e.g. Kossmann, E. H., Political Thought in the Dutch Republic, Amsterdam, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2000; Israel, J., The Dutch Republic, Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995; van Gelderen, M., The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt (1555-1590), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992; Leeb, I. L., The Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1973; Den, T. J., Oldenbarnevelt, 2 vols., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 117
By that time at Emden, in a parallel universe so to speak, the ideals of religious reform running wild throughout this region, as indeed throughout all of Europe, had crystallized, or perhaps one should say, fossilized into the constitution of a Dutch Reformed Calvinist Church. This historic event, which took place in 1571 and occurred beyond the control of whatever still remained of public authority in the North, successfully challenged both the surge of Catholic Counter-Reformation in the South and what had been until that juncture the prevailing reform programs of Lutheranism and Anabaptism in the North.
Leiden University
By 1575, to compensate for the loss to Loyola’s militant Jesuits of the celebrated Collegium Trilingue at Louvain – the foremost centre of biblical and Hebrew studies in the Low Countries, founded at Erasmus’ instigation in 1517 – political leaders of the Revolt and the Calvinist Church agreed upon the launching of an ideological centre of their own. Intended as a doctrinal counterpoise to Louvain, the new centre of learning was to be located in a small township in Holland, reputedly in recompense of its gallant defiance of a prolonged siege by the Spanish in 1573-74. External pressure had forced somewhat unlikely bedfellows into the straightjacket of a marriage of convenience. Heralded by some as the bastion of political independence and intellectual liberty, and by others as the citadel of doctrinal orthodoxy, Leiden University from the start exemplified the tragic ambiguity – symbolized in its emblematic Haec Libertatis Ergo as against Haec Religionis Ergo – to which, with time, the lofty ideals of the Dutch Revolt were to fall victim and which, more than any outward foe, would undo the ideology and fabric of the early Republic. While the ‘Utrecht’ political manifesto preached toleration, the ‘Emden’ religious creed claimed exclusivity. As Hugo Grotius would concisely put it in his famous History of the Dutch Revolt: the Politycqen felt inspired by Erasmus’ credo of humanism and irenicism, while the Kerckelycken were enthused by Calvin’s rigid orthodoxy and exclusivism.2 It was the
2 Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was a foremost intellectual and politician active in Holland from about 1600 up to the crisis of 1618. His history of the Dutch Revolt is written in superb Tacitean style (Annales et Historiae) and is one of the highlights of Dutch historiography. On these socio-political issues see Hsia, R. P. and van Nierop, H. (eds), Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002; Nobbs, D., Theocracy and Toleration: A Study of the Disputes of Dutch Calvinism from 1600 to 1650, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1938. 118 ARTHUR EYFFINGER model of assimilation versus that of confrontation. In as much as ‘Emden’ (1571) had preceded ‘Utrecht’ (1579) by a full eight years and represented an autonomous process, issues of préséance were bound to pop up sooner or later. That critical moment arrived in 1609, with the conclusion of the Twelve Years Truce with the Spanish. With the external foe now held at bay, new days of infighting soon dawned, as political observers in Madrid, Brussels and Rome, or for that matter Justus Lipsius, had duly anticipated.3 Within a decade, social strife was to unravel that precious fabric of the would-be Dutch Confederation. Interestingly enough, it was not so much the widely anticipated controversy between the prevailing Catholics in the southern regions of the Confederation and the militant Calvinists in the western provinces that undid the Union, but infighting within the body of the Reformed Church in Holland itself.
Theology at Leiden
From the first, Leiden University stood out as the paragon of Dutch ambition. It was devised as the training-ground for Calvinist ministers as much as it was intended to recruit the young Republic’s intelligentsia and political cadre: its magistrature, diplomats, politicians and officials. Ideologically, therefore, Leiden tragically bound up Erasmus’ broad- minded intellectual legacy of sceptical humanism with Calvin’s doctrinal intransigence. In no realm was the Republic’s intrinsic dichotomy to become more palpable than in the very core and kernel of Leiden University, the department of theology.4 It is no coincidence, therefore, that it was precisely this faculty that, as early as 1605, gave rise to the infamous ‘Remonstrant Troubles’ – that irrevocably escalating polemic between Arminius and Gomarus; a riddle, which neither Church nor
3 Justus Lipsius from Louvain (1547-1606), and Leiden professor 1578-1591, was probably the most prominent classicist and (Neo-Stoic) philosopher at Leiden and one of the founding fathers of the University. He resigned in 1591, in part due to opposition from Coornhert and others, and returned to Louvain and Roman Catholicism. In his Sendbrief from 1595 he foretold that a truce or peace with Spain would soon reveal the discord in the bosom of the United Provinces. On the Sendbrief see Blom, H. W., “Politieke theorieën in het eerste kwart van de zeventiende eeuw: Vaderland van aristocratische republiek naar gemengde staat,” in Nellen, H. J. M. and Trapman, H. (eds), De Hollandse Jaren van Hugo de Groot (1583-1621), Hilversum, Verloren, 1996, pp. 145-54 (149), and my “‘How Wondrously Moses Goes Along with the House of Orange!’ Hugo Grotius’ De Republica Emendanda in the Context of the Dutch Revolt,” Hebraic Political Studies 1, 2005, pp. 71-109. 4 See Eekhof, A., De theologische faculteit te Leiden in de 17de eeuw, Utrecht, Ruys, 1921. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 119
State authorities could dissolve.5 At the end of the day, it was the very concept of toleration that was at stake. In 1618 the deep social rift that had emerged from this dispute brought to its knees, by way of a round of political trials without precedent and in defiance of all justice, that daring aristocratic constitution first conceived by the Grand Old Man of Dutch politics, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, and his ideological genius, Grotius. Meanwhile, the institutional links between ‘Church and State’ at the Leiden faculty of divinity, and its accompanying ‘Erastian’ outlook, were cemented at a fairly early stage. As the initial response to courses proved meagre, due in part to the poor earnings of ministers, Calvinist orthodoxy forced the hand of the States of Holland by sponsoring a States College of bursars, established in 1592.6 Not long after, in 1606, it was seconded by the establishment of a French-speaking counterpart for Huguenot refugees from France and Wallonia.7 Predictably, these heavily subsidized Colleges attracted students from all social strata. This in itself created an additional rift within the Leiden academic community, evidenced by the perfect disdain for bursars voiced time and again by humanists of gentle birth like Grotius.8 Both this social strife and the poor level of teaching were superbly criticized in Petrus Cunaeus’ hilarious Sardi Venales of 1612, a masterful satire in the Menippean tradition.9
5 The debate between Arminius and Gomarus started as early as 1603, with Arminius’ appointment in Leiden. During 1608-1609 the States of Holland arranged for public debates to help negotiate peace between the adversaries, but to no avail. 6 The College was in fact a reorganization of the vacillating Paedagogicum, first established in 1579 with very similar purposes. 7 See Posthumus Meyjes, G. H. M., Geschiedenis van het Waalse College te Leiden 1606-1699, Leiden, University Press, 1975. 8 See my introduction to P. Wyetzner’s English edition and translation of Cunaeus’ major work, De republica Hebraeorum [1617], Jerusalem, New York, Shalem Press, 2006, pp. 11-12. 9 Cunaeus, P., Sardi venales, satyra menippea in hujus saeculi homines plerosque inepte eruditos, Leiden, Ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengii, 1612. The origin of the Menippean satire is Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, a biting satire on the deification of the Roman Emperors. The genre was revived in humanist times with Justus Lipsius' Somnium [cf. Somnium Scipionis], a very popular satire on the poor state of philology in Europe, published in 1581. It saw various imitations (Puteanus, Heinsius, Nannius, Bencius), but none nearly as successful as the one by the gifted Cunaeus. For the literature on the genre see the critical edition of Lipsius' and Cunaeus' satires by Mattheeusen, S. and Heesakkers, C., Two Neo-Latin Menippean Satires, Leiden, Brill, 1980. For a survey of Cunaeus’ life (Pieter van den Cun, 1586-1638) see my introduction to Wyetzner’s edition. On Cunaeus' political studies in Leiden see Wansink, H., Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse Universiteit 1575-1650, Utrecht, HES Publishers, 1981. 120 ARTHUR EYFFINGER
The Position of Hebrew at Leiden
Leiden University was otherwise organized along patterns that were traditional enough, featuring departments of medicine, law, theology, and the arts – the latter serving mainly as propaedeusis, and including letters, philology and philosophy.10 It is the position of Hebrew within the arts department, or more precisely its division between the departments of arts and theology, which is the key issue at stake here. In appreciating this, we have to take into consideration the following. While ever after the Council of Trent, and most particularly at the hands of Jesuits like Bellarmine, Roman Catholicism looked to Jerome’s Vulgate and the exegesis by the Church Fathers as basis for its doctrine,11 the Reformation, by contradistinction, relied on the sola scriptura and the self-evident infallibility of the divinely inspired Old Testament as the unquestionable source for its dicta probantia and sole basis for its catechesis. The Hebrew Bible, therefore, was of the essence to Calvinist education and its program of studies. By 1600, Calvinist ideology in terms of biblical studies had been fully developed. Symptomatically, as early as 1601, Franciscus Junius at Leiden published his authoritative Animadversiones against Bellarmine.12 Clearly, to the Dutch Calvinist Church, the exclusive aim of the Leiden faculty of theology was to raise ministers, hence to strengthen orthodoxy and propagate the doctrine of the Reformation. Biblical courses in the propaedeusis at Leiden served first and foremost to acquaint aspirant-ministers with Holy Scripture for the extremely practical purposes of preaching and teaching. To that end, texts were generally read in the Greek (Septuagint) version. Surprisingly enough, the role of the Hebrew tradition in this process was fairly limited. To begin with, it was strictly restrained to Biblical Hebrew. Rabbinic tradition and Talmud were ruled out just as vehemently as was the Roman-Catholic tradition of Church Fathers and Councils. Again, in their essentially a-historic and uncritical approach to Holy Writ, Calvinist commentators never questioned either the authenticity or the self-sufficiency of the divinely inspired biblical texts. Or, as the Leiden directives from 1575 phrased it, “no authors who raise
10 For a comprehensive survey see van Rooden, P. T., Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century. Constantijn L'Empereur (1591-1648), Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden, Leiden, 1989, pp. 51ff. 11 See Lebram, J. C. H., “Ein Streit um die Hebräische Bibel und die Septuaginta,” in Lunsingh Scheurleer, T. H. and Posthumus Meyjes, G. H. M. (eds), Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century: An Exchange of Learning, Leiden, Brill, 1975, pp. 21-63 (35ff). 12 Ibid., p. 36. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 121 endless useless questions will be treated in lectures, and no sophists: only the two heavenly and divine suns of the Old and New Testament shall be interpreted from the Hebrew and Greek texts.” To serve these latter ends, two professors of Hebrew served Leiden theology students in their curriculum, the one a linguist, the other a theologian. In this, the purely ancillary role of the linguist was never in doubt. Consequently, and as Scaliger intimated in a letter to Casaubonus, most Leiden theologians, scholars and students alike, had merely a rudimentary understanding of Hebrew; only very few aspired to anything beyond this level. Even the incomparabilis Hugo Grotius never made much headway in this respect during his Leiden student years (1594- 1598). The seminal professor of Hebrew language from the early years, Johannes Drusius13, persistently complained of the lack of serious interest in Hebrew as such. In November 1601, with Franciscus Junius and Lucas Trelcatius teaching Hebrew, the Leiden Rector ominously gave “one guilder to a poor Jew who had taught the students Hebrew.”
The Humanist Tradition
As we will see later, the above role of Hebrew, that is, as an ancillary to Church doctrine and ideology, would remain a mainstream in the Leiden tradition throughout the period here under consideration. However, that approach never went unchallenged. In fact, from the beginning, and typical of the more generally ambivalent auspices of the University, the (what we may label) ‘dogmatic’ approach was paralleled by in-depth philological research at the hand of the expert humanist scholars who, from all over Europe, were attracted to Leiden by its visionary curators. From Lipsius to Scaliger to Vossius to Salmasius, these humanists were to spread the repute of Leiden around the globe. Indeed, it is the curious dichotomy and mésalliance of broad-minded, often sceptical humanist learning and stern Calvinist orthodoxy, innate in the University programme from day one, which makes for the unique character of the Leiden tradition of the period. While orthodox Calvinists relied on the unquestionable authority of God’s Word, humanist scholars launched the quest for the authenticity of biblical texts. Never the twain would meet, yet never did the one school fully eclipse the other. In establishing the origins of humanist biblical studies, modern research generally harks back to Lorenzo Valla, identifying subsequent
13 Johannes Drusius from Flanders (1550-1615) was a foremost Orientalist and biblical exegete. He was professor of Oriental studies in Leiden (1577-1585), then, until his death, in Franeker. Towards the end of his life, his European authority was somewhat impaired by the Remonstrant Troubles. 122 ARTHUR EYFFINGER stepping-stones in the works of Erasmus and Melanchthon and following them on to Casaubonus and Selden. The general aspiration of these humanists was to apply the rich harvest of modern, Renaissance learning – that is, the impressive rationale and formidable tools of classical philology and critical historical research – to biblical studies. More often than not, these humanists were no biblical scholars pur sang, let alone theologians. They were versed in classical philology, history and antiquarianism. While thus hampered in their biblical research in one (that is, the strictly theological) way, they felt confident to profitably expand it in other directions. For one thing, they interpreted biblical texts with reference to the historical setting of the Mediterranean world, venturing, as in the case of the Old Testament, to unearth the writers’ intent and their message to their Jewish fellow men. Availing themselves of their intimacy with classical literature, they interpreted, say, the Song of Songs with reference to the love elegy of Theocritus, Catullus or Tibullus.14 Again, they incorporated biblical studies and the history of the Chosen People within their all-encompassing quest to recover the intriguing lost civilization of the Middle East, be this in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Babylonian, Persian, or Arabic tradition. In short, they aspired to evaluate and interpret these texts in their own right, rather than, as in the Catholic tradition, regarding them as mirrors of the New Testament (le mirroir devoilé) the investigation of which was to serve the overarching aims of Christianity. The Leiden humanists were eminent champions of this latter humanistic outlook. Their paramount aspiration was to avail themselves of ‘objective’ philology and ‘unbiased’ antiquarian research so as to verify historical truth; and they aspired to this goal precisely in order to help unwind the hairsplitting subtleties of clashing denominations, put a halt to social infighting, and settle the doctrinal disputes which they felt to be Europe’s undoing. Grotius and Daniel Heinsius, in editing their Annotationes on the Old and New Testaments, are cases in point.15 This, of course, is not to say that these humanists on their part never had any hidden agendas. Indeed, political objectives had been part and parcel of humanist biblical studies ever since the days of Jean Bodin and Justus Lipsius. At Leiden, Grotius and Cunaeus, in their coloured and
14 As did Grotius. See Nellen, H. J. M., “Growing Tension between Church Doctrines and Critical Exegesis of the Old Testament,” in Saebø, M. (ed.), Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, The History of Its Interpretation, II, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, pp. 802-26 (813). 15 Humanists often labelled their works as Annotationes in order to neatly distinguish them from purely theological commentaries. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 123 politically inspired comparisons of the Hebrew and Dutch Commonwealths, availed themselves of the ‘authority’ of the Hebrew example in order to, if anything, sweeten their own political tenets for their audiences by the tendentious interpretation of historical circumstance. Grotius’ De Republica Emendanda (ca. 1600),16 and Cunaeus’ De Republica Hebraeorum,17 published (also on Grotius’ instigation) in 1617 (that is, on the eve of the political crisis of September 1618), served precisely to underpin the Erastian claims of the State in Church matters with reference to the undoing of Hebrew tribal unity by religious strife. Still, more pertinent for our purposes in this paper is the turmoil and opposition the philological approach as such provoked at Leiden. To the humanists, steeped as they were in textual analysis of the classics and the scrutiny of medieval codices, it was the most natural approach in the world to tackle biblical studies and Hebrew learning from the same perspective. It was, indeed, but a small sideways step in terms of scholarship: the appliance of proven means to pretty similar ends. From their point of view – which, often enough, was profoundly profane – and with a view to the academic ends they had in mind, the Bible held no different status than did Egyptian papyri, Syrian scrolls or a medieval Greek vellum. Yet, viewed from the ideological vantage point of orthodox theologians, such as the Voetii and Lubberti in the Dutch Republic, their scholarship was a scandalizing and unforgivable leap, resulting in the demystification, if not desecration of Holy Scripture, and constituting yet another token of the rising tide of scepticism and dismal profanization. Inasmuch as the angle of research of these humanists, their instruments and their findings could not fail to defy stern orthodoxy – if not as an intentionally sought for outcome, nevertheless as its inevitable corollary – humanists found their theses invariably regarded as blasphemy by Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists alike.18 Grotius for one counted as ‘Judaizans’ in some circles,19 and as ‘Papizans’ with others. It was of course a fallacy and somewhat naive on the part of these humanists to expect their critical comments to go unheeded in the eyes of dogmatic hardliners.
16 Eyffinger, A., “De Republica Emendanda: A Juvenile Tract by Hugo Grotius on the Emendation of the Dutch Polity,” Grotiana, n.s. 5, 1984, pp. 3–135. 17 Cunaeus, P., De Republica Hebraeorum, Leiden 1617, P. Wyetzner (ed.), 2006 (n. 8 above). 18 See Nellen, “Growing Tension,” passim. 19 Ibid., p. 816, and see Rabbie, E., “Hugo Grotius and Judaism,” in Id. and Nellen, H. J. M. (eds), Hugo Grotius Theologian: Essays in Honor of G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes, Leiden, Brill, 1994, pp. 99-120. 124 ARTHUR EYFFINGER
‘Biblical commentary’, in short, had come to mean something different altogether from what it had done in the days of, and in the hands of Erasmus and Theodore Beza. The disciplinary dualism would never stop inviting polemics. Justus Scaliger, who was appointed in Leiden in 1593, and his pupil Daniel Heinsius in his trail,20 entered this arena as philologists pur sang. While the one (at Vives’ urging) was thrilled with identifying the date and authenticity of the Aristeas-letter, the other, in his Aristarchus Sacer, verified the credentials of the Septuagint in Nonnos’ version of the Gospel of St. John.21 Still, a full century after Erasmus, Daniel Heinsius’ libelling of Beza in his Exercitationes Sacrae (1643) promptly provoked the wrath of the rigidly orthodox André Rivet,22 appointed in Leiden right after the purges in 1620, and triggered notorious polemics with his Leiden colleague Claudius Salmasius.23 In similar tenor, Gerard Vossius24 and his son Isaac,25 working in the same humanist tradition, were faced with
20 See Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 140ff. Daniel Heinsius from Ghent in Flanders (1580-1655) was probably the most prominent Leiden philologist of the first half of the 17th century. A pupil of Scaliger and intimate friend of Grotius in his early years, he took the side of Gomarus and acted as Secretary to the Dordt Synod. 21 See Lebram,“Ein Streit,” pp. 36-8. 22 André Rivet (1572-1651) was a French Huguenot theologian, who was called to Leiden in 1620, after the purges, as a rigidly orthodox professor of theology and uncompromising anti-Papist. He was exegete, notably in his Isagoge ad scripturam sacram Veteris et Novi Testamenti (1616) and in 1625 was prominent (along with Polyander, Walaeus and Thysius) in drawing up the Synopsis purioris theologiae. He became tutor to the Prince of Orange (William II) in 1632, and was forever involved in polemics, with Heinsius and Grotius among others (e.g. Apologeticus pro suo de verae et sincerae pacis ecclesiae proposito, contra Grotii Votum, 1643, written against Grotius’ Votum pro Pace). 23 Claude Saumaise (Claudius Salmasius, 1588-1653), a brilliant French classicist, textual critic and prolific author, who turned protestant at Heidelberg. After his appointment in Leiden in 1631 he engaged in fierce polemics with Daniel Heinsius over the Greek text of the New Testament, a mere reflection of their personal rivalry and incompatibilité d’humeurs. 24 Gerard Johannes Vossius (1577-1649), a life-long friend of Grotius, was a Leiden student, who became Regent of the States College in 1615, but had to resign in 1619 on account of his Remonstrant leanings. He was reinstalled as professor of eloquence in 1622, only to exchange Leiden for Amsterdam in 1631. See Rademaker, C., Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1577-1649), Assen, Van Gorcum, 1981. 25 Isaac vossius (1618-1689), son of Gerard Vossius, foremost humanist, lawyer and philologist, who was historian of the States of Holland, before becoming Queen Christina’s Court Librarian in Sweden (1648-1654). See Blok, F. F., Isaac Vossius and His Circle; His Life until His Farewell to Queen Christina of Sweden, 1618-1655, Groningen, E. Forsten, 2000. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 125 protracted debates with Hulsius, Schotanus, and Cocceius regarding the authority of the LXX.26 Grotius, a product of Lipsius and Scaliger if ever there was one, is yet another interesting case at hand. His biblical studies were in the best of humanist traditions and predominantly served socio-political ends. For Grotius, his biblical Annotationes were a means to verify the biblical text, irrespective of and well beyond the concerns of any denomination, as a conditio sina qua non and a prerequisite of the restoration of harmony within the Christian world.27 His life-long biblical and Hebrew studies were, from first to last, hand-maiden to his so-called Unionism, i.e. his aspiration to recapture the religious unity of the Early Church on the basis of a historically and textually authenticated ‘core creed’. To attain that goal he used sources, be they Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, wherever he found them. In the Prolegomena to his De jure belli ac pacis [1625] he insists on the relevance of Hebrew sources, including later Jewish tradition, and stresses the legitimacy of the Old Testament in its own right, that is, independent from its metaphorical interpretation in the light of the Christ.28 It is in this magisterial De jure, and, better still, in his equally seminal apology of Christianity, De veritate religionis Chistianae [1627], that the ultimate rationale of his biblical research comes to the fore. Immensely popular, the latter treatise immediately drove Du Plessis Mornay’s treatise of 1583, which bore the same title, from the marketplace.29 In Britain, Grotius’ apology, by far his most frequently reprinted work ever, was published in either Latin or the vernacular every third year for a full two centuries.
26 See Lebram, “Ein Streit,” pp. 41-4 (Hulsius), 44-6 (Chr. Schotanus), 46-54 (Cocceius). 27 Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 142ff; Nellen, “Growing Tension,” pp. 809-10. 28 Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) was the son of the equally famous Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484-1558). He counted as the most learned man of his day and age and was the jewel of Leiden University from 1593 up to his demise. His critical editions of classical authors are justly famous, and his astronomical studies (Manilius ed., 1600) and research on time reckoning (De Emendatione Temporum, 1582, 1598; Thesaurus Temporum, 1606) were truly epoch-making. 29 De Veritate Religionis Christanae of 1627, a great apology of Christianity in the tradition of Vives and Duplessis-Mornay (the two sources explicitly acknowledged by Grotius in his treatise). On this tradition see Dulles, A., A History of Apologetics, London, Hutchinson, 1971. In De Veritate, Grotius argued not so much against the increasing atheism and scepticism of his day and age, as against the devastating discord among the endless Christian denominations. In this, he focused on ethics above all: piety, rather than dogma, should inspire Christians, he felt, and practical toleration should be valued rather than learned doctrine. Grotius then elaborates a theory of necessary and unnecessary doctrines as first developed by Erasmus, and subsequently by Junius. 126 ARTHUR EYFFINGER
Scaliger’s School
Against this backdrop, the pivotal role of J. J. Scaliger as a pathfinder to the Leiden intelligentsia becomes evident.30 Being the foremost Hebraist of his age, Scaliger personified the gist of both the Italian and French traditions of biblical studies. Boasting an unparalleled network of Jewish contacts throughout Europe, his work at Leiden was of an astounding variety. To make our point, we will highlight a single, notable specimen. A major aspiration of his was to rework his earlier reconstruction of Eusebius’ lost Chronicles of World History (De Emendatione Temporum, 1583) into what became his majestic Thesaurus Temporum of 1606, with a view to inserting biblical tradition into the wider context of world history.31 Scaliger was in fact the first to transfer to Leiden this humanist tradition, with its ambition of pinpointing the place of Genesis in the context of its times. This tradition, which is attested as early as Florentinus’ Chronicum Universale (1484), would reach out all the way to Gerard Vossius’ Chronologiae sacrae isagogae32 and his son Isaac’s Dissertatio de vera aetate mundi.33 Again, it is within the context of this vast program on biblical chronology that Scaliger undertook his studies on Manilius and delved into the roots of classical astronomy. His few, select pupils were likewise steered into these waters. Thus, Hugo Grotius’ critical editions of the astrological/-nomical tracts of Martianus Capella [1599] and Aratos [1600],34 the boast of his Leiden student years, were meant precisely to supplement Scaliger’s edition of Manilius, and if anything bear witness to Scaliger’s inspiring guidance. Again, among Grotius’ lost treatises
30 For Scaliger’s tutorship of Hugo Grotius (and Daniel Heinsius) around 1600, see Eyffinger, A. (ed.), De Dichtwerken Hugo Grotius / Poetry Hugo Grotius, Vol. 1.2.3, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1988, Introductory Note. 31 Cf. Grafton, A., Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols., Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, 1993; Id., “Joseph Scaliger and Historical Chronology: The Rise and Fall of a Discipline,” History and Theory 14, 1975, pp. 156-85 (164ff). 32 See Lebram, “Ein Streit,” pp. 21ff. Vossius did most of his research for this book in the 1630s. It was published in The Hague in 1659 only. 33 Isaac Vossius’ work (Dissertatio de vera aetate mundi, qua ostenditur natale mundi tempus annis minimum 1440 vulgarem aeram anticipare) was published along with that of his father’s in The Hague in 1659. 34 Constantijn L’Empereur van Oppijk (1591-1648) matriculated at Leiden in 1607, left for Franeker in 1614 to be close to Sibrandus Lubbertus, then made a grand tour, to return to his alma mater by 1616. In 1618 he succeeded to Anthonius Thysius (1565- 1640) as professor of Theology and Hebrew at the school of Harderwijk founded in 1600. He was professor of Hebrew at Leiden from 1627 to 1646, and professor of theology 1646-48. On his life and career see Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 127 from his early years is the intriguing Philarchaeus, in which young Hugo claimed he had corroborated Mosaic law with the help of Egyptian, Phoenician, Orphic and Pythagorean testimonies.35 By 1606, once Scaliger’s Thesaurus was published (which eminently dealt with the same substance), Grotius decided to suppress his own work, which subsequently became lost. The interrelationship between these (published and suppressed) works on astrology and chronology deserves further in-depth research along the lines of Anthony Grafton’s masterful studies.36 The following example may serve to attest to the complexity and social reach of this province of studies. Around 1602, Prince Maurice of Orange and his civil engineer Simon Stevin amply availed themselves of Grotius’ astronomical expertise, superior Latinity and intimate knowledge of the Getuygenissen des Wysentyts [Testimonials from of the Age of the Sages] in order to insert references to Berosus, Manetho, Sanchuniathon and the like into their pivotal mathematical treatise, Wisconstighe Ghedachtenissen (1604), which did much to assist captains of the United East Indian Company (VOC) on their perilous journeys to the Indies.37 In similar tenor, Stevin, along with Grotius, carried out historical and comparative linguistic research in order to help develop a Dutch scientific jargon and literary vocabulary. In this research, again, a seminal role was reserved for the Hebrew. And, to conclude this excursus, a book of Grotius’ Parallelon Rerumpublicarum [Comparison of Commonwealths] (1602-3), long since lost, contained, on the author’s authority, a discussion of the Mosaic tradition that served much the same purpose as the comparison of Hebrew and Dutch Commonwealths made in his De Republica Emendanda of 1600. A few years later, Scaliger also put young Petrus Cunaeus on the tract of, first, his Dionysiaca, and later his Hebrew and Arabic studies, sending him over to Drusius in Franeker for that very purpose. From this emerged Cunaeus’ epochal De Republica Hebraeorum [1617] and, another treasure-trove waiting to be explored, his later speeches on Hebrew ritual and the lustrum. Cunaeus’ first thesis at Leiden, still under Arminius’ tutorship, was entitled De Legis et Evangelii Comparatione [1605], a comparison of the two Testaments, again a typical product of
35 Witness his postscript to his biblical drama Adamus Exul (1601). 36 Above, n. 31. 37 Simon Stevin of Bruges (1548-1620) authored a Vita Politica (1590). See Dijksterhuis, E. J., Simon Stevin: Science in the Netherlands around 1600, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1970. See also Stevin, Principal works, E. Crone et al. (eds), 5 vols., Amsterdam, C.V. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1955-66, and his Testimonies from the Age of the Sages, reproduced in Eyffinger (ed.), De Dichtwerken van Hugo Grotius. 128 ARTHUR EYFFINGER this academic milieu. At the end of this line stand Daniel Heinsius’ impressive Exercitationes Sacrae of 1643 and Grotius’ Annotationes on the Testaments, which likewise date from the 1640s; both works are the fruit of decades of research. As intimated above, this impressive humanist tradition never went undisputed at Leiden. To start with, these ‘self-inflammable’ humanists, keen egotists and jealous prima donnas, readily fell out among themselves. The prolonged polemics between Daniel Heinsius and Claude Saumaise, or Vossius and Cocceius bear ample witness to this. However, it was rigid orthodoxy along Gomarus’ lines (as against Arminius’ relative latitudinarian outlook in matters of God’s Grace, predestination and lapsarianism) that posed the major stumble-block. The influential André Rivet, who was called to Leiden in 1620 and became tutor to the young Prince of Orange in 1632, was a typical representative of this stern Calvinist line of thought.38 After the purging of Leiden University in the wake of Prince Maurice’s coup d’état of 1618, which put an end to Arminianism, it was this stringent line that, for some decades at least, definitely got the upper hand. Still, even within the straightjacket of stringent orthodoxy, pluriformity prevailed. To prove this point, and to conclude our all too sketchy bird’s eye view of biblical and Hebrew studies at Leiden University in the years 1575-1650, we will briefly highlight some Hebrew scholars in this ramified tradition from both halves of this period, that is, from before and after the 1618 watershed.
Hebrew Studies 1575-1619
By 1575, Hebrew studies had come a long way from their once isolated status in the days of Manetti and Pico in the 1450s. They had first flourished in Germany, at the hands of Sebastian Münster, Fagius and Reuchlin, who without doctrinal reservations had availed themselves freely of later rabbinical literature. After, say, 1550, the French school had gradually taken over, as exemplified by the commentaries of Vatable and Mercier, who feature as perhaps the most prominent exponents of their day and age. Jean Bodin’s in-depth research into Mosaic law and the Old Testament bears ample witness to this stimulating entourage, which keenly delved into Oriental studies from Aramaic, Talmud and Kaballah to Turkish, Arabic and Qur'an. The founders of Hebrew studies
38 Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, p. 94. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 129 at Leiden, Drusius and Raphelengius,39 both had their training in France, as can readily be inferred from their educational programme. Even so, in the opening days of Leiden University, fairly few Jewish works were available for research purposes, least of all rabbinical literature. As was observed above, around 1650 Amsterdam presses were rapidly replacing their counterparts in Venice as the world’s leading centre of the Jewish book trade. By that time, the Leiden professor Constantijn L’Empereur, through friends like Menasseh ben Israel, easily laid hands on whatever he required. Around 1600, however, Leiden University staff still had to buy books from Emden or Venice, as Scaliger did,40 or rely on Orientalists like Johannes Boreel41 and Janus Dousa Jr.,42 who extensively travelled the Middle East specifically in search of treasures for Leiden University Library. Both Grotius (witness his Meletius43) and Cunaeus profited from these sources.
39 Franciscus Raphelengius (1539-1597), professor of Hebrew at Leiden from 1586-97 and one of the editors of the famous 1571 Antwerp polyglot. On his Arabic lectures to Grotius see Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, P. C. Molhuijsen (ed.), The Hague, Nijhoff, 1928-2001, I, no. 64; and cf. Lebram, J. C. H., “Hebraische Studien zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit an der Universität Leiden in den Jahren 1575-1619,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, n.s. 56, 1975/6, pp. 317-57. On the Leiden tradition see Juynboll, G. H. A., Zeventiende-eeuwse beoefenaars van het Arabisch in Nederland, Utrecht, Kemink, 1931. 40 Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 100ff. 41 Johannes Boreel (1577-1629) was born in Middelburg, which town he served as a pensionary from 1613-19, then to become Secretary to the States of Zeeland and the Province's Raadspensionaris in 1625. He is attested to have been in personal touch with the Jewish community in his hometown. A gifted scholar by all standards, who studied at Basel (1598) among other places, he preferred a career as a statesman. He particularly distinguished himself as a diplomat during embassies to King James I, by whom he was knighted in 1622. Boreel was a most respected member of the Leiden world of learning. His elder brother Adam was a celebrated theologian and Hebraist in his own right, focusing on research into the Mishnah in particular. From his numerous travels as far as Romania, Syria and Palestine from the late 1590s onwards, Boreel assembled valuable collections of manuscripts and rare books. He presented his orientalia to the Leiden Orientalist Thomas Erpenius. The priceless collection was then purchased by the Duke of Buckingham, to end up in Cambridge University Library. 42 Janus Dousa Jr. (*1571) was the eldest son of the famous curator and life-long patron of the arts in Leiden, Janus Dousa pater (1545-1604). Janus Jr. became librarian of Leiden University Library in 1593 and it was possibly thanks to him that Leiden obtained the astrological/astronomical manuscripts of Martianus Capella and Aratus, which Grotius, with the help of Scaliger and Dousa Sr., edited in 1599 and 1600. A highly promising scholar, his career was cut short by his untimely death. 43 Grotius, Meletius, sive de iis quae inter Christianos conveniunt epistola, G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes (ed.), Leiden, Brill, 1988. The eminently irenical tract was named after Meletius Pegas (1549-1601), Patriarch of Alexandria from 1590-1601. Boreel visited him in the late 1590s. 130 ARTHUR EYFFINGER
Among the preferred bible editions in the opening years of Leiden University was Arias Montanus’ text, with the translation by Pagninus, later to be purged by Bertramus and, in 1613, by Raphelengius himself. This was the most likely biblical text to be consulted by Grotius and Heinsius and the like, although no doubt also with the help of Raphelengius’ later editions of Pagninus’ Hebrew dictionary, the Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae. It was not unusual for Leiden scholars to reissue works of predecessors from abroad. Thus, in 1585, Drusius edited Martinius’ celebrated Hebrew grammar; Drusius’ version was, in its turn, updated by Coddaeus in 1612. Other popular biblical texts, editions and Hebrew dictionaries were Buxtorfius’ Biblia Rabbinica and Thesaurus Grammaticae Hebraeae Linguae [1609], along with Valentin Schindler’s Lexicon Pentaglotton [1612]. The arrival of Scaliger in 1593, his vast learning and contacts, opened the treasure-trove of a full century to Leiden scholarship, and gave a major boost to the discipline as such. Still, young Grotius, who matriculated the following year, found more scholars next to Scaliger to his liking at his alma mater. Johannes Drusius by then had left for Franeker, but Grotius found lodgings with Franciscus Junius, professor of theology from 1592 to1602. Junius’ irenicism would make an indelible imprint on his versatile lodger.44 Junius had co- authored a Bible translation with Tremellius [a converted Jew], which, if generally held to be inferior to Pagninus’ counterpart, was fairly popular. Again, in 1590, Junius published a Hebrew grammar, followed in 1593 by a treatise, De observatione politiae Moysis, thus serving to underline Leiden’s preoccupation with the political aspects of biblical studies that never failed to intrigue Grotius and Cunaeus. A third Leiden prodigy of Hebrew and Arabic studies at the time was the above-mentioned professor of Hebrew, Franciscus Raphelengius [1586-97]. Apart from consulting Leiden dons, both Grotius and Cunaeus, moreover, relied heavily on their numerous contacts in Middelburg, the bulwark of Calvinism in Zeeland, to which stern Gomarus retreated in 1610. Small by comparison, it was a major centre of Jewish trade and commerce as much as of Hebrew studies. It produced
44 Franciscus Junius [Sr.] or François Dujon (1545-1602) was professor of theology at Leiden between 1592 and 1602. For Grotius he posed as the epitome of irenicism. Junius published a tract Le paisible Chrétien and an Eirenicon (both in 1593). Junius was a long- standing colleague of Tremellius. Their Bible-edition was, in all likelihood, used by Grotius in preparing his De Republica Emendanda; see my comments in Grotiana n.s., 5, 1984, p. 28. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 131 foremost scholars such as Schotanus45 and Walaeus,46 as over previous decades it had delivered scores of students to Theodore Beza in Geneva.
After the Purge: 1619-1650
Starting with the merciless 1619 purges, from which the highly critical Cunaeus was miraculously spared, but to which other prominent scholars like Vossius, Coddaeus, and Bertius47, the all too lenient Regent of the States College, fell victim, the Dordt Synod tried to impose its strict rule on Leiden. Putting down all civic opposition in defence of autonomy by University curators and Leiden magistrates, its champions sternly rearranged education along the lines laid out in its Synopsis purioris theologiae. Even so, as time went by, sound pragmatism prevailed. Four or five names stand out in the following decades as attesting to the variety of characters and tenets with respect to Hebrew and biblical studies at Leiden. The first scholar to come to mind is Antonius Walaeus,48 one of Grotius’ and Cunaeus’ long-standing contacts from Zeeland and, by nature, a fairly open-minded man. Still, when in his inaugural address at Leiden he discussed the position of Hebrew, he made clear his ideological position in no uncertain terms. To be sure, he argued, recource to the fontes in the humanist tradition was important. Still, linguistics and philology should be a means, and never become an end in themselves. For students of theology a mediocre command of Hebrew would do just fine. Actually, he maintained, textual criticism and historical analysis were tricky things for aspirant-ministers!49 Himself wholly devoid of linguistic talents or interests, Walaeus positively took
45 Apollonius Schotte (c. 1574-1639) was born in Middelburg. He studied humanities and law in Leiden from 1591 to become a doctor of law in 1600. Along with his friend, Antonius Walaeus, he then embarked upon a peregrinatio studiosa, calling at Basle, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Heidelberg. Upon his return, in June 1602, he accepted the pensionary of Middelburg. He became a member of the Supreme Court in The Hague in 1610. 46 On Walaeus see below, n. 48. 47 Petrus Bertius (1565-1629), a student at Leiden and rector of its Latin School, was subsequently professor of ethics and was Regent of the States College from 1607. He never concealed his outspoken Arminian leanings, and was sacked in 1619. 48 Antonius Walaeus (1573-1639), was born at Ghent, as was Daniel Heinsius. A poor bursar from Middelburg, he was trained at the Collegium Theologiae at Leiden (the institute that was so much criticized by Cunaeus in his Sardi of 1612), where he followed courses of Junius and Gomarus. He then turned to Theodorus Beza in Geneva. He was a minister at Middelburg (1605-19) before being appointed professor of divinity at Leiden (1619-39). 49 See Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 54ff. 132 ARTHUR EYFFINGER exception to the humanists’ dabbling with theology, as in the case of Heinsius’ Exercitationes Sacrae. Intriguingly, this view was singularly at odds with that of his colleague, the Huguenot minister and Regent of the Wallonian College, Louis de Dieu.50 A pupil of Erpenius51 and Golius,52 and an independent mind at that, he was, first and foremost, a linguist in quest of authenticity. In 1628 he published an expertly compiled comparative grammar of Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac. He contemplated editing the Qur’an and an Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, later on edited a Persian grammar, and in his Annotationes ad loca quaedam difficiliora Veteris Testamenti [1646] compared cruces in the traditions of Septuagint and Vulgate with elder Oriental translations, as if to foreshadow Louis Cappel’s accomplished and comprehensive textual criticism.53 Again, when in 1620 De Dieu’s former teacher Thomas Erpenius – who had been professor of Oriental languages since 1613 – succeeded to the chair of the purged Coddaeus, he in turn addressed the dignity and usefulness of Hebrew in his inaugural lecture. Its dignitas, Erpenius argued on this occasion, was found in its antiquity, its holiness, and its beauty; its utilitas in its interest for the study of Hebrew culture and legislation, in its status as ‘the mother of all languages and human wisdom’, yet, first and foremost, in it being the basis for all understanding of biblical language. It was the lack of intimacy with Hebrew, Erpenius held, that, time and again, had led Church Fathers astray.54 Erpenius himself published a simple Hebrew grammar, along with Arabic renderings of the Pentateuch and New Testament. His
50 Louis De Dieu (1590-1642), a theologian and Orientalist from Vlissingen in Zeeland, was regent of the Wallonian College at Leiden during 1637-1642 and a prominent biblical exegete in the critical philological tradition. His authoritative Animadversiones ad loca quaedam difficiliora Veteris Testamenti appeared posthumously in 1646. 51 Thomas Erpenius (1584-1624), a student in Leiden during 1602-8 and Leiden professor of Oriental languages during 1613-24, also applied his considerable linguistic talents to biblical research. In 1625 he was succeeded by Jacobus Golius. 52 Jacobus Golius (1596-1667) from The Hague was probably the most prominent Orientalist of his day and age. He first studied mathematics at Leiden under Snellius (1612-1616), then turned to Oriental studies under Erpenius (1618), lived a while in Morocco (1622), succeeded Erpenius (1667), travelled extensively in Syria, then returned to Leiden as successor to Snellius (1629). He is famous for having acquired a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch for Leiden University and for having auspiced the first observatory at Leiden. His Lexicon Arabico-Latinum (1653) was the standard work throughout the 17th century. 53 Cappel, L., Critica Sacra, 1634. See Lebram, “Ein Streit,” pp. 30ff, and Nellen, “Growing Tension,” pp. 811-13. 54 See Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 57ff. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 133 ambition to translate the Qur'an and prepare a polyglot bible was cut short by the stern Dordt Synod. An irenicist in the best of Erasmian traditions, he was for years on end Grotius’ trusted friend and oracle. Erpenius remained close to Grotius after the purge, providing him with books and, more pertinently, the famous book chest in Loevestein. Upon Erpenius’ death in 1624, curators failed in their efforts to attract the famous Buxtorfius (or his son)55 and nor did they manage to allure to the post Erpenius’ colleague in Arabic (if opposite in terms of character and toleration), Franeker’s bellicose Sixtinus Amama.56 Amama is of interest in our context on account of his strenuous efforts to promote Hebrew as a compulsory course of studies for ministers. One of the initiators of the Statenbijbel (the official States’ bible translation of 1637, and Dutch counterpart to the King James version), Amama left his Anti- Barbarus Biblicus [1628], a veritable monument for the study of Greek and Hebrew. Wavering religious tenets, he argued, more often than not were the outcome of ‘poor Hebrew and lesser Greek’! But then again, to the man who thereupon took over command in Leiden, Constantin L’Empereur,57 philology had no appeal whatsoever. A former student of Gomarus, Coddaeus and Erpenius, L’Empereur was a rigid Calvinist and orthodox theologian. In his inaugural address in Leiden in 1627, he insisted that to Hebrew be reserved the exclusive role of vehicle in the propagation, establishment, and absorption of doctrine. Inasmuch as it was the most dignified language, on account of its origins in the days before Babel and the original sin, Hebrew was useful in settling dogmatic controversy, in verifying Hebrew expressions in the Gospels, and in purifying the unreliable text of the Vulgate.58 Intriguingly enough, with L’Empereur a new polemical element is entwined in the argument: the use of Hebrew to counter later Jewish thought. Contrary to Grotius and others,59 L’Empereur considered Jewish rabbinical tradition an inferior line of thought, blinded by its lack of logic and the inferior analytical power of rabbinic authors. In 1633, L’Empereur was appointed Professor Controversiarum Judaicarum. Thus, whereas to scholars like Grotius and Heinsius the Targumim, Mishna and Talmud served precisely to help evoke the historical panorama of the Bible, and whereas Grotius’ knowledge of rabbinical
55 Ibid., p. 83. 56 Ibid., pp. 64ff. 57 See above, n. 34. 58 Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, pp. 84ff. 59 Nellen, “Growing Tension,” pp. 810-11. 134 ARTHUR EYFFINGER literature in later years became impressive by any standards,60 as attested by his De Veritate [1627],61 L’Empereur, at least in the early 1630s, was vehemently opposed to tapping these sources. Interestingly, though, in later years he wholeheartedly helped both Heinsius and Grotius in their biblical annotations. Again, John Selden counted L’Empereur, along with Grotius and Heinsius, among his intimates in Holland. It is, in short, a multi-coloured panorama that Leiden had to offer.
***
And so we end on a fairly positive note. What this all too brief bird’s eye view of biblical studies and Hebrew scholarship at Leiden University over the period 1575-1650 has revealed is a very consistent and intense focusing on the history of the Jewish People, its language, culture and religion - from a variety of ideologies, disciplines, and motivations. This wide spectrum suitably reflects the diversity of views held at the time as to how to establish and arrange a modern commonwealth along the Calvinist paradigm. Still, above all, it attests to the acute pertinence of
60 From the 1630s onwards, and also thanks to the publications and personal advice of such scholars as Cocceius, Schickard, De Voisin, and L'Empereur, Grotius' intimate knowledge of rabbinical literature, ranging from early medieval sources such as Maimonides to his contemporary Menasseh ben Israel, grew considerably. On these matters see Lachs, P. S., “Hugo Grotius’ Use of Jewish Sources in On the Law of War and Peace,” Renaissance Quarterly 30, 1977, pp. 181-200; Rosenberg, W., “Hugo Grotius as Hebraist,” Studia Rosenthaliana 12, 1978, pp. 62-90; Rabbie, “Hugo Grotius and Judaism,” pp. 113-14. 61 Grotius found ample occasion to discuss the religion and position of the Jews, including the history of Jewish learning, in his celebrated treatise of 1627. Book V of De Veritate deals exclusively with Judaism, notably with the refutation of traditional Jewish arguments against Christianity, such as Jesus' status as Messiah, his miracles, and his position towards Mosaic Law. The book reveals far more sympathy for Judaism than that shown in Book VI towards Islam, and enters into much more detail. However, in these references it is never quite clear to what phase of Jewish tradition Grotius is referring. Clearly, the Old Testament is his major reference point throughout. Duplessis-Mornay's L'Advertissement aux juifs (1607) must have been one of his principal sources, and may even have inspired its mildly philo-semitic tone. See on this issue Heering, J. P., Hugo Grotius as Apologist for the Christian Religion. A Study of His Work De Veritate Religionis Christianae (1640), Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2004, p. 146. Grotius readily acknowledges the debt of Christianity towards Mosaic Law and the Jewish tradition, extensively praises the Jewish religion on the grounds of its antiquity (on which see Heering pp. 106ff.), meanwhile making short shrift with later Talmud tradition, and ending with a prayer to God to enlighten the Jews and forgive them. Later in life, in his Annotationes on the Testaments, Grotius once more discussed many issues relating to Jewish history and customs in full detail. His undogmatic approach would invoke incriminations of iudaizare by stern Calvinists, in much the same way as he was accused of papizare. Cf. Rabbie, “Hugo Grotius and Judaism,” pp. 99-101. THE LEIDEN DEBATE ON BIBLE AND HEBREW 135 such research to nascent Dutch society. Thus, for one thing, the ongoing polemic throughout the period summarily disarms those students of Hebrew Political Studies who complain about that age’s lack of interest or respect for Jerusalem as compared to Athens or Rome. At the end of the day, and for all the literary niceties of classical lore, it was ‘Jerusalem’ – or rather what Dutch Calvinism wished to read in ‘Jerusalem’ – that counted most. In all fairness, research at Leiden exemplified the traumatic dichotomy of Dutch society in this period. Polemics were often harsh, both within and between the two mainstreams of orthodox theology and sceptical humanism. Even so, and while the demarcation line of the Dordt Synod can never be doubted, the Leiden debate over the period 1575-1650 stands testimony to the overarching toleration of Dutch intellectual life at this time.62 Or was it rather the extremely pragmatic Dutch outlook that made protagonists remain on speaking terms? Be this as it may, the Leiden protagonists definitely inspired colleagues and research all over Europe.
62 Cf. Van Rooden, Biblical Scholarship, p. 12.
Part II
Philosophy and the Humanities
C - Conversos, Language and Baroque 138
DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES Annie Molinié et Béatrice Perez
Dignitas et pureté de sang au XVe siècle
L’idée de cette présentation à deux voix, sans doute ambitieuse, est de comprendre, dans un processus diachronique, l’évolution d’un débat autant que d’une pratique de la pureté de sang dans l’Espagne de la première modernité. Si le thème de la “limpieza de sangre” (pureté de e sang) et ses avatars politico-religieux affectent essentiellement le XVI e siècle, le débat est posé sur des bases théoriques dès le XV siècle. Aussi convient-il – et ce sera l’enjeu de ma partie – de libérer cette obsession pour le sang qui imprègne la société espagnole de son carcan socio- religieux pour comprendre les soubassements de la revendication d’une nobilitas – reposant sur un sang prétendument pur au détriment d’un sang judéoconvers souillé – autant que l’exaltation d’une vertu (une dignitas) plus apte à définir la place de l’homme dans la société que sa naissance. La date de 1449 – qui correspond à la promulgation du premier “statut de pureté de sang” appliqué à une institution civile, la Sentence-Statut, excluant des charges d’honneur de la ville de Tolède, les chrétiens issus de conversions de juifs en raison de leur sang impur – a toujours été une source d’étonnement, voire de stupéfaction, pour les historiens. Bien que la mesure d’ostracisme ait été adoptée dans un contexte particulier de révolte contre les conversos et sanctionnée immédiatement par le roi de Castille, Jean II, et par le pape, Nicolas V, elle tranche sur tout un e premier XV siècle porté par la volonté de favoriser les conversions pour mieux éradiquer le judaïsme péninsulaire. Comment appréhender, dès lors, un évènement qui émerge, telle une date brutale et saillante, dans un contexte qui semble profondément étranger à la polémique raciale sur le sang. Pour tenter d’expliquer cette première velléité d’exclusion, qui demeure encore aujourd’hui à l’état d’intuition, il m’a semblé pertinent de porter les regards, en amont, sur les soubresauts intellectuels de la société castillane dans les années 1440-1450. Le postulat que je vais m’efforcer de démontrer est qu’il existe un “autre” discours sur le sang qui prend corps à la charnière d’une nouvelle définition de la chevalerie. Il affleure, tel l’épiphénomène de la confrontation entre la noblesse de sang et la noblesse de vertu (ou chevalerie), à la faveur d’une revendication, de part et d’autre, à jouir des dignités publiques. Cet “autre” discours met en scène des auteurs humanistes, souvent conversos d’ailleurs, qui défendent avec ferveur DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 139
l’avènement d’une société nouvelle, dans laquelle désormais “seules vertu et malice détermineraient l’homme libre du serf, l’homme noble du roturier”1. Cette primauté de la dignitas sur la nobilitas engendrerait un accès à la noblesse par la vertu des mérites de l’homme plus que par la valeur de son lignage. Ce discours, malgré lui, légitime en creux – sans que cela ait été la volonté explicite des tenants de ces excellences de l’homme – la promotion de nouveaux lignages dans la société. Jusqu’à ce jour, il semble que les terrains d’analyse aient été scindés. D’une part, les historiens se sont attachés à décrire une réalité indéniable dans la e première moitié du XV siècle: la promotion de familles impétrantes conversas qui accèdent aux strates les plus élevées de la société; de l’autre, les études littéraires ont scruté un discours inféodé à des topiques mythologico-chevaleresques (adoubement, vaillance, amour courtois), traversé d’inquiétudes philologiques (sources premières aristotéliciennes ou sénéquistes, médiatisation scolastique). Peut-être la réconciliation de ces deux histoires permettrait-elle de jeter un regard nouveau sur la Sentence-Statut, car pour monstrueuse qu’elle ait pu paraître, elle n’est, en réalité, qu’un avatar, certes tragique, mais somme toute prévisible, du débat politique suscité par l’ajustement e castillan d’un humanisme civique et éthique. Et si entre le milieu du XV e siècle et le milieu du XVI siècle, le débat évolue d’un humanisme aux fortes implications politiques vers un humanisme évangélique, les notions perdurent, passant du champ profane au champ théologique: du corps politique de la nation au corps mystique du peuple chrétien, des mérites de l’homme à ceux de la rédemption par le baptême. Dans un souci didactique, j’ai choisi d’illustrer cette démonstration par des exemples précis: Diego de Valera et l’humanisme politique dans la décennie 1440; le Mémorial de 1449 qui ouvre un temps de crise ou d’inflexion idéologique; enfin l’évangélisme chrétien d’Alejo Venegas ou l’humanisme vrillé de Domingo de Valtanás. Ces cas isolés ne sont que l’illustration d’une démonstration qu’ils ne suffiraient pas à légitimer à eux seuls.
I – Diego de Valera et l’humanisme politique
Diego de Valera, dans une série de courriers adressés au roi, pose, avec un sens politique aigu, sa conception d’une société restaurée, induisant un rapport nouveau qu’il convient d’établir entre le roi et ses sujets.
1 Valera, D. de, Espejo de verdadera nobleza, dans Prosistas castellanos del siglo XV, M. Penna (éd.), Madrid, Ediciones Atlas, 1959, p. 92: “Ninguna otra cosa que virtud y malicia determinaron el libre y el siervo o el noble y el plebeo.” 140 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
Ainsi le plus petit des hommes se voit-il doué de la faculté de s’exprimer sur les hautes choses de la condition humaine, car rien de ce qui affecte la complexe machine du monde ne lui est étranger, quelle que soit sa condition: “Seigneur, tout homme doit être écouté car l’esprit de Dieu souffle partout.”2 L’homme, quel que soit l’humus qui le nourrit, est digne de considération ne serait-ce que par son excellence humaine intrinsèque, ce souffle de Dieu qui lui donne vie, esprit, et parfois, une raison dont il sait faire usage. Si cette appréhension d’une dignité et excellence de l’homme qui se fait jour sous la plume de Diego de Valera n’est pas nouvelle en Europe – Valera reconnaissant aisément sa filiation à la pensée italienne, en particulier, à celle du juriste Bartole de Sassoferato –, elle connaît là, en Espagne, ses premiers bruissements, sa première adaptation. Et de façon très novatrice, l’homme y apparaît sous les traits d’un être non accompli, inachevé par Dieu et qui doit, par la force de son corps (“con las fuerzas corporales”) et par ses facultés mentales (“más aún con las mentales”), se façonner lui-même, dans la veine de ce que formulera avec limpidité Pic de la Mirandole, en 1486, dans son Discours sur la dignité de l’homme: “Dieu prit donc l’homme […] et il lui parla ainsi: ‘Je ne t’ai donné ni place déterminée ni visage propre, ni don particulier, ô Adam, afin que ta place, ton visage et tes dons, tu les veuilles, les conquières et les possèdes par toi-même […] toi que ne limite aucune borne, par ton propre arbitre […], tu te définis toi- même.”3 Néanmoins, il n’y a guère, chez Diego de Valera, ce souci de formuler une pensée philosophique, ni même métaphysique, car on ne perçoit jamais la volonté de faire de l’homme un démiurge, doué d’un sens cosmique, qui le placerait au centre du monde. L’homme est, certes, à l’image de Dieu, mais il n’est nullement un Dieu en puissance, car la hiérarchie sociale est consubstantielle de la pensée de Diego de Valera. L’homme occupe une place naturelle qui lui est assignée dans le corps politique de la nation et il ne peut en changer; pour autant, si bas qu’il se trouve, il n’en supporte pas moins tout l’édifice politique du e royaume, dans une conception corporative de la monarchie au XV siècle: E no menos debéis acatar cómo los príncipes, en uno junto con vuestros súbditos y naturales, sois así como un cuerpo humano. E bien así como no se puede cortar ningún miembro sin gran dolor y daño del cuerpo; así no puede ningún súbdito ser destruido sin gran pérdida y mengua del príncipe. Pues acáte agora Vuestra Merced, si van las cosas según los comienzos,
2 Idem, Tratado de las epístolas, op. cit., p. 9: “Señor, todo hombre es de oir porque espíritu de Dios donde quiere espira.” 3 Pic de la Mirandole, Discours sur la dignité de l’homme, in Œuvres philosophiques, O. Boulnois et G. Tognon (éd. et traduction), Paris, PUF, 1993, pp. 6-7. DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 141
¿cuántos miembros serían de cortar? Y estos cortados, decidme, Señor, ¿qué tal quedará la cabeza?4 La découverte, en Castille, des Anciens autant que des humanistes italiens est conditionnée par un environnement socio-politique très conflictuel. Dans la prose corrosive de Diego de Valera, la dignitas hominis – conférée à l’homme par Dieu – procède comme la nécessaire toile de fond sur laquelle doit s’insérer une nouvelle construction civile de la société politique, dans laquelle le vieux schéma ternaire – oratores, bellatores, laboratores – deviendrait caduc au profit d’une réhabilitation des secteurs dynamiques de l’artisanat placés au cœur du dispositif productif de la société.5 L’auteur ainsi manifeste sa volonté forte de réhabiliter ce tiers-état traditionnellement privé d’honneur, dans la logique d’un bon gouvernement des villes et des forteresses. Les conséquences politiques immédiatement se lisent dans un discours qui soulève la question de la fonction publique de cette nouvelle noblesse civile, en questionnant la définition même de la noblesse de sang. Ainsi la conception médiévale d’une société mixte qui associait la nobilitas à son gouvernement se voit-elle écornée. De fait, cette nouvelle théorie met à mal la revendication d’une noblesse immémoriale de sang qui, en se fondant sur un lignage ancestrale sans intervention d’une quelconque voluntas regis, cherche à se définir désormais comme acteur politique d’une monarchie mixte et non plus comme simple bellatores. Le Miroir de la véritable noblesse (Espejo de verdadera nobleza) de Diego de Valera hisse donc, aux côtés de la noblesse naturelle et théologale, une noblesse civile et politique arrogante: “La noblesse est une qualité octroyée par le Prince.”6 Ce débat entre la chevalerie (encore nommée noblesse civile, noblesse de service ou de vertu) et la noblesse de sang, qui secoue alors la Castille, semble porter essentiellement sur des points techniques: être armé par le roi, par exemple, anoblit-il l’homme ou lui confère-t-il une simple dignité? Le statut de la chevalerie, en rapport avec la noblesse e naturelle, induit, cependant, à l’aube du XV siècle, l’idée d’une définition amphibologique du sang. Il est un exemple qui dévoile finement la complexité de ce débat: la valeur du serment chevaleresque. Pour Diego de Valera, ce serment, même non formulé, était sous-entendu 4 Valera, Tratado de las epístolas, op. cit., p. 111: “Carta al rey don Juan II fecha en Segovia.” 5 Idem, Tratado de providencia contra fortuna, op. cit., p. 142: “Deve asimismo aver en toda buena fortaleza oficiales, ferramentas, artillerias […], es a saber, ballestero, lombardero, ferrero, cirujano, carpintero […].” 6 Idem, Espejo de verdadera nobleza, op. cit., p. 92: “Nobleza es una calidad dada por el príncipe.” 142 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
car celui qui était fait chevalier par le roi ou par un noble acceptait de servir son Prince autant que la chose publique. Pour les tenants d’une ligne nobiliaire farouchement opposée aux revendications de la chevalerie, l’absence de serment au moment de l’adoubement était le signe qu’il ne pouvait s’agir là d’un anoblissement donnant accès aux dignités. Ce titre de chevalier ne pouvait être entendu comme les prémisses d’une quelconque noblesse et, pour être armé chevalier, il fallait être au préalable noble. Ce serment, on le voit, suscita une polémique en apparence anodine, qui plaçait le statut nobiliaire, pour les uns, aux origines chronologiques du cursus honorum, pour les autres, à un moment déjà avancé de la carrière civile. Cette divergence revenait à poser cette question simple, mais brûlante d’actualité: la reconnaissance d’une dignité doit-elle être concédée à un noble ou rend-elle noble? Pour Diego de Valera, l’antériorité chronologique de la dignité sur le statut nobiliaire équivaut clairement à une antériorité notionnelle de la valeur de l’homme sur sa naissance. Pour les détracteurs de cette posture, la noblesse reste première et la dignité n’est que l’hommage rendu à l’éclat du lignage. Tout le préjugé de sang se trouve alors hypothéqué par cette question essentielle du prérequis nobiliaire.
II - 1449 temps de crise, temps d’inflexion
Dès lors, les dangers de la pensée de Diego de Valera étaient perceptibles dès la formulation de sa théorie. En 1441, au moment où il rédige son Miroir de la véritable noblesse et où il se livre à une glorification de Bartole, on le tient pour un opportuniste qui apporte, par cette célébration de la noblesse civile, la caution nécessaire à son propre anoblissement, lui, le fils de converso notoire. Toutefois, en coupant ces débats de leurs ramifications politiques, on a pris le risque de ne pas entendre les revendications politiques et les idéaux monarchiques qui pointent derrière ces textes. Les vicissitudes de 1449, pour prendre sens, doivent être lues à l’aune des menaces planant sur l’exercice royal, menaces que Diego de Valera adresse à son roi comme autant de “sages conseils.” En se prévalant des théories sur l’homme vertueux, Diego de Valera questionnait la légitimité d’un gouvernement tyrannique. Face à une noblesse de sang dont il remettait en cause les fondements, naissait alors une nouvelle force, “los pueblos,” qu’il définit rapidement comme les sujets “discretos” (sages), ou encore “virtuosos y buenos,”7 aptes à demander des comptes. Ce peuple, érigé en force rectrice d’un gouvernement défaillant, devient l’arme que brandit Diego de Valera 7 Idem, Tratado de providencia contra fortuna, op. cit., pp. 143-4. DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 143
dans cette nouvelle formulation du tyrannicide ou, pour le dire plus sagement, de la déposition du mauvais roi. Dans une lettre à Jean II datant de 1447, il écrit cette phrase terrible, sorte de prélude à la déposition: “veille à ce que tes peuples n’osent dire, car lorsqu’ils oseront dire, alors ils oseront faire”8 et, dans un courrier qu’il adresse à un ami l’abreuvant d’injures pour ses propos insensés, il nous éclaire sur les prétentions politiques de cette nouvelle classe. Il y fait l’apologie du peuple non par souci de “démocratisation,” mais comme menace face à un exercice royal arbitraire. Sans doute est-ce là l’écueil de sa pensée, car s’il avait pris soin de définir au préalable cette noblesse de vertu qu’il entend promouvoir – et à qui il songe sous le vocable “los pueblos” –, jamais il ne s’attarde à une définition claire du peuple. C’est cette voie ouverte qu’exploite le Mémorial de justification de l’exclusion des conversos de 1449. Dans ce Mémorial de justification de la Sentence-Statut que livre García de Mora, il est terriblement gênant de voir citées les références de Diego de Valera, les mêmes chapitres de Bartole traduits par Diego de Valera lui-même, les mêmes exemples de dépositions de tyrans tout oints qu’ils étaient, réinterprétés cette fois au profit d’une diatribe haineuse contre les judéoconvers. Comment, par les mêmes références, la même pensée humaniste faisant du peuple l’instance de tutelle d’une monarchie manifestant un “defecto de potestad ordinaria y jurídica,” “un defecto de justicia,” et en conséquence, “un evidente defecto de jurisdicción,”9 a-t-on abouti à une monstruosité telle, au point d’être l’exact contrepoint de la pensée de Diego de Valera? Tout simplement par une exploitation habile des failles de l’argumentation éthique et de la définition de la vertu. García de Mora se livre à une nouvelle définition, non de la noblesse, mais du “peuple vertueux.” Qu’est-ce que la vertu du peuple? Une noblesse de générosité (honor) et un respect dû à celle-ci (honra) dont ne peuvent jouir que les “cristianos católicos,” et en aucun cas des lignages “vils et sales, procédant d’un sang juif immonde.”10 Pour autant, les définitions du fourbe García de Mora sont d’essence humaniste, et dans une formulation sans équivoque, il rend le plus terrible hommage à Diego de Valera par la filiation de Bartole.
8 Idem, Tratado de las epístolas, op. cit., p. 6: “Guarda que tus pueblos no osen decir, que si osaren decir, osarán fazer; e si vuestros súbditos han osado dezir o fazer, la esperiencia es de ello testigo.” 9 Mora, M. G. de, El Memorial del Bachiller Marquillos de Mazarambroz, publié par Benito Ruano, E., Los orígenes del problema converso, Barcelona, El Albir Universal, 1976, pp. 107-9. 10 Ibid., p. 105: “de los más viles y sucios linajes de judíos,” “bilísimo por linaje, turpísimo por costumbres.” 144 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
C’est là toute la folie de Diego de Valera que de ne pas avoir perçu qu’en posant le principe d’une vertu – confuse et mal définie – qui bousculait les degrés de l’échelle nobiliaire, il posait incidemment le principe d’une vertu introduisant des degrés hiérarchiques dans le lignage humain et faisant naître l’idée d’une stratification raciale des hommes. Dès lors, dans le peuple comme dans la noblesse, il existe des vertus, sauf que García de Mora définit le peuple vertueux comme l’appartenance à un lignage chrétien. Le silence de Diego de Valera, au lendemain des émeutes de 1449, dit tout l’effroi d’un homme devant la monstruosité d’un principe racial qu’il n’avait pas anticipé. Pourtant, il aurait dû le prévoir, lui qui reconnaissait, suivant Aristote, que si l’honneur était la récompense de la vertu, il était difficile de la connaître “car c’est une chose cachée et enfuie tout au fond de l’âme.” C’est toute l’ambiguïté d’une pensée assise sur un socle qui se voulait solide – la vertu de l’homme – alors que, justement, l’impossible définition de cette vertu, dans le champ profane, rendait ce socle mouvant.
III - Évangélisme chrétien et humanisme vrillé
Cet humanisme des premiers réformateurs de la société a volé en éclats, dès 1449, sous l’effet fielleux d’une scission raciale et les défenses se sont placées immédiatement sur le terrain théologique et non plus politique. Ainsi Lope de Barrientos, dans un ouvrage intitulé Contre quelques querelleurs de la nation des convertis du peuple d’Israël,11 comprend-il très tôt la nécessité de se placer sur le terrain évangélique. Ce texte fut jugé médiocre par certains commentateurs, en raison de sa maladresse et de la gêne qu’éprouve l’auteur devant des arguments qu’il juge si évidents qu’il refuse, parfois, de s’attarder à des gloses creuses. L’acte des rebelles tolédans est le fruit de leur “bon vouloir,” dit-il, or le “bon vouloir” ne peut être que l’apanage du roi. Il récuse le terme de “converso” qui ne devrait s’appliquer qu’aux seuls convertis12 et rappelle les origines du lignage du Christ et de la Vierge. L’argument de poids qu’il avance est celui d’un chrétien qui accède, par le baptême, à une nouvelle humanité: ”le saint baptême […] fait de tout baptisé un nouvel homme (nuevo ome) et lave et ôte toute faute et péché.”13 Aussi, dire
11 Contra algunos zizañadores de la nación de los convertidos del pueblo de Israel, publié par Getino, L. G. A., Vida y obras de Fray Lope de Barrientos, Salamanca, Anales Salmantinos, 1927. 12 Ibid., p. 191: “qué razón hay para poder llamar conversos aquellos que son hijos de nietos de convertidos, quedo muy espantado.” 13 Ibid., p. 186: “el santo bautismo y eficacia de él, el cual hace al bautizado nuevo home, y lava y quita del toda la culpa y pecado.” DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 145
qu’une quelconque tache perdure chez le chrétien reviendrait à affirmer que le baptême, parfois, est vain, “lo cual sería herejía notable.” L’évidence est là si criante et les arguments si désarmants de simplicité que le texte paraît naïf, mais c’est là sa valeur, car à mesure que l’on avance dans le siècle, l’argumentaire contre les conversos gagne en force et les textes dogmatiques deviennent plus scripturaires, plus théologico- argumentatifs. Alonso de Cartagena, sans doute en raison de son statut (fils de rabbin14 et archevêque de Burgos) use, pour battre en brèche cet ostracisme abject, d’un dispositif juridico-théologique impressionnant et d’une démonstration sous forme de théorèmes dans son œuvre Defensorium Unitatis Cristianae.15 Après avoir posé que l’homme profane est doué de raison (ce que déjà affirmait Diego de Valera, dans une ligne aristotélicienne, “el ombre sujeto a razón es el más noble de los animales”16) qui doit aspirer à comprendre les vérités qui constituent la foi par un processus rationnel, Alonso de Cartagena réconcilie éthique et évangélisme. L’homme qui recherche la vertu pour sa perfection morale a une traduction chrétienne qui est le salut de l’âme. Et cet esprit inquiet porte en lui l’essence du chrétien dans son aspiration à la vérité christique. Ainsi, si le baptême octroie une pureté incontestable et identique à ceux qui le reçoivent, affirmer que le converti du judaïsme et ses descendants sont inférieurs en droit revient à commettre un triple délit: – contre le droit canon, car si le baptême confère grâce et vertu, prétendre que certains baptisés doivent être privés d’honneur revient à affirmer que les mérites du sacrifice christique ne peuvent régénérer l’Homme, et c’est là une terrible hérésie; – contre le droit civil, car cela équivaut à nier à un homme l’honneur qui lui revient de vertu en raison de contingences fallacieuses; – contre la morale enfin, car c’est bafouer la vertu d’autrui en le privant des dignités et des richesses qui rendent celle-ci manifeste, et c’est, dit-il, folie de croire que chez certains, la vertu n’engendre pas la dignité. En outre, tout catholique arrive nouveau dans la foi, car il est absurde de considérer que l’enfant naît chrétien par le baptême du père, de la même manière, dit-il, que l’embryon, dans le ventre de sa mère, ne peut 14 Alonso de Cartagena (ou de Santa María) est le fils de l’ancien rabbin de Burgos, Salomon Ha-Leví, converti au christianisme sous le nom de Pablo de Santa María et devenu archevêque de Burgos. 15 Alonso de Cartagena y el Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, G. Verdín-Díaz (éd. et traduction), Oviedo, Universidad de Oviedo, 1992. 16 Valera, Tratado de providencia contra fortuna, op. cit., p. 144. 146 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
être circoncis avant sa naissance, le chrétien ne le devient que par la vertu de son propre baptême: Según esta consideracion general, por consiguiente, no hay que hacer diferencia alguna entre los fieles de si descienden de éste o del otro pueblo, cuando todos al estar establecidos dentro de la fe católica constituyen el pueblo único e indivisible. De aquí que no pueda tolerar a aquellos que llaman a unos nuevos y a otros viejos porque no existe católicos que no haya llegado a la fe recientemente ni la virtud del bautismo pasa de uno a otro de modo que por el bautismo del padre nazca cristiano el hijo. Porque así como estando encerrado en el vientre de la madre nadie puede ser circuncidado, nadie tampoco estando encerrado en el vientre materno puede ser bautizado.17 Que reste-t-il alors de cette aspiration à une société nouvelle? Rien sans doute, rien si ce n’est – mais c’est considérable – la revendication apostolique pour un peuple uni et régénéré par le baptême. L’auteur qu’il convient de citer, en raison de son caractère exemplaire dans la première e moitié du XVI siècle, est un vieux-chrétien tolédan, Alejo Venegas de Busto, qui ne cesse, jusqu’à sa mort en 1562, de dénoncer le schisme introduit dans la société par la faute de la stérile noblesse de chair et de sang. Dans son testament,18 qui s’ouvre, en 1550, sur un acte de foi ultime, se fait jour la pensée courageuse d’un homme sans compromis. Face à l’ineptie d’un sang pur ou impur pour se sauver, il en appelle aux effets du “sang miséricordieux du Christ” et aux mérites “copiosísimos de la pasión.” À l’aberration de la classification noble ou ignoble des lignages, il oppose “le prix du rachat du lignage humain” (“el precio y rescate del linaje humano”). Pour conjurer le feu qui éradique l’hérésie, il invoque, lui, le feu de l’amour infini de Dieu pour vaincre “l’iniquité, l’ignorance, les ténèbres et la malice” (“las tinieblas de la iniquidad, ignorancia, tibieza y malicia”). Il comprend l’Église comme la maison ouverte à tous les hommes, sans exclusion aucune, car les mérites de la passion du Christ s’y exercent sans limite rachetant et compensant les faibles mérites de l’homme.19 Entre Diego de Valera et Alejo Venegas, les points de jonction sont infimes. D’une part, le discours était celui d’une société “laïc,” fondée sur des rapports humains tirant leur force de l’excellence de l’homme mû par sa seule volonté. De l’autre, l’excellence de la société chrétienne tirait sa légitimité des seuls mérites du sacrifice christique. Néanmoins, dans ce combat contre la pureté de sang, les deux hommes sont 17 Alonso de Cartagena…, p. 193. 18 Ce testament est publié par Martín, I. A., El maestro Alejo Venegas de Busto. Su vida y sus obras, Toledo, Diputación provincial, 1987, pp. 492-506. 19 Ibid., pp. 286 (note 25) et 287-8. DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 147
indéfectiblement liés par ce même refus de toute compromission, cette même pureté de la pensée, l’un dans le champ civil (où la solidarité des membres se manifeste dans le corps politique de la nation20); l’autre, dans le champ théologique (l’Eglise étant une famille soudée par le “mutuo y fraternal servicio”). Pour Alejo Venegas, ce refus de la pureté de sang découlait de la vertu du baptême sans aucune concession, sans aucun accommodement. Pour Diego de Valera, le refus de la pureté de sang impliqua d’abord un retrait de la vie politique, au lendemain de e 1449, puis un revirement prudent, dans la seconde moitié du XV siècle, vers une forme de monarchie autoritaire garante du corps symbolique de la nation, à défaut de garantir la solidarité des différents membres. Pour Alejo Venegas, la scission raciale était d’autant plus hérétique qu’elle brisait l’unité du peuple et, ce faisant, niait que les mérites de l’homme se compensent dans une forme d’équilibre que permet l’absolue solidarité des membres du corps mystique du peuple. Cette notion de compensation des mérites est celle que l’on trouve formulée par le dominicain Domingo de Valtanás dans son Apologie de la communication des mérites.21 Les chrétiens, parce que greffés sur le corps mystique du Christ par le baptême, vivent dans la grâce et peuvent alors communiquer entre eux les mérites personnels: Nous, fidèles, formons un corps mystique dont la tête est le fils de Dieu fait homme. Et, de la même manière que les membres du corps naturel communiquent entre eux […], ce qu’un fidèle gagne par les œuvres qu’il accomplit au service de Dieu, il peut le communiquer aux chrétiens.22 Contemporain d’Alejo Venegas et partageant des valeurs humanistes communes, Domingo de Valtanás acceptait cependant de concevoir l'existence des statuts de pureté de sang pour peu qu'on veuille bien les arrimer au temps et n'exclure que les générations proches de la conversion,23 sans percevoir combien la défense évangélique, pour être fondée, ne pouvait s’accommoder d’aucune entorse. Pourtant Domingo 20 Valera, Tratado de las epístolas, op. cit., p. 7: “como en el cuerpo humano todos los miembros se esfuerzan de amparar y defender la cabeza, ansi, en este cuerpo mixto que es todo el reino, cuya cabeza es el rey, se deven esforzar todos sus súbditos, que son miembros propios suyos, a lo guardar, servir, y amar, y consejar.” 21 Valtanás, D. de, Fray, Apología sobre ciertas materias morales …, A. Huerga et P. Sáinz Rodríguez (eds), Barcelona, J. Flors, 1963, pp. 138-40. 22 Ibid., p. 140: “Somos los fieles un cuerpo místico, cuya cabeza es el hijo de Dios humanado. Y como los miembros del cuerpo natural se comunican las operaciones […], así lo que un fiel gana en las obras que hace en servicio de Dios, puede comunicar a sus cristianos.” 23 Ibid., p. 152: “[…] a los que vienen de esta gente de lejos […], no se debían excluir de los [cargos], ni hacer diferencia en nada entre cristianos que descienden de gentiles y entre los que descienden de judíos.” 148 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
de Valtanás n’était guère un opportuniste, peut-être un homme trop prudent, certainement un homme de son temps, qui a réconcilié sans état d’âme les champs politique et évangélique et concilié ainsi, avec naturel presque, humanisme et racisme, dans un processus de “tibetización o encastamiento”24 des esprits, que je nomme, pour ma part, un “humanisme vrillé.” Dès lors, la seule filiation qui soude ces hommes entre eux repose sur les espoirs immenses qu’ils fondent en la Compagnie de Jésus. Alejo Venegas et Domingo de Valtanás partagent les mêmes valeurs que celles défendues par les jésuites et s’emploient tous deux à une défense de l’ordre. En 1556, dans une lettre émouvante à Francisco de Borja,25 Venegas déclare son lien indéfectible à la “apostólica compañía” qui représente pour lui, en ces temps si friables et poreux (“vidriados”), la nécessaire “réformation de la corruption des mœurs” (“reformación de la corruptela de las costumbres”). Il se dit alors serviteur d’une Vérité sans compromis qu’il ne voit désormais qu’en la Sainte Compagnie.
Les jésuites et la pureté de sang
e Aucun secteur de la société espagnole du XVI siècle ne fut préservé de l’obsessionnelle exigence de pureté de sang. En Espagne, l’impureté de sang, la tache/mancha constituait un caractère définitoire d’une ignominie. Les débats s’installèrent au sein des ordres religieux eux-mêmes et la question fondamentale et controversée de l’admission des conversos – c’est-à-dire des descendants de juifs convertis au christianisme, e principalement au XV siècle – dans la Compagnie de Jésus fut posée bien avant la publication du décret 52 de la Ve Congrégation Générale. Réunie en 1593, la Congrégation décida en effet, en dépit des protestations véhémentes et répétées de plusieurs jésuites, dont celles du Père Ribadeneira, de ne pas admettre dans la Compagnie des candidats d’origine juive. Disons d’emblée que cette origine conversa des premiers jésuites et cette présence – jugée par certains comme trop nombreuse voire scandaleuse – des nouveaux chrétiens dans la Compagnie naissante au e e XVI siècle, fut tue ou occultée dès le XVI siècle et jusqu’aux années 60 e du XX siècle, au sein même de la Compagnie, et également par les 24 Gutiérrez Nieto, J. I., “Los humanistas castellanos ante la limpieza de sangre: algunas manifestaciones,” dans Silverman, J. H., et Bustos Tovar, J. J. de (éds), Homenaje a Américo Castro, Madrid, 1987, pp. 77-90. 25 Martín, op. cit., p. 521, “1556, julio, 25, Madrid. El Maestro Venegas escribe a san Francisco de Borja ofreciéndose como incondicional defensor de la Compañía de Jesús.” DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 149
historiens. Cette question ne sera plus en effet abordée dans l’historiographie jésuite à quelques exceptions près. En revanche, on note un intérêt certain pour ce thème ces dernières années. J’évoquerai ici tout d’abord ce qu’en dit Ignace de Loyola, le fondateur de cet ordre nouveau, dérangeant dans l’Espagne de Philippe II; puis les controverses – magistralement étudiées de façon pionnière par Antonio Domínguez Ortiz26 en 1955 et par Albert Sicroff, dans une thèse de 1955, publiée en 196027 – sur les statuts de pureté de sang – Estatutos de limpieza de sangre – qui furent la spécificité de l’Espagne classique et un signe tangible de fermeture à l’autre, à travers deux textes longtemps méconnus, le premier est l’œuvre d’un dominicain Domingo de Valtanás et le deuxième écrit par un jésuite italien, Francesco Sacchini, ce qui m’amènera à évoquer deux figures éminentes parmi ces premiers compagnons d’Ignace: le père Pedro de Ribadeneira et Diego Laínez, l’un et l’autre d’origine juive.
Ignace de Loyola et les conversos
Ignace de Loyola avait, dès 1545, dans une lettre à Pierre Favre, l’un de ses premiers compagnons d’étude au Collège Sainte Barbe à Paris, soulevé le problème, qui pour lui n’en était pas un, de la présence ou de l’exclusion des jésuites d’origine juive dans la Compagnie. Ignace justifie l’admission dans la Compagnie de “nouveaux chrétiens,” en se référant à l’Épitre aux Romains (10, 12): “aussi bien n’y a-t-il pas de distinction entre juif et Grec: tous ont le même Seigneur” et estime qu’il n’y a pas davantage de distinction dans la Compagnie entre “cristianos modernos” et “cristianos antiguos.” Répondant aux critiques du Prince d’Éboli, favori de Philippe II, selon lequel la Compagnie de Jésus admettait des hommes souillés de sang juif (“manchados con sangre judía”), Ignace déclara: “je répondrai ceci: il y a quelques personnes d’origine qui n’ont rien à envier aux vieux chrétiens, aux hidalgos ou aux caballeros quant aux qualités de bon chrétien, recherchant le bien universel.”28
26 Ortiz, A. D., La clase social de los conversos en Castilla en la Edad Moderna, Madrid, C.S.I.C., 1955. 27 e Sicroff, A. A., Les controverses des statuts de “pureté de sang” en Espagne du XV e au XVII siècle, Paris, Marcel Didier, 1960. 28 “Y dire esto: que hay algunos de esta calidad de gente que ni a cristianos viejos, ni a hidalgos, ni caballeros, dan ventaja ninguna en todas las partes de buen religioso y útil al bien universal; y si esto supiese tan bien como nosotros el Señor Ruigómez, no dudo séria de nuestro mismo parecer” (Ep. Ign. 10: 61). 150 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
Dans les Constitutions, pour mieux connaître la personnalité de ceux qui souhaitent entrer dans la Compagnie, on demande au futur candidat s’il a des ancêtres nouveaux chrétiens et si quelqu’un parmi ses ascendants a été condamné par l’Inquisition.29 Toutefois il n’y a aucune volonté d’exclusion de la part d’Ignace, comme l’avait voulu faire croire un courant de jésuites portugais qui fomenteront le décret d’expulsion. D’autre part, les chapitres consacrés par Ribadeneira aux œuvres d’Ignace à Rome, montrent clairement son souci particulier d’ouvrir les portes de l’Église aux juifs convertis. On pourrait multiplier les déclarations d’Ignace en faveur de l’entrée de conversos dans la Compagnie et rappeler son opposition aux statuts de pureté de sang que l’archevêque de Tolède, Silíceo avait voulu imposer à ladite Compagnie en 1551. Ainsi, à propos de l’entrée dans la Compagnie du Père Gaspar de Loarte et de Diego de Guzmán, disciples de Juan de Ávila, l’apôtre d’Andalousie, Ignace s’était prononcé favorablement sur l’admission de nouveaux chrétiens. Enfin et surtout, Ignace l’avait montré par le choix de ses compagnons: des conversos tels Laínez, Bobadilla, Polanco…
Valtanás et Sacchini
e e Au XVI siècle et au début du XVII siècle, parmi les nombreux débats et controverses (on pense aussi au dominicain Fray Agustín Salucio30 et à Antonio Possevino31), j’ai retenu le texte, court mais percutant pour l’époque, d’un autre dominicain, Domingo de Valtanás, intitulé Apología de la Compañía de Jesús qui fait suite à une défense des conversos: une Apologie des mérites.32 Ce texte de 1556 ne fut réédité qu‘en 1956. Le dominicain va avec audace se faire l’avocat du groupe des conversos et cette défense exprime une sympathie pour les jésuites et la Compagnie, et aussi pour les nouveaux chrétiens, attaqués par les défenseurs des statuts de pureté de sang, chez qui il a observé de grandes vertus et qu’il aime “como siervos de Dios” et il ajoute qu’on ne le fera pas changer d’avis à leur sujet, “Y mientras no viere otra cosa, no me descenderé de este propósito.”
29 “Si viene de cristianos antiguos o modernos” et si “alguno de sus antecessores ha sido notado o declarado en algunos errores contra la nuestra religion cristiana, y cómo” (Obras completas, BAC, Cap. 3, 36), p. 423. 30 Discurso hecho por fr. Agustín Salucio sobre la limitación de los estatutos de limpieza de sangre… 31 Voir Donnelly, J. P., “Antonio Possevino and Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu 109, 1986, pp. 3-29. 32 Je cite d’après Valtanás, op. cit. DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 151
Valtanás adopte néanmoins une certaine prudence assortie de réserve en introduisant dans son Apologie quelques restrictions en disant que “les enfants de parents juifs et les fils ou petits fils de condamnés par l’Inquisition seront exclus des charges publiques, mais que ceux qui sont issus de ces gens de longue date, ne devraient pas être exclus desdites charges et que l’on ne devrait pas faire de différence.” L’Apologie s’inscrit dans un contexte particulièrement hostile et il précise: “C’est une vieille querelle qui date des débuts de l’Église et qui durera jusqu’au jugement.”33 Il fallait donc, selon lui, en finir avec les statuts de pureté de sang. Il écrit en 1556, dix ans après que Silíceo ait imposé son statut à Tolède, ce qui peut expliquer la prudence du dominicain. Je voudrais également mentionner le jésuite italien Francesco Sacchini, qui fut chargé par ses supérieurs de continuer l’Historia Societatis Jesu de Nicola Orlandini (1615). L’œuvre monumentale de F. Sacchini, l’un des premiers historiographes de la Compagnie, compte huit volumes en latin. J’ai retenu ici la Pars secunda, sive Lainius, publiée à Anvers en 1620, car elle est consacrée au successeur d’Ignace, le second préposé général de la Compagnie, Diego de Laínez, et aux origines juives de celui-ci, longtemps occultées par les jésuites eux- mêmes. Le chapitre 8 s’intitule De genere Lainii disceptatio, c’est-à-dire “discussion sur les origines…” où l’historien officiel ne cache pas l’origine conversa de Laínez, ce qui va déclencher un scandale parmi les jésuites espagnols. En effet, dans Liber secundus, societ. 19, fol. 45, 32 pravisa Lainii electio…,34 il est dit que les jésuites de la Province de Tolède déclarèrent que tout cela était faux et qu’il fallait supprimer ce passage qui discréditait la Compagnie et était infamant pour les descendants de Laínez. Dans les Lainii Monumenta publiés à Madrid en 1917, on35 affirme que ce qui a été dit des origines du Père Laínez est faux et que Sacchini refusa l’idée que dévoiler les origines de Laínez 33 “Esta es una contienda vieja; desde el principio de la Iglesia ha durado hasta agora. Y durará hasta el día del juicio, cuando Dios emparejará todas las cosas.” 34 “Nec praeter vota, nec praeter opinionem hominum haec creatio evenit. Auctor est Ribadeneira praedixisse Beatum Ignatium ipsi Lainio sibi illum in eo munere successurum […] Et quidem quanta esset in existimatione Patrum Lainius id documento est, quod quamvis inter omnes vulgatum esset genus eum quanquam nobile, non tamen e peruetustis Christianis ducere; id quidquid est, ita virtute aliisque praestantibus ornamentis oppressit, non modo ut eorum, qui praesentes interfuerant consensu tanto, quantum retuli, Primus post Ignatium Praepositus declaratus sit; sed absentes etiam, quorum habita ratio non est, eumdem nominarent.” 35 “Non deshonestantur natalibus magnae virtutes, sed magnis virtutibus natales cohonestantur,” tome 8. Nadal “falsa esse quae de genere P.Lainii dicuntur” et “Num ignorabat P.Natalis stirpem (la race) Lainii?” 152 ANNIE MOLINIÉ ET BÉATRICE PEREZ
serait une source de déshonneur pour la Compagnie. Diego Laínez était né à Almazán en 1512. Almazán était le berceau de la famille Laínez, des conversos depuis quatre générations: Juan Laínez et Isabel Gómez de León. Il est également significatif que le Père Pedro de Ribadeneira36 ait passé sous silence les origines conversas de Laínez. On sait qu’avant même de rédiger la biographie de Borgia, il avait terminé celle de Diego Laínez. Celle-ci aurait dû être publiée antérieurement, mais la censure romaine en retarda la publication pour des raisons évidentes.37 Les années 1556-90 qui précèdent l’adoption du statut sont particulièrement significatives pour les jésuites: la mort de leur fondateur garant de la non exclusion, en 1556; le généralat de Diego Lainez traversé par les attaques d’Antonio de Araoz, un neveu d’Ignace, très marqué par le préjugé de la pureté du sang et qui s’opposa à la politique d’Ignace parce qu’il estimait que la Compagnie perdrait de son prestige en Espagne si elle continuait d’admettre des nouveaux chrétiens comme postulants. Ce jésuite, très en vue à la Cour de Philippe II, était davantage soucieux des intérêts de la Monarchie que de ceux de la Compagnie et était l’ennemi du Père Borgia. C’était un politique qui souhaitait l’ “espagnolisation” de la Compagnie. Il faut encore rappeler les troubles suscités, en 1588, par des jésuites espagnols dissidents “rebelles” qui avaient rédigé des mémoires, transmis à Philippe II par le cardinal de Tolède, pour dénoncer le gouvernement interne de la Compagnie et demander au roi d’organiser une “visita inquisitorial” des provinces espagnoles. Tout cela s’inscrit dans un processus nouveau et une rupture puisque l’on passe d’une Compagnie espagnole avec Ignace, Laínez et Borja à une Compagnie romaine avec Mercurian et Acquaviva. Des jésuites italiens soutenus par des jésuites portugais vont s’opposer aux jésuites espagnols. De plus, outre ce qui ressortit à un nationalisme, il y a un changement de groupes de pression autour du roi Philippe II, comme l’ont montré Juan Martínez Millán et Stefania Pastore. Les jésuites ont perdu faveur et pouvoir à la cour d’Espagne. On va alors évincer le secrétaire particulier d’Ignace, Juan Alfonso Polanco, lui-même d’origine conversa et le “parti espagnol” et faire élire le luxembourgeois Éverard Mercurian. 36 Il était le fils du jurat de Tolède Álvaro Husillo Ortiz de Cisneros, d’origine conversa. Il prit le nom de Ribadeneira, celui du village de Riba de Neira, dans la province de Lugo, en Galice, berceau de ses ancêtres maternels. Il naquit à Tolède en 1526. 37 Les censures faites à Rome à cette biographie se trouvent dans Lainii Monumenta, t. VIII: “Censurae in vitam patris Lainii a P. Ribadeneira scripta”; en particulier celle du Père Manuel Rodrigues, un jésuite portugais. DE LA PURETE DE SANG AUX XVE ET XVIE SIECLES 153
Conclusion
Cette Compagnie de Jésus, universelle et romaine, qui allait entreprendre l’évangélisation du monde, se dotera de statuts de pureté de sang moins de soixante ans après sa fondation, en contradiction avec les Constitutions de l’ordre et la volonté d’Ignace. Les espoirs fondés en la Compagnie par un Venegas seront ruinés e dans une Espagne où, dans la deuxième moitié du XVI siècle, on traquera les jésuites d’origine conversa et les nobles dont les ancêtres auraient été de “caste juive.” Au fil du temps, le concept nobiliaire est gauchi sous l’effet du concept de pureté de sang. C’est bien l’“Espagne des refus”: fermeture de l’intérieur de la Compagnie et d’une noblesse oblitérée par la pureté de sang. Comme le disait Pierre Chaunu, “Les statuts bloquent ainsi la société autour de l’universelle acceptation de l’ordre du lignage.”
154
L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME Ilana Zinguer
Avec mon langage, je puis tout faire, même et surtout ne rien dire.
Cette démarche de Roland Barthes était déjà celle de Michel de Montaigne. Tous deux nous parlent d’un langage en état de repli. Montaigne médite souvent sur son écriture, mouvante; elle manque de liaisons, son obscurité est voulue et met le lecteur devant la nécessité de déchiffrer. Ses déclarations sur son propre style laissent voir que ce ne sont pas là des négligences mais au contraire, un appel à la pensée et à la vigueur de l’esprit, destiné à lui-même comme à son lecteur. La critique ne tarit pas d’interprétations et réhabilite sans cesse le droit à la confusion et à l’obscur. Ce n’est pas une stratégie, c’est une nécessité. Nécessité de dire à demi pour mieux découvrir, d’insinuer pour mieux faire voir, de faire allusion pour faire semblant de taire, autant de figures de rhétorique, la dissimulatio, la significatio, la res obscura, la suspicatio, la réticence, l’allusion, l’insinuation sont à son usage exclusif et personnel. Sans parler des additions successives qui réussissent, par leur “embrouillure,” à instaurer la confusion et le trouble. Retenons la figure du dire “oblique” “où la signifiance dépasse la signification, elle donne à entendre plus qu’elle ne dit … Elle dit à mots couverts, confusément, et l’implicite est plus riche de sens que l’explicite, car elle dit aussi ce qu’elle ne dit pas…”1 J’ai étudié, dans le passé, les éléments dissimulés des Essais, à partir d’anecdotes ou de lapsus ou d’allusions. C’était l’occasion de révéler, grâce au recours à l’ambivalence des additions successives, des éléments autobiographiques intimes, de suivre le langage corporel (la Physionomie). La nature des Essais et la nature des situations exceptionnelles à lire impérativement sont bien connues. Il m’est donné ici, tenant compte des nombreuses contributions qui entre-temps ont été versées au dossier de mon hypothèse, la possibilité d’élargir cette discussion à un sujet plus complexe, relevant de l’identité politico- religieuse de l’auteur. Est bien connue la valeur des silences éloquents, expliqués couramment par la psychologie, une émotion extrême peut réduire au
1 Mathieu-Castellani, G., Montaigne ou la vérité du mensonge, Les Seuils de la Modernité, Genève, Droz, 2000, p. 159. L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME 155
silence. Pour cette circonstance, le “rideau de Timanthe”2 sert d’image aux rhétoriciens; les prosateurs et les poètes de la Renaissance la reprendront pour le grand thème du “parler impossible” étudié par François Rigolot. Selon ce dernier, si une émotion extrême est ce que recherche l’écrivain dans ses allusions de silence éloquent, c’est aussi paradoxalement un regain d’éloquence, leur protestation de silence n’est que feintise et la rhétorique la classe comme “prétérition;” cette figure, non négligée par Montaigne, joue sur la contradiction de la mise en lumière d’un objet et du masque jeté sur ce même objet. Pourtant tout masque n’est pas prétérition, (comme chacun sait, est accentué ce qui est intentionnellement omis). S’il est nécessaire pour voiler l’intensité de la détresse d’Agamemnon devant le sacrifice de sa fille Iphigénie, ce masque peut tomber lorsque le paroxysme de l’émotion est insupportable; l’histoire, dans ce même chapitre, de Psammenitus, Roy d’Egypte “qui se tint coy sans mot dire” lorsque sa fille et son fils furent menés prisonniers, mais “ayant apperçeu un de ses domestiques conduit entre les captifs, il se mit à battre sa teste et mener un dueil extreme” (de la Tristesse, I, 2). Montaigne commente ainsi l’exacerbation et les degrés d’intensité de l’émotion. La démarche se métamorphose alors en réticence, “figure qui consiste à passer sous silence, des choses que l’on fait effectivement connaître davantage en les taisant que si on les disait ouvertement”3 qui par l’acte d’omission de signification qui la caractérise diffère la venue du sens, soit par des silences soit par des rajouts de mots. Plus que tout autre texte de Montaigne, le passage où il décrit, dans son Journal, le Carnaval de Rome, dévoile une maîtrise des procédés langagiers où les non-dits sous-tendent la complexité d’un vécu réel.4 A la lecture de l’épisode du Carnaval dans le Journal de Voyage en Italie, nous sommes frappés par les manques dans le récit. Alors que la description devenait, dans son journal, un exercice de style de plus en plus élaboré, devant l’événement le plus spectaculaire, à savoir le carnaval romain qui attirait des milliers de spectateurs et de voyageurs, il y a un vide qui étonne. Le Carnaval à Rome se déroule selon des édits de lois et des préparatifs de grande envergure. Montaigne et sa suite ne manquent pas de réserver des places aux premières loges. Or la description tant attendue de ce spectacle est escamotée, paradoxalement. Pas de masques, 2 Rigolot, F., “Le rideau de Timanthe ou: les silences éloquents de la Renaissance,” Rhetorica 20, 4, 2002, pp. 319-33. 3 Bretteville, E. de, L’Eloquence de la chaire et du barreau, Paris, 1689. 4 Voir Zinguer, I., “Montaigne et le Carnaval de Rome,” dans Zinguer, I., et Blum, S. S. (éds), L’Antisémitisme éclairé, Leiden, Brill, 2003, pp. 19-29. 156 ILANA ZINGUER
pas de costumes, pas de représentations théâtrales, pas de courses d’animaux, pas de chariots à l’antique, pas de chariots portant des animaux sauvages, pas d’exercices de voltige, ni les cris, les fanfares, les chevaux, les jeux, les écoliers, les acteurs, les cavalcades, etc. Tout ceci était pourtant décrit abondamment par d’autres voyageurs. Le Journal de Bouchard,5 consacre un gros chapitre à cet événement. Le secrétaire de Montaigne qui tenait la plume, à ce moment-là, rapporte simplement ceci: Le 8 et encore le 12 il eut un ombrage de colicque et fit des pierres sans grande douleur. Le Quaresme-prenant qui se fit à Rome cette année là fut plus licencieux, par la permission du pape, qu’il n’avait esté plusieurs années auparavant. Nous trouvions pourtant que ce n’estoit pas grand’chose. L’historien Rodocanachi6 est étonné de “la sereine indifférence du grand moraliste en face de ce spectacle.” L’historien rapporte que le pouvoir papal maintenait une des plus dures sujétions que les juifs eussent à supporter et une des plus aptes à les exposer aux outrages de la foule: les courses. Le peuple y prenait plaisir. La course des juifs ne fut jamais supprimée alors que furent supprimée celles des autres parias. Elle devenait ridicule, grotesque sur une piste longue le long du Corso. Afin de les essouffler davantage, un repas copieux leur était servi avant la course; ils devaient revêtir un manteau bizarre, d’étoffe blanche, qui fut, par la suite, raccourci considérablement, et remplacé par des haillons; plus tard, il fut enlevé tout à fait. Les coureurs juifs étaient obligés de lutter nus au milieu de la foule, ranimés à coups de pierre et de bâton. Les soldats galopant, les poussaient rudement à la joie des romains. Ceci dura jusqu’en 1668. Ce manque séquentiel n’a pas failli d’attirer les remarques des critiques. Selon Elizabeth Mendès da Costa7 le climat politico-religieux de l’époque aurait contraint notre voyageur à la prudence. Pour éviter toute suspicion, Montaigne aurait été obligé de masquer tout intérêt pour les Juifs même devant son secrétaire. Il connaissait les restrictions sur les conversos. Cependant cela n’exclut pas une certaine affinité qui ne passe pas inaperçue dans le Journal. Lunel8 avance que Montaigne profite de 5 Bouchard, J. J., “Le Carnaval de Rome” (1632), Œuvres de J. Bouchard, G. Giappichelli (éd.), Turin, 1981. 6 Rodocanachi, E. M., “Le Ghetto à Rome,” Revue des Études Juives, 22, 43, 1891, pp. lix-lxxxii. 7 Da’Costa, E. M., “The Jews and Montaigne’s Journal de Voyage,” French Studies Bulletin 19, 69, 1998, pp. 10-13. 8 Lunel, A., “Montaigne et les juifs,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne 19, 1956, pp. 40-49. L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME 157
son anonymat à l’étranger pour mieux observer les juifs sans contrainte. En effet dans chacune des villes visitées, le voyageur prend connaissance des habitudes de toutes les institutions religieuses.9 Officiellement catholique, il ne montre nulle part de dévotion excessive. Il se rend à Lorette pour s’acquitter d’un vœu. Le Journal offre la religion comme leitmotive essentiel; y est menée une enquête religieuse attentive, claire et lucide. A Vérone “Nous vîmes aussi les Juifs, et il fut en leur synagogue et les entretint fort de leurs cérémonies.” Là il rencontre les rabbins; rencontre fameuse qu’il fit seul sans le secrétaire; tout le savoir acquis à cette occasion fut utilisé pour la description de la plus “ancienne cérémonie de l’humanité,” qu’il dicta et qui contient des informations pour initiés recueillies des rabbins de Vérone. A Sienne, à Ancône, à Rome, il visite ghettos et synagogues; interroge rabbins et médecins. Il assiste à la “Predica coattiva,” prêche obligatoire donné les samedis, remis en vigueur par Grégoire XIII afin de convaincre les juifs d’abandonner leur religion. Le sermon que Montaigne alla écouter était particulièrement célèbre car donné par un rabbin “renié” (un renégat), Joseph Sarfati, devenu Andréa del Monté. Entre autres plaisirs que Rome me fournissait en carême, c’était les sermons. Il y avait d’excellents prêcheurs, comme ce rabbin renié qui prêche les juifs le samedi après dîner, en la Trinité. Il y a toujours 60 juifs qui sont tenus de s’y trouver. Celui était un fort fameux docteur parmi eux et par les arguments mêmes, leurs rabbins, et le texte de la Bible, combat leur créance. En cette science, et des langues qui servent à cela, il est admirable. Montaigne reste jusqu’au bout d’un service pour entendre un commentaire biblique à la suite d’une discussion à la synagogue: L’après midi, tout à tout leurs docteurs font leçon sur le passage de la Bible de ce jour-là, le faisant en italien. Après la leçon quelque autre docteur assistant choisit quelqu’un des auditeurs, et parfois deux ou trois fois de suite, pour argumenter contre celui qui vient de lire, sur ce qu’il a dit. Celui que nous ouimes lui sembla avoir beaucoup d’esprit en son argumentation. Mais devant la course humiliante vue sur le Corso, Montaigne resta muet. Pourtant nous connaissons son aversion devant la cruauté. Sa désapprobation manque ici. La remarque du secrétaire: “nous trouvions
9 Dédéyan, Ch., “La religion dans le Journal de Voyage de Montaigne,” dans Montaigne e l’Italia, Actes du Colloque de Milan-Lecco, Genève, Slatkine, 1991, pp. 391- 418 (391): La question de la religion de Montaigne a été abordée dès le XVIIe siècle “et vu l’usage que faisaient de sa pensée les Libertins, les Essais, sur l’initiative des Jansénistes, furent mis à l’index.” 158 ILANA ZINGUER
pourtant que ce n’était pas grand-chose”10 appelle notre attention. “Pourtant” et “pas grand-chose” deux expressions qui indiquent une réponse à une quelconque objection. Les critiques se récrient de cette absence de révolte même si Montaigne quitte le spectacle pour une raison qu’on ignore. Or cette raison non dite dans le texte est à poser. Justement cette année-là, sous Grégoire XIII, un chroniqueur signale un regain des souffrances des coureurs sous la pluie et le vent.11 Il est surprenant qu’aucune trace de ce moment “insoutenable” ne soit signalée dans le Journal. Montaigne n’évite pas de parler d’habitudes cruelles rencontrées lors de son voyage. Rappelons l’exemple de Catena décrit deux jours plus tôt, cérémonie avec plus de dix mille spectateurs devant le supplice d’un homme noir de trente ans pendu puis tranché en quartiers. Ainsi cette omission équivaudrait à un silence plus révélateur de sa sympathie que le ne serait un commentaire bref où il aurait exprimé sa désapprobation, sympathie que remarquent clairement les critiques. La démission du secrétaire (qui eut lieu quatre jours après le Carnaval) prête, également à interprétation, elle semble être la conséquence d’un évènement soudain mais trop peu nous est connu pour appuyer de telles conjonctures. Cependant nous pouvons retenir que les courses dont aucun détail ne lui a échappé (“il était assis en un très bel endroit de la rue”) ont ému le spectateur Montaigne. Son silence et son départ précipité nous permettent d’en juger ainsi. La lacune signalée dans ce récit permet de comprendre la pleine signification des commentaires sur les juifs que Montaigne est capable de transmettre. En effet, son opinion à ce sujet se trouvera dans les Essais et non dans le Journal. Quoique les deux œuvres soient souvent considérées appartenant au même genre littéraire des mémoires, une différence majeure entre les deux s’impose. Le Journal est une oeuvre basée sur la mémoire immédiate. Celle-ci est maîtrisée parfaitement par le récit du carnaval où il ne montre guère l’impulsion immédiate provoquée par la rébellion alors que les Essais, œuvre écrite dans sa librairie, fait appel à une autre mémoire, distillée pendant des années de réflexion sur des événements historiques passés.
10 La nature de ce “nous” pluriel reste imprécise (le secrétaire et Montaigne?); le Journal n’était pas toujours dicté. 11 Rodocanachi cite un chroniqueur de l’année 1583, donc deux ans après le passage de Montaigne; ce voyageur se réjouissait aux souffrances des juifs: “les juifs ont été favorisés d’un vent, d’une pluie et d’un froid dignes de ce peuple perfide.” Le Saint Siège et les Juifs, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1891, p. 192. L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME 159
La réaction à la censure romaine confirme notre hypothèse.12 Parmi les objections, les censeurs trouvèrent que ses réserves13 étaient subversives, ce pour quoi il fut blâmé.14 Plus tard, loin de la censure, au même passage exclu par le lecteur papal, Montaigne choisit de développer la question de la cruauté par un récit sur les juifs d’Espagne, “bannis, vendus,” par les Rois de Castille, dans l’essai I,14. Cet essai est trois fois plus long dans l’édition de 1595 que lorsqu’il fut lu par les censeurs. Toutes les additions qui se rapportent aux expulsés expriment sa profonde révolte contre les souverains portugais. Il retient de sa source, L’Histoire du Portugal de l’Evêque portugais Osorio,15 l’épisode le plus douloureux, l’arrachement des enfants et leur précipitation dans les puits par leurs propres parents, image saisissante condamnant la conversion par contrainte. Ce récit des persécutions des juifs, est unique dans la littérature française de cette époque, Montaigne est le seul humaniste à avoir élargi ses interrogations sur ces phénomènes. Dans cet ajout, écrit, loin de Rome en 1592, nous lisons : “aujourd’hui cent ans après.” 1592 était le centième anniversaire de l’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne. Commémoration non accidentelle. Au moment où Montaigne écrit ce passage, l’Inquisition sévissait lourdement et causait une émigration importante de conversos et de marranes en France. Que ce soit par haine pour l’Espagne ou pour le Juif, et la Ligue et les Politiques assimilent les juifs à l’Espagne. Les propos judéophobes se propagent dans les libelles de L’Anti-Espagnol: les “faquins de Castille, catholiques bâtards, demi-juifs et demi-Maures, à peine tirés de la synagogue et de l’Alcoran,” sous la plume de Pasquier (dans la jésuiterie il y a beaucoup de juiverie), de Pithou (faciès juif), de Charron (race superstitieuse entre
12 Smith, M., dans Montaigne and the Roman Censors, Genève, Droz, 1981, explore la rencontre intellectuelle du philosophe et des censeurs romains de l’Eglise catholique. Il étudie d’une part les réactions des censeurs envers l’édition des Essais de 1580, et d’autre part les aditions au livre faites après le verdict. Voir également Smith, M., Montaigne and Religious Freedom, Genève, Droz, 1991. 13 “il y a plus de danger à manger un homme vivant qu’à le manger mors.” 14 “Que le goust des biens et des maux depend en bonne partie de l’opinion que nous en avons.” 15 L’Evêque Osorio, historien latin. De rebus Emmanuelis, regis Lusitaniae, 1574, ouvrage traduit par Goulart en 1581 sous le titre l’Histoire de Portugal (1587,1590). Montaigne connaît les deux versions. Il reprend les mesures d’expulsion, la chronologie des faits, le viol des consciences, la suspicion des convertis. Voir Nakam, G., “Présence du Judaïsme dans les Essais: le récit des persécutions des juifs au Portugal, après leur expulsion d’Espagne en 1492 et la pensée biblique,” dans Goetschel, R. (éd.), 1492: L’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1996, pp. 291-308. 160 ILANA ZINGUER
toutes et odieuse), de l’Ancre16 (les juifs nos plus anciens ennemis, foule de sorciers et de juifs) … A la même époque donc, l’Inquisition exigeait que lui soient livrés les Nouveaux chrétiens du Sud Ouest et notamment ceux de Bordeaux.17 Gérard Nahon dans Les Juifs de Bordeaux, signale la disparition des lettres patentes qui protégeaient de l’expulsion des juifs de Bordeaux. Géralde Nakam fait remarquer que Montaigne n’avait pas corrigé toutes les remarques de la censure du Vatican, il maintint sa conception du mystère de Dieu unique; il maintint la révélation du Sinaï de l’Etre invariable, il dit que ses prières sont adressées à Dieu seul et il vénère Moïse. Nous ne pouvons nous empêcher de penser à Estienne de la Boétie, que l’on suppose être d’origine converso, qui dans son testament de dernière heure, faisait les mêmes déclarations. Au moment de l’écriture de cet ajout, quelques mois avant sa mort, Montaigne levait le voile sur une émotion parvenue à son comble. Ainsi nous avons l’impression que Montaigne maîtrise parfaitement les affects et leur débordement mais malgré toutes les hypothèses que nous pouvons formuler sur ses motivations et sur l’essence de son âme si abondamment décrite, il est difficile de savoir s’il a su interpréter ses actes avec justesse et s’il était intéressé qu’on le fît: “d’autant que c’est une hazardeuse et haute entreprinse, je voudrois que moins de gens s’en meslassent” (II, 1 (a) p. 321). Nous avons fait appel à la rhétorique car d’une part, nous nous heurtons à la difficulté de l’élucidation à cause de la non-connaissance intime et directe du sujet Montaigne. Les signes du texte plus que les rares documents d’archives se laissent interpréter aisément. Andrée Comparot parle d’une écriture dont l’origine est souvent attribuée à ses maîtres du Collège de Guyenne dont André de Gouvéa, Portugais et principal du Collège. Ceux-ci avaient été placés là par Pierre Eyquem, père de Montaigne, qui leur procure en sa qualité de maire de Bordeaux, des certificats de “naturalité” parce qu’ils étaient des “nouveaux convertis,” certificat procuré à la même occasion à leur ami Louis de Vivès. J’ai moi-même parlé de la forme midrashique de l’essai influencée justement par l’enseignement à caractère judaïque de ces 16 L’Ancre, P. de, L’Incrédulité et mescréance du sortilège pleinement convaincue, Paris, 1622. Ce traité fournissait des détails sur les pratiques juives des Portugais, exposant les efforts répétés de son auteur pour obtenir que les poursuites soient entamées contre les juifs fauteurs de troubles: Echec du traité et interdiction de poursuite à l’encontre des juifs. Voir Lévi, I., “Le Traité sur les juifs de Pierre de l’Ancre,” Revue des Études Juives 19, 1889, pp. 235-45 cité par Balakirsky-Katz, M., “Émile Zola, the Cochonnerie of Naturalist Literature, and the Judensau,” Jewish Social Studies 13, 1, 2006 (New Series), pp. 110-34. 17 Voir Blumenkranz, B., Histoire des Juifs de France, Paris, Privat, 1972. L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME 161
mêmes maîtres. Quant à la philosophie de Montaigne, est particulièrement remarquée l’influence du converso. Son Quod Nihil Scitur est compté parmi les livres les plus influents sur le scepticisme de l’auteur particulièrement dans Francisco Sánches, l’un des professeurs au Collège de Guyenne, collègue d’André de Gouvéa et de Vivès L’apologie de R. Sebon et le chapitre de l’Experience; je renvoie à l’introduction de Douglas Thomson et Elaine Limbrick pour leur traduction du Quod Nihil Scitur18 et particulièrement à l’ouvrage d’Andrée Comparot, Amour et Vérité: Sebon, Vivès et Montaigne.19 Cependant il y a une résistance chez les critiques à accepter les hypothèses qui assimileraient Montaigne à une quelconque judéité d’origine familiale. Le rejet des thèses de Malvezin par Trinquet ou Courteault ont intimidé la recherche. Cependant Cecil Roth, Donald Frame, Géralde Nakam, Gérard Nahon, et d’autres ont reconstitué un tracé familial dans lequel Montaigne paraît très impliqué. Notre but n’est pas de retracer ces liens. Ceci a été fait avec une grande maîtrise ou maladroitement. Certes la constellation familiale revêt un rôle capital dans le développement intellectuel de Montaigne. Au sein de sa propre famille, il vivait les “novelletés” religieuses de l’époque, une mère d’origine juive convertie à la nouvelle religion, des frères appartenant à cette même nouvelle religion alors que lui, Montaigne était de confession catholique, une famille du côté maternel puissante et nombreuse sillonnant l’Europe pour leurs activités commerciales.20 Si cette mère est un personnage oublié de la critique et apparemment de son fils qui la mentionne à peine, elle continua d’habiter le domaine familial, survécut à son fils Michel, jouit d’une position toujours puissante car les familles Eyquem et Loppes de Villeneuve ont su entretenir depuis des décennies une activité économique qui leur assurait la protection des Princes Européens, faits bien connus à Bordeaux. Dans la région de Bordeaux, la religion juive, à cette date, n’avait qu’une liberté précaire et l’opposition de Montaigne au sectarisme (III, 12 fin de l’essai de la Physionomie) lui valut la Bastille. En 1592 (Montaigne venait de mourir) la Compagnie de Jésus applique à son tour les statuts de la pureté de sang et expulse les nouveaux chrétiens. En 1596, à Bordeaux, les juifs sont accusés de complicité avec l’ennemi. En 1610, est adressée à Henri IV une liste de magistrats des parlements de Provence issus des juifs. 18 Sánchez, F., That Nothing Is Known (Quod Nihil Scitur), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988. 19 Comparot, A., Amour et Vérité: Sebon, Vivès et Montaigne, Paris, Klinsieck, 1983. 20 Bodian, M., “Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: The Ambiguous Boundaries of Self-Definition,” Jewish Social Studies 15, 1, 2008, pp. 66-80. 162 ILANA ZINGUER
De L’Ancre, conseiller du Roi à Bordeaux, poursuivant les sorciers et les juifs, rapporte dans son traité de l’Incrédulité (1622) “une infinité de juifs” dans la ville de Bordeaux, de Bayonne, de Saint-Jean-de-Luz parmi lesquels la famille des Louppes, mère de Montaigne Eyquem. Est-que ce tableau nous donne les clés pour les vides dans le texte sur le Carnaval de Rome. L’attitude de Montaigne vis-à-vis de la cruauté explique son incapacité d’être présent au spectacle des personnes bafouées durant la procession du Carnaval. Les brimades le bouleversent mais le laissent muet. Il aura les coudées plus franches, dirons-nous, après la visite à Rome. Il s’autorise alors cette prise de conscience aiguë des injustices envers les juifs.21 Cependant, il ne dit à aucun moment ouvertement sa position. Irions-nous, pour cela, questionner les origines de la nature de son style qui est le prétexte de tant d’études. Il présente d’indéniables aspects de métissage, de réticences, qui le rapprochent de beaucoup de textes écrits par cette grande famille d’intellectuels conversos ou issus de conversos.22 Irions-nous aussi, pour cela, jusqu’à parler de la formation d’une identité similaire (à cause de tant de circonstances ambiantes) à celle des conversos, ceux justement qui vivaient en catholiques? Les études sur le sujet sont très nombreuses; tous les auteurs de ces travaux ont donné une image plus nuancée de la compréhension de l’expérience du converso et de ses motivations, il est question de complexités de la perception de soi; bien que personne ne parle de l’identité associée à l’ethnicité, les chercheurs sont d’accord pour dire que les modèles de comportement du converso n’émergent pas d’un état de conscience juif, mais plutôt reflètent la mobilisation de stratégies humaines générales devant un conflit;23 ces modèles relèvent d’un programme de transformation
21 Nahon, G., Juifs et judaïsme à Bordeaux, Bordeaux, Mollat, 2003. On peut y lire qu’au moment où Montaigne écrit, l’Inquisition sévissait lourdement et cause une émigration importante de convertis et de marranes en France, provoquant un phénomène de phobie populaire donc de tension. Que ce soit par haine pour l’Espagne ou pour le Juif, et la Ligue et les Politiques assimilent les juifs à l’Espagne, et projettent leurs phobies sur ce bouc émissaire. Les propos judéophobes se propagent dans les libelles de L’Anti- Espagnol: les “faquins de Castille, catholiques bâtards, demi-juifs et demi-Maures, à peine tirés de la synagogue et de l’Alcoran,” sous la plume de Pasquier (dans la jésuiterie il y a beaucoup de juiverie), de Pithou (faciès juif), de Charron (race superstitieuse entre toutes et odieuse), de l’Ancre (les juifs nos plus anciens ennemis, foule de sorciers et de juifs). 22 Nahon, G., “Littératures hébraïques en Europe,” dans Didier, B. (éd.), Précis de littérature européenne, Paris, PUF, 1998, pp. 199-208. 23 Pinto, I. de, Apologie pour la nation juive ou réflexions critiques sur le premier chapitre du VIIe tome des œuvres de M.de Voltaire au sujet des juifs, Amsterdam, 1762. L’IMPLICITE A PROPOS DES JUIFS DE ROME 163
consciente, rare dans le monde moderne, et qui a joué un rôle primordial dans la formation de l’identité.24 Dont il est question après tout.
24 Legros, A., “Montaigne et Maldonat,” dans O’Brien, J., et Desan, Ph. (éds), La familia de Montaigne, MS, 13, 2001, pp. 65-98. Le philosophe, théologien et exégète jésuite Juan Maldonado, célèbre par ses cours au Collège de Clermont, rival de la Sorbonne, fut-il l’un des amis de Montaigne, comme le laissent entendre le Journal de voyage (deux rencontres au moins). Histoire des Juifs en France, cité, pp. 221-4. Margolin, J. C., “Réflexions sur quelques ‘histoires juives’ à la Renaissance,” dans Guggisberg, H. R., Lestringant, F., et Margolin (éds), Liberté de conscience ou intolérance? (XVIe-XVIIe Siècles), Genève, Droz, 1991, pp. 191-216. 164
VERS UNE SÉMIOTIQUE DU JUDAÏSME A L’AGE BAROQUE Georges Molinié
C’est quelques pistes seulement que je voudrais indiquer ici, relativement à la façon dont nous, comme contemporains mutuels de notre actualité du début du XXIe siècle, voyons se dessiner les linéaments de l’image, ou des images du judaïsme sous des facettes de la culture européenne à l’âge baroque.1 Dans une perspective culturelle large, s’étage en quelque sorte un double effet d’image. Précisons d’abord que je m’autorise de la chronologie étendue indiquée par les organisateurs du colloque pour me situer vers la fin de la période. On sait d’ailleurs que la question de la périodisation reste problématique, et selon les univers des pays d’où sont originaires les critiques (par exemple anglo-saxons ou francophones), et selon les domaines disciplinaires (comme l’histoire ou la littérature).2 On sait aussi que je revendique la pertinence générale de la catégorisation sous la désignation de baroque, pour étiqueter et qualifier la période des XVIe au XVIIIe siècles qui, en Europe, conformément à des rythmes variables, voire contradictoires, ainsi que sur des plans différents, voit se réaliser, à travers des formes esthétiques et des configurations idéologiques, le grand mouvement de déchristianisation lente, globale et hétérogène, qui fait passer de la culture médiévale à la culture moderne3 (lato sensu). C’est la tendance à une double désunion, à une double désunification, la culture européenne se fissurant relativement à l’idée d’un kosmos, d’une part vers des normalités et des modèles pluriels, et d’autre part vers plus de modèle du tout. Voilà qui n’est justement pas sans intérêt pour notre questionnement. On peut partir de données simples et factuelles. Je reprends Racine,4 emblématique, pour moi, de la crispation française, dite classique, du 1 Je ne vais pas en revanche revenir sur les différentes acceptions historiques du mot juif, puisque Georges-Élia Sarfati les a amplement étudiées. 2 On pourra se reporter par exemple à Molinié, G., “Peut-on périodiser un XVIIe siècle stylistique et esthétique?” dans La périodisation de l’âge classique, Littératures classiques n° 34, automne 1998; ainsi qu’à “Les enjeux de la périodisation,” dans Poétique de la pensée - Hommage à Jean Dagen, Paris, Champion, 2008. 3 Sur les portées différentielles de ce concept de moderne, on pourra également se reporter à l’une des plus récentes mises au point internationales: La Religion, la morale et l’histoire à l’âge classique (en français de la version en anglais: Brooks, W. and Zaiser, R. (eds), Religion, Ethics, and History in the French Long Seventeenth Century, Bern, Peter Lang, 2007). La critique anglophone emploie plutôt le terme d’early modern. 4 On se souvient que j’avais ici même évoqué une partie de la question en 1999 sous le titre “Poéticité et Négativité: Bérénice ou l’Orient saccagé,” dans Martin, I. and Elbaz, R. VERS UNE SEMIOTIQUE DU JUDAÏSME A L'AGE BAROQUE 165
grand baroque européen; on est juste après le terme de notre propre perspective aujourd’hui: cela permet d’éclairer avec quelque justesse. On a trois objets culturels majeurs qui, à des titres et selon des degrés divers, thématisent, dans des manifestations idéologico-mondaines de premier plan, textuelles et spectaculaires, fort ritualisées, le sujet juif: Bérénice, Esther et Athalie, entre 1670 et 1691. Je les prends comme témoignage d’une position commune, doxique, allant ordinairement de soi (c’est le signe de l’acceptabilité). Dans Bérénice, on a l’explicitation du référent de la guerre contre les juifs menée par Titus, autour de 70, guerre présentée, dans le développement argumentatif intérieur à la fable du drame, comme héroïque, formidable et heureuse, justement dans la mesure matérielle de l’extermination de juifs et du sac de Jérusalem. La gloire de Titus, évidente, due au massacre en Judée, conformément à un jugement universellement partagé: c’est le point, qui ne laisse place à aucun soupçon, le seul ainsi dans cette tragédie de l’ambiguïté lyrique. Dans Esther, on a plutôt l’insertion du public dans un univers historiquement pro-juif, destiné à favoriser l’émotion due au pathétique du sujet justement comme histoire. On aurait tort de s’abuser de cette impression de plain pied, y voyant une prise de position philo-sémite. Il s’agit davantage d’une neutralisation de toute valeur sémiotique à l’orientation morale du thème (on s’approche de la réflexion de fond). On ne peut rien en tirer, même pas une orientation de sympathie: tout se passe comme si les spectateurs n’étaient pas historiquement, concrètement, concernés, avec la transformation de la fable en fiction, purement et précisément littéraire. Et dans Athalie, on est apparemment dans le traitement d’une thématique plus religieuse, formant l’arrière-fond au drame personnel et politique. Cette problématique est expressément orientée par rapport à l’axe de la piété à l’égard du Vrai Dieu. On pourrait donc y voir une sorte d’hommage à la foi juive, comme fondamentale. Cependant, on bute sur un élément fort, la fameuse prophétie de Joad à la fin de l’acte III. C’est un élément essentiel, comme en témoignent les réactions immédiates de toute la critique (qui la trouve en quelque sorte hors sujet)5 et les propos mêmes de Racine dans sa Préface: c’est la
(eds), Jean Racine et L'Orient, Biblio 17, 148, Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2003, pp. 65-8. 5 Quelle Jérusalem nouvelle/ Sort du fond du désert brillante de clartés,/Et porte sur le front une marque immortelle?/Peuples de là terre, chantez./Jérusalem renaît plus charmante et plus belle./ D’où lui viennent de tous côtés/Ces enfants qu’en son sein elle n’a point portés?/ Lève, Jérusalem, lève ta tête altière./ Regarde tous ces Rois de ta gloire étonnés./ Les Rois des Nations devant toi prosternés/ De tes pieds baisent la poussière. 166 GEORGES MOLINIÉ
christianisation de l’histoire, dans le droit fil des théories de Bossuet, notamment dans son Discours sur l’histoire universelle.6 La mise en perspective de ces trois examens ne laisse aucun doute: à l’une des articulations sensibles, et des plus éclatantes, du cheminement européen vers la modernité, la thématique juive soit ne sert que de décor, dans ce qu’il peut avoir de plus “neutrement” insignifiant,7 même quand il s’agit de sa néantisation,8 soit, quand elle est saisie et présentée en profondeur, apparemment au sérieux et en tant que telle, sous l’aspect, en l’occurrence, de la religion, elle se trouve ipso facto explicitement dénaturée dans une perspective ouvertement chrétienne, selon un procédé de l’“ancillarisation,” ou de la muséographie, ou de la récupération, que dénoncera plus tard Emmanuel Levinas. On peut dire que la question idéologique posée dans cette trace — c’est forcément de trace qu’il s’agit — est double. Il y a d’abord celle de la religion et du rationalisme: on sait qu’au XVIIe siècle en tout cas, c’est la même question.9 Le rationalisme est religieux, ce qui veut dire (encore le point) chrétien. Mais comme ce rationalisme chrétien dominant10 est adossé au religieux, tout en en inventant une phénoménologie sociale nouvelle, se produit immanquablement une aporie du point de vue justement religieux: c’est la question indépassable de la Vérité en religion. La vérité juive ne peut pas avoir, par rapport à cette doxa, la même valeur que la vérité chrétienne, considérée comme absolument et nouvelle et définitive. Il y a alors forcément toujours un irrédentisme précisément païen dans le traitement baroque du judaïsme. Cette paganisation du judaïsme par la doxa chrétienne forme le symétrique du paganisme chrétien pour le judaïsme. Vu la glissade (idéologico-culturelle) du baroque, on se trouve toujours, dans ce milieu intellectuel européen, à la balance de la christianisation mythologisante du judaïsme, et d’une posture dégageant le reproche, ou la solution, de l’athéisme, à tout le moins du scepticisme. Les notes de Racine sont claires; à Jérusalem nouvelle: L’ Église, à Ces enfants: Les Gentils. 6 Ainsi que l’a remarquablement mis en valeur le dernier grand éditeur de Racine, G. Forestier: Œuvres complètes, Paris, La Pléiade, 1999. 7 Et une telle neutralité, ce n’est vraiment pas indifférent. 8 Et c’est bien là pour nous l’inacceptable. 9 Voir les attaques de Charles Sorel contre les romans au nom à la fois de la vraisemblance rationnelle et du respect de la théodicée. Dans une perspective inverse, on se rappellera les délicatesses plus anciennes de Maïmonide vis-à-vis du rationalisme aristotélicien. 10 Dominant dans le mouvement majeur des élites, y compris parmi les protagonistes de ce que l’on appellera plus tard la modernité. VERS UNE SEMIOTIQUE DU JUDAÏSME A L'AGE BAROQUE 167
La cristallisation historique de cette tension se manifeste avec une rigueur exemplaire au cœur de l’anthropologie religieuse du milieu et de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle, en pleine acmè du baroque européen extra-français (c’est-à-dire antérieurement aux développements plus précisément français), donc essentiellement italien et espagnol, lors des débuts de la Compagnie de Jésus, si exemplaire à tous égards de ces dynamismes. C’est la question des conversos, ces chrétiens marranes issus du judaïsme. Autour de saint Ignace, parmi les premiers compagnons mêmes, ainsi peut-être qu’avec les tout premiers dirigeants, il y avait des marranes; et cela ne posait aucun problème à la modernité de la Compagnie. Mais quelques dizaines d’années plus tard, ce ne fut plus possible: la Compagnie résista beaucoup, mais dut finalement céder, en raison des pressions politiques du pouvoir royal espagnol. On arrive alors, graduellement, à l’autre aspect de la question idéologique, celui qui est d’ordre plutôt philosophique, progressivement déconnectable, justement, du proprement religieux. Je reviens, et c’est significatif, au milieu du XVIIe siècle, avec Spinoza. Ses avancées, profondément originales, marquent et anticipent une évolution radicale de la problématique engagée par ce qui se découvre lentement, voire au prix de contorsions idéologiques diverses, à savoir la pensée du rapport à l’universel à travers des positionnements totalement immanents. On touche ainsi à l’essentiel philosophique. C’est bien d’universalisme qu’il y a enjeu, mais avec l’idée nouvelle qu’il pourrait y en avoir éventuellement deux, ou que l’un a chassé l’autre, ou qu’au bout du compte, il n’en peut plus y avoir de cet ordre-là – on se dirige vers un aboutissement de la modernité. Il est clair que c’est la pensée juive qui correspond à une pensée de la transcendance la plus absolue, alors même que se déploie, dans ou contre les traverses et les figures les plus diverses,11 une tendance à l’universalisme rationaliste d’inspiration chrétienne.12 C’est ce alors même qui marque très spécialement le moment sémiotique de la philosophie baroque spinoziste. En radicalisant aussi la réflexion théologique en tant que juive, Spinoza la dé-théologise13 de fait, ouvrant la voie à une laïcisation de la pensée de l’universel, à une laïcisation générale, et à une autonomisation instrumentale de la rationalité. C’est la direction vers un universalisme
11 Notamment les avatars de l’aristotélisme matérialisant padouan, et ceux, également matérialistes, du libertinage. 12 On pourrait y lire aussi une des formes les plus radicales de la problématique de l’Autre. 13 On pourra se reporter, entre autres, au Tractatus theologico-politicus de 1670. 168 GEORGES MOLINIÉ déconnecté du religieux, le judaïsme se manifestant en soi comme moins théologique et donc plus à même de mesurer cette modernité-là. Je conclus ce parcours très partiel en soulignant que la résistance ou l’irréductibilité juives forment toujours des révélateurs des enjeux véritables de toute Renaissance, même si l’historicité matérielle nous force à peu d’optimisme, étant donné que nous sommes allés d’une extermination à l’autre: il y aura en effet, ensuite, une seconde modernité, qui assassinera la première espérance.
Part II
Philosophy and the Humanities
D - Literature 170
MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH Dvora Bregman
Moses Zacuto gained his great fame as both kabbalist and poet. To what degree and in which ways did his poetry absorb his kabbalistic convictions? It was hardly possible to tackle this issue as long as most of his poems were left in manuscript. Now, printed in its entirety,1 his poetical corpus may be surveyed as a whole.2 Based on such a survey I would venture to describe his poetry as rooted in a kabbalistic world and expressing its views. In fact, deciding whether any given poem is or is not kabbalistic is not an easy task. Kabbalah regarded every word and every letter in the scriptures as charged with secret meaning.3 It follows, then, that almost every word and expression in a Hebrew poem might convey a kabbalistic message. But we must allow that Hebrew poems, including liturgical poems, may have little to do with Kabbalah. When, then, can we look for kabbalistic messages in a poem without running the risk of imposing on it something that is not there? Extra-textual evidence might be helpful for identifying a poetic corpus appropriate for such an inquiry. In Zacuto’s case, this sort of evidence is ample. Zacuto was immersed in the kabbalistic world. He devoted so much of his time to the Zohar – studying it daily, often with colleagues or students, editing it, writing a commentary on it and proofreading literature related to it – that he must have known it by heart.4 His correspondence with students and colleagues reveals him as a devout adherent and fierce advocate of the Lurianic belief.5 His painstaking, sometimes lengthy and often excited explanations of its ethos convey an
1 Hen Kol Hadash (A New Voice), R. Ottolenghi (ed.), Livorno, 1712, holds 38 poems. Essa Et Levavi, Shirim M'eet Rabi Moshe Zacut (I Raise My Heart, Poems by R. Moses Zacuto), D. Bregman (ed.), Jerusalem, Ben Zvi Institute, 2009 (Hebrew), holds 200 poems. I will refer to poems in my edition by title, page number or serial number. 2 His two dramas demand a special discussion with regard to their relation to Kabbalah and will be mentioned here only in passing. 3 Scholem, G., Elements in Kabbalah and Its Symbols, Jerusalem, Bialik Institute, 1975, pp. 39-40 (Hebrew); Scholem, G., “Isaac Luria and His School,” in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, London, Thames and Hudson, 1955, p. 248. 4 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 7 note 7. For a basic overview of the Zohar see Lachover, F. and Tishby, Y., The Wisdom of the Zohar, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989. These and further references in the following footnotes do not necessarily exclude other relevant sources. 5 On Lurianism see the bibliography in Lurianic Kabbalah: Collected Studies by Gershom Scholem, D. Abrams (ed.), Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism, 22, Los Angeles, Cherub, 2008, pp. 377-422 (Hebrew). MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 171 ardour that could hardly be subdued once he turned to composing poetry.6 As a most prolific poet, it is only plausible that he would endeavour to do in verse what he did in prose, all the more so since the Ari – R. Isaac Luria – himself composed poetry and regarded poetry as a holy vehicle.7 The literary and social contexts into which Zacuto’s poems were admitted also indicate that they were innately kabbalistic in nature. Many of them were included in tikunim (amendments) compilations, containing particular sacred texts destined for joint study and prayer and regarded by kabbalists as a potent means for hastening the redemption.8 Zacuto himself compiled such tikunim and embellished collections with his poems. In his tikun for the eve of Hoshana Rabba, for instance, he included five poems assigned for chanting at the conclusion of the customary reading of the five Books of Psalms.9 This particular tikun of Zacuto was printed several times, once at the end of the compilation Hen Kol Haddash,10 which consists exclusively of his poems. Printed by a devotee in 1712, this collection might originally have been assembled by the author himself to serve as a prayer book at the regular daily and nightly gatherings of the confraternity Hadashim Labekarim (New Day by Day), which he himself founded in Mantua (note the similarity between the name of the confraternity and the title of the compilation). The poems in Hen Kol Haddash are subtitled by comments, whether originating with the author or added by the editor, which point out kabbalistic elements in the text, such as particular combinations of letters
6 See for instance letters quoted in Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), pp. 27, 300, and poem 79 and commentary. However his devotion had its limits. See Sack, B., “On Zacuto as Co-Author of Tuv Ha'arets,” Kabbalah 10, 2004, pp. 207-226 (210) (Hebrew). 7 See Scholem, “Isaac Luria” (note 3 above), pp. 255, 271; Liebes, Y., “Zemirot liSeudat Shabbat sheYised ha Ari ha Kadosh,” Molad 4, 1972, pp. 540-55 (Hebrew). 8 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), pp. 489-502, tables I and II, Hen Kol Haddash (note ).On Tikkun, see Tishby, Y, The Wisdom, ibid. [note 4] vol. 3, pp. 955 onward; on Tikun Hatzot, see Otzar ha Zohar, D. Frisch (ed.), Jerusalem, 1976, vol. 1, p. 286ff. On Tikun in Luriansm, see Scholem, G., Elements (note 3 above), pp. 143ff; and “Isaac Luria” (note 3 above), p. 246; Meroz, R., “Redemption in the Lurianic Teaching,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988. On Tikunim poetry see Andreatta, M., Poesia religiosa ebraica di età barocca, Padua, Gordini, 2007. On Zacuto in this context see Halamish, M., Kabbalah in Liturgy, Halachah and Custom, Ramat Gan, Bar Ilan University Press, 2002, pp. 554, 556, 581-7 (Hebrew). 9 On the Psalms and Hoshana Rabba in Lurianism, see Scholem, “Isaac Luria” (note 3 above), pp. 244-86, p. 248, 285. For Zacuto on Hoshana Rabba see Sack (note 6 above), p. 224. On the poem Essa Et Levavi as included in Tikun Shovavim see Halamish, Kabbala in Liturgy (note 8 above), p. 578. 10 Note 1 above, pp. 42-9. 172 DVORA BREGMAN that form various names of the Deity.11 Almost every one of the nearly 40 poems included therein is, according to its mystical essence, dedicated to a specific day.12 Apart from volumes of tikunim, meaningful vehicles for poems by Zacuto were books of an obvious kabbalistic nature, such as Derech Emmet by Yosseph Hamis, Torat Hacham by Hayyim ben Avraham Hakohen, or an edition of the Zohar by the same Yosseph Hamis, which Zacuto proofread, 13 to give but a few examples. In most of these venues, poems by Zacuto were included as preambles or epilogues serving as revered “haskamot” (approvals). Also meaningful are those recipients, known to be kabbalists, to whom Zacuto addressed poems.14 The socio-historical context in which a part of Zacuto’s poetical legacy flourished is also noteworthy. Most of the kabbalistic compilations and volumes that contained his poems were published, some of them during his lifetime, and several of these were reprinted in a remarkable number of editions: Marpe Lanefesh in 10, Seder Tikun Hatzot in 9, Seder Tikun Shovavim in 24, including New York 1992, and 1993, Shaarey Tzion in 20,15 Shefer Hatikunim in 12. The striking variety of places in which the poems were printed is indicative of their widespread popularity.16 Poems included in tikunim collections not only survived thanks to kabbalistic devotees, but were brought by them to life year by year in actual performance, frequently by singing to favourite tunes.17 However, the decisive proof of a poem’s kabbalistic nature must lie in its text itself. In this respect, I would divide our corpus into three main parts, A, B, and C, each of which I shall discuss in turn in the remainder of this chapter.
11 See Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar (note 4 above), pp. 293-5. On letters see Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), vol. 1, pp. 53ff. 12 Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), p. 78, pp. 324ff. 13 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), pp. 298, 278, 281, 285. 14 For example, Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), poems 23, 32, 56, 164: pp. 119, 158, 158. 15 On the widespread influence of this book see Scholem, G., “Kabbalah,” The Hebrew Encyclopedia, vol. 29, p. 129. 16 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), pp. 490-3. 17 See Seroussi, E., “The Musical World of R. Moshe Zacuto in Light of His Liturgical Poetry,” Pe’amim 96, 2003, pp. 53-70 (Hebrew). MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 173
A. A considerable group of poems could hardly be understood as anything other than kabbalistic. Here are some examples: Or Haganuz Beloven Hamahsof (The Light Hidden in the Brightness of the Clearing)18 is nothing but a prayer.19 It is structured as a chain of requests directed to a mysterious light that is both hidden and revealed in the utmost clarity, as it flows abundantly from its secret source, Ein Sof (infinity), into vessels arranged in a hierarchy and, successively, specified by name: Crowned with a crown in a place unknown (line 13) Illuminate the paths of wisdom and accomplishment (line 19) Open the wondrous gates of comprehension (line 23) Remember your grace granted onto the house of Israel (line 25) Of your bravery their thoughts are frightened (line 30) Recall, ancient one, your glory revealed on Sinai to your true believers (lines 33-4) In your eternal majesty send me your wondrous response (line 38) Establish in Zion, Living God, my precious foundation (line 43) Grant me the sight of the shoot of your Kingdom (line 45) Coming in this order, the terms marked with italics, which would regularly carry conventional messages, represent here perforce the ten sefirot, in their well known hierarchy: Keter, Chochma, Binah, Chesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malchut, each receiving in turn the holy flow from above and passing it down, as the poem openly states. This hierarchy forms a kabbalistic frame of reference that leaves us no choice but to read the whole poem in the light of kabbalistic (specifically, Lurianic) ideology. Hachinota Maor (You Have Prepared a Light),20 which in time found its way to a tikunim compilation, was originally attached to a letter sent by Zacuto to his disciple and colleague Rabbi Binyamin (Vitale) Hacohen, in order to let him know how the poem had been performed at the anniversary festivities of the venerable Mantuan confraternity, Shomerim Laboker,21 founded in the year 1610.22 The first stanzas narrate: God prepared a light for his people and “for us today” and located it in His shrine. Concealed in the unknown by secret contractions, his word shone
18 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 436. 19 As evident not only in content, but also in prosody. Unusual for Zacuto, this poem is loosely measured, lingering, thus, between his strictly measured poetry and his rhymed unmeasured prayers. As Hayyim Luzzatto observed, this connects the poem to the poetry of Yisrael Nagara, the Oriental mystical poet. 20 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above) p. 448. 21 On Shomerim Laboker, see Andreatta, Poesia religiosa, (note 8 above). 22 This date, hitherto unknown to research, is revealed in this poem. 174 DVORA BREGMAN
through remnants of luminous drawings: let there be light! and light came to be. For “drawings,” Zacuto uses the term “rishumim,” and for “contractions” – “tzimzumim.”23 What we have here is perforce a scene from the primordial drama, in which basic kabbalistic principles such as or ganuz, Tzimtzun, Reshimu and Tehiru (for which stands the shrine – Devir) play their parts.24 In the last stanzas, the poet narrates how, after the destruction, remains of the holy primordial light were carried by the Shekinah into exile so as to shine there in the synagogues. And so it happened, he says, that this Kahal – this Mantuan community – gave the holy light a home in this very courtyard: And the law was given To rise before dawn, Maintaining the watches Within the pavilion, Watches well established By learning at midnight, With penance then voiced In songs and hymns, Which become lights For your people to enjoy, In candles of wax And oil for the lamps. The last lines allude to the lampadi lighted during the festivities in the yard of the Shomerim Laboker synagogue after the fashion of Italian non-Jewish confraternities.25 This poem is entirely determined and shaped by basic kabbalistic terms and notions. They dictate its theme and plot, and structure its development, step by step. In his narration Zacuto does not differentiate primordial events from historical occurrences, but rather treats them all equally as undisputed facts. The Mantuan confraternity plays a part in the primordial drama, as the holy light is readied at the beginning (of the poem and of the world) “for us today,” and vice versa. For the poet there is neither space nor time outside of the kabbalistic world view, and it
23 On Tzimtzum see Scholem, Elements (note 3 above) pp. 207-9; Idel, M., “Al Toledot ha-Tzimtzum Ba Kabballa Uva Mehkar,” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the History of Jewish Mysticism, Jerusalem, The Hebrew University, 1992, pp. 59-110 including a bibliography, pp. 111-12 (Hebrew). 24 See Scholem, Elements (note 3 above), pp. 105-107; “Isaac Luria,” (note 3 above), pp. 260-61, 264. 25 See Horowitz, E., “Processions, Piety and Jewish Fraternities,” in Davis, R. C. and Ravid, B. (eds), The Jews in Early Modern Venice, Baltimore and London, John Hopkins University Press, 2001, pp. 231-48. MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 175 seems all the more reasonable to regard his obviously kabbalistic poems, not as incidental episodes, but as typical of his writing in general. Similarly, the dirge for the kabbalist Natan Shapira26 consists of a series of paradoxes conveying his great loftiness. Coming one after the other they form a solid unity that as a whole, if it is to make sense, has to be read as kabbalistic. “He rose to the depth of Genesis which is wisdom.” This primordial wisdom must be the sefira Chochma, unattainable by the human mind. “He rose to the depth of the right side” – obviously the side of mercy of the deity.27 “At the end of days he will convert the very core of the left side.” This left side, wishfully converted at the end of time, must be sitra ahra28 - the “other side” that will then turn to the side of mercy. This daring attribution of supreme power to a human being is obviously highly unconventional and even bizarre. But it is plausible in Kabbalah. Akum Be’od Laila (I rise at Midnight)29 could have been understood as a conventional dirge on the destruction, had not several lines ruled out this option. One of these, line 11, states: “She fell down, dark as a dot.” What dot is this? According to the Zohar a dot of light is located in the heart of the sefira Malchut. According to Midrash, the moon was created equal to the sun in size but then sinned and was reduced. And according to Ets Hayim by Hayim Vital, the reliable source of the Ari, at the culmination of the moon's downfall from grace it is reduced to a dot.30 In Kabbalah the moon is identified with the sefira Malchut, which is identified with the Kingdom of David and with Israel, sovereign in the holy land.31 Thus this line does indeed mourn the destruction, but at the same time it mourns also the downfall that occurred with the moon and the sefirot. Thus, the anaphor naflah (she fell down), repeated 16 times successively (lines 5-19) is relaying a tremendous downfall that goes on and on. The enriched kabbalistic meaning makes this downfall concrete and colossal. Line 28 calls on the praying community to “invigorate the holy power of God.” It is not God that is called to strengthen the Jews, as customary, but vice versa, as Kabbala would allow and as emphasized in Lurianism.32 The power of the Jewish community to fulfill this heroic task is the power of prayer in public, derived from the classic precedence
26 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 407. 27 Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), vol. 2, pp. 326-7. 28 See Othzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), vol. 2 p. 327 (“Semol”). 29 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 443. 30 See Meroz, R., Redemption (note 8 above), especially pp. 204ff. 31 See Scholem, G., Elements (note 3 above), pp. 145-8, See Meroz, R., Redemption (note 8 above), pp. 120-24. 32 See Scholem, “Isaac Luria” (note 3 above), pp. 250-51. 176 DVORA BREGMAN of Moses’ prayer (Exodus 12: 13). This explains the repetition of a chain of uninterrupted anaphors alluding to it (lines 21 – 35), implying by accumulation its ever-growing magic-like power. This technique, which balances cosmic downfall against cosmic uprising, occupies most of the text and leaves us little choice but to figure out the kabbalistic meaning of the poem in its entirety, deciphering its clues line by line. In much the same way, the conventional reading of Yotser Hakol Umekor Hatov (Creator of All and Source of All Goodness)33 as a prayer for the redemption, must be ruled out. Line 14 asks that “this plentitude of water,” “this sacred hidden rain,” be poured down. This rain can hardly be understood as anything but the kabbalistic shefa,34 which implies both plenitude and grace in flow. Line 29 asks for the Kingdom of David to be graced by the turning of its tip-like karnayim into rasheem (heads). Karnayim are conventionally understood as horns, and as a metaphor Keren malchut beit David is of course a conventional term. Here, however, the karnayim are tip-like, and must, therefore, be not horns but rays of light, small as dots; the weak rays of the reduced moon, identified with the sefira Malchut and with the Kingdom of David in their fallen state. Here the author prays that the moon be raised from its downfall so Malchut may regain its proper, supreme place at the head of the sefirot hierarchy, and as a sort of by-product of that gigantic repair, the Kingdom of David be restored as well. Line 35 describes the redemption. When that time comes, it says, “Your grace will gain fame, for it, in its goodness, made the folk of Israel holy.” It is not God, in his traditional one-and-undivided unity that made Israel holy, but his grace, as a self-defined entity. This entity is of course the sefira Chesed. Maskil Le Eitan ha-Emet35 openly states its purpose: to praise an author for his successful interpretation of the Zohar in the true, Lurianic way. One should not hesitate, then, to assume that line 6, which mentions “the measure of the Lion,” alludes to the founder of the Lurianic method, the Ari, or that the word Heh in line 2, meaning, as usual, “here,” indicates as well the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which symbolizes the sefira Binah. Support for this assumption may be found in Zacuto’s dissection of his long verbal introduction to that poem into two parts, each beginning with the word “Heh,” typographically accentuated (of which he was aware as a proofreader of the book). That poem, along with its introduction, establishes the basic self-portrayal of Lurianism as no more than a proper reading of the Zohar.
33 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 445. 34 Scholem, Elements (note 3 above), pp. 230-33 (and onward); Tishby, The Wisdom (note 4 above), pp. 423ff; See Meroz, Redemption (note 8 above) pp. 177-80. 35 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 299. MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 177
In the opening lines of a wedding poem dedicated to the above- mentioned Binyamin ha-Cohen,36 Zacuto reminds the bridegroom that the divorce of a husband from his wife introduces separation into the secret bundle of unification (havilat sod hayihudim), referring perforce to the mystical elements mutually active in unifying the sefirot, increasing in power along with proper human sexual contact and decreasing with its termination.37 (The poem was attached to a letter offering instructions concerning these matters.38) The inevitable kabbalistic reading of the poem’s opening suggests the same reading of the remaining part of the poem; a suggestion easily carried out since most of the remainder dwells upon the bridegroom’s name, meaning “son of the right side,” a basic concept in Kabbalah. This way the blessing yireh benehama (he will see comfort) will not be taken as a mere personal wish, based on word-play on the bride’s name, Nehamah, but as a wish for a healing process to take place within the sefirot.39 This is the case with a sonnet in which the poet addresses his soul, describing it as “a tree descending from heaven,” which has obviously emanated from the world of the sefirot, and urging it to reach perfection through “basic secrets,” which means, obviously, the secrets of Kabbalah.40 Such conspicuous kabbalistic items within the corpus call for a reading attuned to allusions and references throughout the whole corpus, and, as it were, gives us license to consider seriously any textual component therein that might be taken to be alluding to Kabbalah.
B. A large group of poems connects to Kabbalah by way of double meaning, or meaning within meaning. Here a kabbalistic reading is possible, but does not exclude another, different reading. Here are several examples. A poem in praise of Rabbi Shabetai Be’er – Be’er meaning a well – hails this venerable Rabbi as “the well that provides life to the whole world and nourishes all living creatures.” The whole poem is nothing but a long metaphor, and might be understood as such, with no affinity to Kabbalah. But the Aramaic language in which it is written suggests roots in the Zohar,41 from which perspective it then seems that Zacuto’s metaphor identifies both the sage and the holy well
36 Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 119. 37 Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), pp. 247ff. 38 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 18 39 See Scholem, “Isaac Luria” (note 3 above), p. 248. 40 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 309; Scholem, Elements (note 3 above) pp. 204, 338-43. 41 See Zohar vol. 1, pp. 60r-60v, vol. 3, 261r-261v. 178 DVORA BREGMAN with the Deity.42 Aramaic serves as such a clue in other poems, or preambles to poems, which are either written in that language43 or imbued with its phraseology, as happens frequently. Im Kol kinor David (If the Voice of David’s Harp), written for the wedding of David Fererra,44 could be read conventionally. In that case its refrain: Hee ha Ola (This is the Sacrifice/Upraise) would be taken as a metaphor for righteousness or spiritual achievement. But it is also possible to see the refrain as referring to a process within the sefirot. In that case the name of the bridegroom, as well as the term Hod (highness) in Line 4, would refer to the sefira Hod, identified in Kabbalah with David, and the charity for which the bridegroom’s father, Abraham, is praised in lines 19-20 would stand for the sefira Chesed, which is symbolized in Kabbalah by the patriarch who bears that name.45 Such double meaning permeates the whole corpus of riddles, seventeen in number, which presents an interesting meeting point between Baroque and Jewish mysticism.46 While the long ambiguous texts depict the Baroque labyrinth of existence, the solutions of the riddles that clarify those texts show the way out of the labyrinth. Once solved, the riddles turn into long discussions of their solution, which are invariably highly charged nouns: tzizit, water, wine, corn, honour, the letters he, gimel, raish, the sun, life, secret, king, the colour white, star, sheva (vocalization mark) and the number six. In order to reach these solutions it is sufficient to decipher the Biblical and Midrashic allusions of the text, but one might as well go a step further and read these sources in the light of Kabbalah. This the text allows though never compels, both before and after its riddle being solved.47 Similarly, poems 118 and 202, which are interwoven with whole sets of objects which may or may not be seen as kabbalistic terms: the zodiac, the vocalization marks, the skies, the angels, the cantillation marks and much more. Forming impressive Baroque structures, they magnify images and situations on which the poems focus but may present a transcendental drama as well. A somewhat different sort of double meaning constitutes the poems included in Hen Kol Hadash, and is based on their twofold function.
42 On the well, see Tishby, The Wisdom (note 4 above), vol. 1 pp. 392-3. “All the Sefirot are called sages” - Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), p. 79 (“hahamim”); See Scholem, Elements (note 3 above), pp. 216-21. 43 Such as poems 60, 75. 44 See Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), p. 107. 45 See Otzar ha Zohar (note 8 above), pp. 8ff. 46 On Baroque and mysticism in Zacuto’s poetry see Essa Et Levavi (note 1 above), pp. 32-47 and more. 47 On double meaning in Baroque see Cohen, J. M., The Baroque Lyric, London, Hutchinson, 1963, pp. 53ff. MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 179
Whereas some would appreciate them as prayers intended for the glory of the Lord and adjusted to each calendar day in accord with its history as related in the Bible, and would regard the combinations of the names of the Lord suggested in acrostics as a sort of liturgical embellishment, others will regard those combinations, and because of them the poems a whole, as vehicles of magical power, activated by chanting with the proper intention at the proper time.
C. In a considerable part of the corpus it is hard to discern one solid heavenly drama or issue on which the whole text can be seen to focus, as is the case for those that fall into groups A and B. These poems are associated with Kabbalah by disconnected words and expressions, dispersed throughout their texts, which appear to hint or gesture toward Kabbalah. These scattered hints occur in great variation and frequency (some of them dozens of times) in our corpus. I will mention the most striking or common. * “Zohar” (as metaphor and simile or direct reference: sefer Zohar, or shefer Zohar). Blessings and compliments, abundant in our corpus would always be connected with light, often by use of the verbal root z.h.r. * Names of the sefirot: Keter (or atara or koteret), Binah, Hod, Yesod, and most common of all – Hesed. Those are sometimes combined in phrases such as Hochma Bina be Hesed (Poem 196, line 29), Hod im Gevurah (198: 10), Netzah Gevurah Hod ve Tiferet (12:2). * Heh: Comes frequently instead of Hen, which could function just as well from the point of view of semantics and prosody. (See poems 21: 8, 26: 8, 70:3, 74: introduction, 78: introduction, 81:1, 156:8, 189:1, 192:6, 202: introduction and 3, beside a whole riddle elaborating on Heh). * “Strong lines” suggesting a kabbalistic mood, effective mainly at the openings of poems, where they serve as sorts of captions: “Hesed on that day” (96), “The pillars of the earth” (170), “Spring of wisdom” (145), “Plant of delight” (Netta shaashuim, 159), “Hall and shrine” (6), “If wisdom is praised” (30) etc. * Elaborations on Hebrew names based on Bible and Midrash.48 * Letters as syntactical objects and in various acrostics. * Innumerable Biblical, Midrashic and Talmudic allusions whose very sense within the poem may depend upon their function in their original contexts, and suggest kabbalistic notions. (The drama Tofte Aruch is based on Midrash).
48 Scholem, Elements (note 3 above), pp. 39-40. 180 DVORA BREGMAN
These scattered clues keep the poems within the realm of Kabbalah, as the aware reader will grasp and decipher and as the unaware will sense. The degree of kabbalistic obviousness in a poem, or as we might say now, the apparent allocation of Kabbalah within any of the mentioned groups, depended on the socio-religious standing of its audience or recipient, regularly openly mentioned in those poems which are mostly occasional. Purely and solely kabbalistic poems, or those that are highly suggestive as such, were intended for recipients who were open followers of Kabbalah. Poems written in double meaning were intended for non-kabbalists or for those mixed audiences in which they might be found. Zacuto would send a pure kabbalistic wedding poem to Binyamin ha Cohen – an ardent Lurianic and even an alleged Sabbataen – quite different from the poem that he wrote for the double-wedding of the non- kabbalists (but nevertheless his admirers) Jacob and Immanuel Frances. And whereas the poem for ha Cohen was enclosed in a private letter, other wedding poems were intended to be read aloud in ceremonies where all sorts of Jews, not necessarily followers of Kabbalah, would gather. Those poems were made fit for all by double meaning. This is true of Zacuto’s dirges and tombstone poems and of the poems of Hen Kol Hadash, which had to suit every member of the community since all were welcome at the fraternity’s gatherings. Zacuto’s poetry functioned as an important means for the distribution of Kabbalah in the Jewish world throughout most of the seventeenth century and beyond, when Kabbalah was thriving as a popular creed.49 Many of his poems that were later forgotten were well-known in his time, distributed in printed broadsheets, in letters, and in printed books, or inscribed on tombstones, seen by all. Gatherings in his Mantuan fraternity were attended by thousands, as he himself testified,50 and his tikunim gained wide and ongoing popularity all over the Diaspora.51 Helped by music, Zacuto’s poetry served as an optimal means to spread the message in a pleasurable, egalitarian way, intellectually undemanding, or at least seemingly so.52
49 See Scholem, Isaac Luria (note 3 above), pp. 249-51. 50 Halamish, Kabbalah in Liturgy (note 8 above), p. 563. 51 Including Ashkenazi communities. See Halamish, Kabbalah in Liturgy (note 8 above), p. 581. For the immense popularity of Zacuto’s Tikkunim see the index in Halamish. 52 Though Zacuto’s printed legacy gained wide popularity, this legacy alone seems insufficient as a measure of his contribution to the spread of Kabbalah, just as printing in general seems an insufficient measure of the spread of Kabbalah since its transformation into a popular creed (or for that matter, the spread of any popular movement). Compare Idel, M., “One of a City, Two of a Family,” Peamim 44, 1990, pp. 1-30 (Hebrew). MOSES ZACUTO POET OF KABBALAH 181
And Kabbalah granted his poetry depth and endowed it with an aura of wonder and holiness. It helped to shape it in the image of the old sacred texts, glowing in the lights of secrets: the more you seek the more you find. 182
LE ROLE DE LA POESIE HEBRAÏQUE DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE CHARLES UTENHOVE Philip Ford
L’humaniste gantois, Charles Utenhove, jouissait d’une réputation considérable au milieu du XVIe siècle pour son érudition, surtout en ce qui concerne les langues anciennes. Non seulement composait-il des vers en latin, comme la plupart de ses contemporains, mais encore en grec et en hébreu; son premier poste de précepteur, auprès de la famille de Jean de Morel et d’Antoinette de Loynes, entre 1558 et 1562, lui permit de transmettre certaines de ses connaissances linguistiques à ses jeunes élèves, Isaac, Camille, Lucrèce et Diane de Morel. Les liens de leur père avec les poètes de la Pléiade (y compris Jean Dorat, Joachim Du Bellay, et Pierre de Ronsard), aussi bien qu’avec certains hommes politiques comme François Olivier et Michel de L’Hospital assurèrent la notoriété du jeune Utenhove dans les cercles cultivés parisiens. Né à Gand le 18 mars 1536, Charles Utenhove reçut une éducation humaniste sous Jean Othon de Bruges, qui lui apprit le latin, le grec et l’hébreu. Son père et son premier maître avaient déjà été gagnés à la Réforme, aussi est-il peu étonnant que Charles, accompagné de ses frères Jacques et Nicolas, soit parti pour Bâle vers 1555/56, où il fit des études sous Thomas Platter et Sébastien Castellion, tous deux membres de l’Eglise Réformée. Les langues de la Bible auraient joué un rôle central dans l’enseignement de ces deux hommes, surtout Castellion, pour qui l’étude des Saintes Ecritures passait avant toute autre chose.1 Il semble que, après son séjour bâlois, Charles se soit rendu à Paris, où son père s’était lui aussi réfugié dans l’automne de 1556, pour échapper aux persécutions des protestants dans sa ville natale de Gand. Charles profita, vers cette époque, des cours de latin, de grec et d’hébreu offerts au Collège royal, et en 1558 il fut employé par Jean de Morel comme précepteur. Son succès fut immédiat, en partie grâce à la réputation de la fille aînée de ce dernier, Camille de Morel, dont les louanges furent chantés par Jean Dorat et Joachim Du Bellay entre autres. Une épigramme latine de Du Bellay fait allusion aux connaissances de la jeune Camille des langues anciennes: Sic ludit Latiis modis Camilla, Camillam ut Latii putes alumnam. Sic Graece loquitur Camilla, iures Vt ipsas minus Atticas Athenas. 1 Voir Zinguer, I. (éd.), L’Hébreu au temps de la Renaissance, Leiden, Brill, 1992. LE ROLE DE LA POESIE HEBRAÏQUE DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT 183
Ebraeas quoque litteras Camilla Tam pingit bene quam suas Latini. (Du Bellay, Epigrammata, 62, v. 12–17)2 Il est significatif que, tout en vantant les talents de composition et d’expression orale dans le cas du latin et du grec, Du Bellay se borne à évoquer sa capacité à bien former les caractères dans le cas de l’hébreu. En fait, le biographe d’Utenhove, Willem Janssen, affirme sur la base d’une lettre envoyée par le jeune humaniste à Camille que “de l’hébreu, elle n’apprit guère que les éléments.”3 Dans ce qui suit, nous nous proposons d’examiner cette affirmation à la lueur d’une analyse du contenu du document en question. Cette lettre, qui se trouve à la Bayerische Staatsbibliothek à Munich dans la Collection Camerarius,4 est révélatrice en ce qui concerne l’apprentissage de l’hébreu dans les milieux chrétiens à la Renaissance. Utenhove avait dû quitter le service de Jean de Morel en 1562 pour une raison qui reste assez obscure mais qui est sans doute liée à l’expression un peu trop libre de ses croyances protestantes. La même année, il est parti pour l’Angleterre afin de rendre visite à son oncle, qui avait des relations à la cour royale d’Angleterre, et c’est pendant ce séjour qu’il a composé un poème en hébreu à l’adresse d’Elisabeth Ire. Ce poème, une étrenne qui devait être publiée à Bâle en 1568 dans une collection de poèmes par George Buchanan,5 fait preuve de la maîtrise montrée par Utenhove de la poésie hébraïque, et en même temps il forme la base d’un cours que leur auteur offre par correspondance à son ancienne élève, Camille de Morel. Il peut sembler bizarre qu’Utenhove se soit servi d’une de ses propres compositions pour cet exemple précoce d’enseignement à distance, mais les raisons ne sont pas difficiles à trouver. En premier lieu, comme il l’indique à la fin de sa lettre, Utenhove voudrait recevoir une version latine de son poème de la part de Camille. Il lui demande de faire en sorte que “quam fieri primum potest haec eadem abs te Latina facta cum 2 (Camille joue si bien avec les rythmes latins qu’on croirait que Camille est une écolière latine. Camille parle si bien le grec qu’on jurerait qu’Athènes même est moins attique. Et quant aux caractères hébraïques, Camille les forme aussi bien que les Latins formaient les leurs.) Voir l’édition de G. Demerson: Du Bellay, Œuvres latines: Poemata, Paris, STFM, 1984, pp. 128-9. 3 Janssen, W., Charles Utenhove, sa vie et son œuvre (1536–1600), Maastricht, Van Aelst, 1939, p. 21. 4 Voir vol. 33 de la collection, Codex Latinus 10383, fols. 255-7. 5 Voir Georgii Buchanani Scoti Poetae eximii Franciscanus et fratres, quibus accessere varia eiusdem et aliorum Poëmata quorum et titulos et nomina XVI. Indicabit pagina…, Bâle, Thomas Guarinus, [1568]. Les autres poètes dans la collection sont Adrien Turnèbe, Michel de L’Hospital, et Jean Dorat. 184 PHILIP FORD foenore recipiam.”6 C’est la raison pour laquelle il se sent obligé de commenter si minutieusement sa composition. Mais en second lieu, il faut remarquer qu'à la différence de la poésie grecque et romaine, qui offrait de nombreux modèles anciens de poésie profane que les humanistes de la Renaissance pouvaient imiter, les principaux textes hébraïques disponibles aux humanistes chrétiens du XVIe siècle auraient été des compositions religieuses, et il est peu probable que les professeurs d’Utenhove lui aient présenté des textes juifs du moyen âge ou contemporains. Ainsi, il fallait inventer, en quelque sorte, des équivalents hébreux des genres gréco-romains. Dans son chapitre sur la littérature hébraïque à la Renaissance, Stephen Burnett identifie les domaines de la correspondance et de la poésie comme les plus importants pour les humanistes chrétiens écrivant en hébreu.7 Dans les deux cas, il considère Jean Buxtorf comme le premier auteur chrétien à publier des manuels pour l’usage des humanistes (mais pas avant 1609),8 et que celui-ci était redevable avant tout à Moïse Ibn Habib de sa description de la poésie hébraïque. Or, quoique rédigé en 1486, le Marpe lashon de Moïse Ibn Habib ne fut publié qu’en 1546, à Venise. Il est donc probable qu’Utenhove lui aussi ait dû se fier à ce livre, ou à quelque chose de semblable, pour ses connaissances de la poésie. Stephen Burnett parle également de la tendance de la part d’humanistes chrétiens à interpréter la prosodie et la métrique hébraïques en termes de la poésie gréco-latine, et que Philon d’Alexandrie et Josèphe Flavius étaient à l’origine de cette notion.9 Ainsi, Buxtorf aurait identifié 23 types différents de mètres poétiques, fondés sur la division de chaque vers en deux hémistiches et sur l’emploi de l’iambe et du spondée comme pieds principaux, mais il avait également remarqué la présence de rimes dans la poésie hébraïque. Nous allons voir qu’Utenhove avait déjà adopté une approche similaire. En fait, lorsque nous considérons l’auto-commentaire d’Utenhove, malgré les réticences de W. Janssen, il est évident que le jeune humaniste suit grosso modo les pratiques du commentaire grec à la Renaissance. Si le latin, en tant que langue véhiculaire de l’enseignement humaniste, était
6 (que je reçoive le plus tôt possible ces vers traduits par toi en latin avec usure [c’est- à-dire améliorés]). 7 Voir Burnett, S. G., From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century, Leiden/Boston, Brill, 1996. 8 Dans le cas de la poésie, il s’agit de son Tractatus brevis de prosodia metrica, qui fait partie du Thesaurus grammaticus, publié pour la première fois en 1609. 9 Burnett, p. 146. LE ROLE DE LA POESIE HEBRAÏQUE DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT 185 connu à fond, ce n’était pas du tout le cas du grec. Dans un discours public, prononcé par Denis Lambin en 1562 comme prélude à un cours donné au Collège royal sur le premier chant de l’Iliade, il est fait allusion à deux sortes d’étudiants à satisfaire:10 … iis, qui ex Homero nihil præter verborum interpretationem, linguæque scientiam petunt, & iis qui subtiliore quodam, ac politiore iudicio præditi, ea, quæ ab Homero dicuntur, tum quomodo dicantur, tum ad quos veluti fonteis sint referenda, tum quam vtilitatem ad hanc vitam quotidianam afferant, intelligere volunt.11 Utenhove ne fait pas autre chose dans sa lettre à Camille. Tout en expliquant le sens de son texte (suivant la manière des méthodes des hellénistes de l’époque), il fournit une traduction latine ad verbum, qui permettait à l’élève de comprendre non seulement la signification du poème, mais encore la façon dont chaque mot individuel fonctionne dans le vers; il s’efforce en même temps de relier les images et les expressions tout particulièrement hébraïques à leur contexte biblique, et de fournir également des éléments d’usage et de grammaire hébraïques. Les textes grecs de la Renaissance, annotés par des étudiants, montrent ce même type de commentaire, mais à quelques exceptions près on remarque avant tout un souci de fournir une traduction latine dans les interlignes. Il est sans doute significatif que tous les intertextes cités par Utenhove dans son commentaire sont bibliques, ce qui aurait tendance à confirmer son ignorance de la poésie juive plus récente. Burnett affirme à propos de Buxtorf que ce dernier drew his other Tetrameter examples from Elias Levita’s Capitula canitici, from the liturgical poem Adon olam, and from Ibn Gabirol’s poetry, leaving the reader with the false impression that he had analyzed a good deal of poetry before coming to his conclusions. The Jewish sources that Buxtorf used to illustrate his metric analysis of Hebrew were, in fact, fairly limited.12 Dans le cas d’Utenhove, on pourrait s’attendre à une initiation encore plus restreinte à la poésie profane.
10 Voir Dionysii Lambini Monstroliensis, regii Græcarum litterarum doctoris oratio, Lutetiæ Idib. Ianuariis, pridie quam Homeri Iliadis librum A. explicare inciperet, habita Paris, André Wechel, 1562, p. 27. 11 (Ceux qui ne cherchent en Homère que l’explication des mots et une connaissance de la langue et ceux qui, grâce à un jugement plus pénétrant et plus raffiné, veulent comprendre non seulement ce qu’exprime Homère, mais aussi la façon dont il l’exprime, les sources auxquelles il faut le renvoyer, enfin l’avantage qu’il apporte à la vie quotidienne). 12 Burnett, p. 148. 186 PHILIP FORD
Avant d’entamer le commentaire de mots individuels, Utenhove explique le titre de son épigramme et le mètre dont il s’est servi. Hoc canticum Miiathet “ex iambo et motione” syllaba et tribus syllabis et poteris vocare ipsum rhythmum ternarium, quia ternas syllabas continent singuli pedes. Iambus et syllaba faciunt pedem antanapæstum. Alter pes continet tres longas. Obserua et hoc, prima hemistichia bina esse oJmoiotevleuta seu similiter cadentia, secunda hJmistivcia paris numeri versuum omnia in fine consentire in rythmum desin. versiculos 2. 4. 6 et 8 etc.13 Autrement dit, il y a un système assez compliqué de rimes et de mètre que l’on pourrait résumer ainsi: a » a a » b c » d c » b
En fait, l’antanapeste se compose de deux syllabes longues et d’une syllabe brève ( ). Le pied dont se sert Utenhove est le bacchius, mais il se peut qu’il soit désorienté par le mouvement de l’écriture hébraïque de droite à gauche. Après ces remarques préliminaires, Utenhove se lance dans son commentaire du poème, en prétendant “entamer ces questions que personne, à mon avis, à l’exception du Professeur Mercier, ne t’expliquerait dans les circonstances où tu es.”14 Jean Mercier eut la chaire d’hébreu au Collège royal entre 1546 et 1570. Utenhove aurait sans aucun doute suivi ses cours. En prétendant que son commentaire ne serait égalé ou surpassé que par le lecteur royal d’hébreu, Utenhove confirme le fait que les questions qu’il traite dans sa lettre ne sont nullement aussi rudimentaires dans le contexte de l’enseignement de l’hébreu comme W. Janssen l’a prétendu. En termes généraux, les commentaires d’Utenhove se divisent en trois catégories, dont la plus simple est l’explication de mots et d’expressions.
13 (Ce poème est meyater, i.e. composé d’un iambe et d’une motion, i.e. syllabe, et ensuite de trois syllabes, et on pourrait appeler ce rythme un rythme ternaire, puisque chaque pied contient trois syllabes. D’un iambe et d’une syllabe on fait un pied antanapeste [opposé de l’anapeste]. Le deuxième pied contient trois syllabes longues. Remarque également que les paires formées par les premiers hémistiches sont homoiotéleutes ou rimées, et que les deuxièmes hémistiches des vers pairs, c’est-à-dire les vers 2, 4, 6, 8 etc., se terminent par le même son.) 14 “Ea tamen dumtaxat hic delibare sententia est quae D. Mercero excepto, isthic tibi exponat, ut arbitror, nemo est.” LE ROLE DE LA POESIE HEBRAÏQUE DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT 187
Par exemple, la première remarque concerne le premier mot du poème, ʩʡʬʡ. Utenhove explique qu’il s’agit d’une expression hébraïque: “Hebraismus est In corde meo est donum, pro eo quod est cogito, decreui, voluissem, vellem equidem munus haud vulgare tibi offerre” (hébraïsme, “il y a un cadeau dans mon cœur,” pour désigner ce que je pense, ce que j’ai décidé, ce que j’aurais voulu: “Moi, je voudrais t’offrir un présent peu banal.” Ici, il ne trouve pas nécessaire d’indiquer la présence de la préposition be au début du substantif ʩʡʬ, ce qui suggère que Camille de Morel avait acquis au moins des connaissances rudimentaires de la langue. Quelques lignes plus loin, il commente le mot ʸʡʣ (davar): græc[e] cr§ma gall[ice] chose. res / Verbo omnes res constant secundum illud Dixit et facta sunt, hinc verbum pro re usurpatur Ebræis.15 Là encore, il ne s’agit pas d’une simple glose, mais d’une explication, Psaumes à l’appui, d’un usage hébraïque. Un dernier exemple concerne le mot ʤʬʥʲʡ. [be’ulah]: ʤʬʥʲʡ maritata ʬʠʠʡ maritus, patronus, dominus hinc Idola Baalim quasi patrem. ʬʲʡ maritum agere, faire l’office de mary.16 Cette fois, Utenhove s’efforce d’élargir le vocabulaire de son élève en suggérant des mots apparentés et en établissant un lien entre le nom commun et le nom propre. Mais Utenhove ne se limite pas à ce genre de commentaire, et ailleurs il s’intéresse aux allusions bibliques dans son poème. Par exemple, dans son commentaire du vers 8, il écrit: ʯʸʡʬ / ʸʡ a ʤʸʡ aluit, quasi altus a matre, alumnus prouerb. 31 tantum ni fallor inuenias ʩʸʣʰ ʸʡ fili votorum meorum, et 2do quem memoriter tenes psalmo. vers. ultimo. Osculamini filium etc.17 Dans ce cas, Utenhove explique la signification du mot bar, apparemment un mot tardif employé au lieu de ben. Il se trouve effectivement au livre des Proverbes et au deuxième Psaume, ou l’expression “embrasser le fils” signifierait “rendre hommage au fils.”
15 (En grec chre§ma, en français chose, res. Toutes les choses résultent de la parole selon l’expression “Il dit, et les choses furent créées” [Psaumes 148. 5]. Par conséquent, les Hébreux emploient mot pour chose.) 16 (be’ulah mariée, baal, marié, protecteur, seigneur, d’où les idoles de Baal, pour ainsi dire père. Ba’al jouait le rôle de mari, faire office de mari.) 17 (liverek / bar du verbe barah “il nourrit,” pour ainsi dire “nourri par la mère, nourrisson,” voir Proverbes 31 [2] et à moins que je ne me trompe tu trouveras bar nedaraï, i.e. ”fils de mes vœux,” et au deuxième Psaume que tu connais par cœur “Embrassez le fils” etc.) 188 PHILIP FORD
Dans ce dernier cas, la Vulgate traduit cette expression par les mots “Apprehendite disciplinam,” la Bible de Jérusalem “Baisez ses pieds avec tremblement,” tandis que d’autres versions offrent la traduction “Rendez hommage en pureté,” où bar est interprété avec le sens de “au cœur pur.” Ce qui est clair, c’est qu’Utenhove possède de bonnes connaissances de la Bible, et qu’il est capable de s’en servir pour enrichir son propre vocabulaire poétique. Il cite également le Psaume, 20. 1, Exode, 21, et Exode, 18. 9. Ce qui est également clair, c’est que son enseignement exigeait, entre autres, la mémorisation de poèmes entiers dans leur langue d’origine. Il commente ailleurs lehusiph au vers 3 du poème: ʳʩʱʥʤʬ a ʳʱʩ adiecit. hinc Ioseph dictus, ut ex historia liquet.18 Il s’agit d’une allusion à Genèse, 30. 22–24: “Alors Dieu se souvint de Rachel, il l’exauça et la rendit féconde. Elle conçut et elle enfanta un fils […] et elle l’appela Joseph, disant: ‘Que Yahvé m’ajoute un autre fils!’.” Un troisième type de commentaire concerne plutôt la syntaxe et la morphologie de l’hébreu. A plusieurs reprises, Utenhove explique certains aspects de la grammaire hébraïque, par exemple: “ ʩ præfixum mutat praeteritum in futurum.”19 On peut se demander quel a été l’effet de ce petit cours de poésie hébraïque sur la jeune élève d’Utenhove, et heureusement nous sommes en mesure d’en juger, grâce à la version latine du poème que celle-ci composa, dont voici le texte: Fert animus de more anni redeuntis in orbem Principio quaedam munera ferre tibi. At tibi (qua mulier vix ulla beatior usquam est, Cuique nihil desit), nil dare, Diua, queam. Ergo Deum supplex, quem cuncta creasse fatemur E nihilo, tota mente animoque precor: Reddat uti nuptam de coelibe nempe puella, De sterili matrem virgine prolificam. Insula quo natum ex te Regem laeta salutet, Luminis & careat fine lucerna tui. Praeterea, Regina, tibi me trado, paratus Ex animo imperii frena subire tui. Auctaque cum fuerit proles tua prole nepotum, Hi quoque erunt domini fors aliquando mei. Quaeritur a servo libertas quolibet: illam Non ego: Parvero talibus usque libens. 18 “lehusip de yasaph ‘ajouté’. D’où le nom Joseph, comme il est clair selon l’histoire.” 19 (le préfixe yod change le prétérit en mode futur). Il inclut d’autres explications de ce type, par exemple “ʺʸʹʮ nomen participiale ministrans” (mesharet participe, servant). LE ROLE DE LA POESIE HEBRAÏQUE DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT 189
Mon esprit est décidé, selon la coutume établie au nouvel an, à t’apporter certains présents. Mais Déesse, dont le bonheur n’est guère dépassé par aucune autre femme et à qui rien ne manque, je ne peux rien te donner. Aussi prié-je Dieu, que nous acclamons comme ayant tout créé de rien, avec tout mon cœur et mon esprit, de faire de la vierge célibataire que tu es une femme mariée, de te changer d’une pucelle stérile en une mère féconde, afin que ton île salue avec joie le roi à qui tu donneras naissance, et que la lampe de ta lumière n’ait pas de fin. De plus, ô reine, je me rends à toi, entièrement prêt à subir les freins de ton autorité sur moi. Et quand ta postérité sera augmentée par la postérité de tes petits-fils, ils seront eux aussi peut-être mes seigneurs. N’importe quel esclave cherche la liberté, mais non pas moi. J’obéirai à de tels hommes de bon gré. Le choix du mètre, le distique élégiaque, s’impose pour un poème où les unités de sens et l’emploi de rimes dans le texte original disposent le matériel de la même façon, en distiques. Les premiers mots du poème, “fert animus,” qui conservent le sens de l’expression “in corde meo est” mais sous une forme latine authentique, se trouvent au premier vers des Métamorphoses d’Ovide. L’expression au vers 3, “qua mulier vix ulla beatior usquam est” viendrait également d’Ovide, Héroides 16. 177, “sceptra parens Asiae, qua nulla beatior ora est, / […] tenet,” où Pâris parle de l’immense empire de son père, Priam. Les v. 5–6, “quem cuncta creasse fatemur / e nihilo,” correspondent à l’expression “creatorem ex nihilo” [ʤʮ ʩʬʡʮ ʠʸʰʡʬ], qu’Utenhove avait glosée “ex non aliquid i.e. ex nihilo. Id quod non est aliquid nihil est” (de non quelque chose, c’est-à- dire de rien. Ce qui n’est pas quelque chose n’est rien). En revanche, il est possible que Camille pense ici à un texte théologique comme la Theologia Christiana d’Abélard, où nous lisons (4. 64) “Patri quidem proprie tribuuntur ea quae ad potentiam pertinent, sicut est creasse cuncta ex nihilo, per Verbum tamen suum, non Verbum per Patrem.” En général, il semble que Camille ait bien compris le texte hébraïque, avec l’aide offerte par son ancien précepteur, et qu’elle l’ait bien rendu en latin (malgré un vocabulaire parfois peu classique, comme l’emploi de l’adjectif médiéval prolificus). Que ce poème, qui préconise le mariage de la reine comme seul moyen de lui permettre de réaliser son destin et de s’acquitter de ses devoirs, ait plu à Elisabeth, est une tout autre question; Camille de Morel, elle-même, est restée célibataire sa vie durant. En ce qui concerne l’enseignement de l’hébreu, pourtant, il me semble que le cas d’Utenhove et de sa jeune élève est révélateur de la place 190 PHILIP FORD occupée par l’hébraïsme au milieu du XVIe siècle. Sans être une langue aussi bien connue que le latin, les étudiants qui l’apprenaient suivaient dans une large mesure les méthodes employées pour le grec, et malgré les différences entre les deux langues en ce qui concerne les textes disponibles à cette époque, il faut constater que dans les deux cas, à la différence du latin, on visait à une compréhension passive de la langue, plutôt qu’à un emploi actif. Les quelques exemples de poésie grecque composés par les humanistes de la Renaissance sont relativement rares en comparaison des volumes de vers latins, et il en est de même pour l’hébreu. Néanmoins, cela n’exclut nullement un apprentissage raisonnable des deux langues de la Bible. De plus, quoique Charles Utenhove ait été capable quant à lui de donner une leçon publique sur Thucydide en grec, c’est l’exception qui confirme la règle, et en général le grec, comme l’hébreu, aurait été une langue à lire plutôt qu’une langue à parler. Néanmoins, cela n’exclut nullement le fait que les étudiants de l’époque aient acquis des connaissances assez approfondies des deux langues bibliques et qu’ils aient été capables, dans des conditions limitées, de composer des vers tout à fait acceptables. Utenhove était exceptionnel à l’égard de ses connaissances linguistiques dans une variété de langues anciennes et modernes, mais l’éducation qu’il reçut dans les cercles protestants des Pays-Bas et de la Suisse lui a fourni une bonne maîtrise de l’hébreu. Il est peu probable qu’il soit unique à cet égard, et sa lettre représente un témoignage précieux de l’attitude des réformés sur l’apprentissage de l’hébreu.
Part II
Philosophy and the Humanities
E - Hebraism and Geographical Thought 192
THE ROLE OF EARLY RENAISSANCE GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES IN YOHANAN ALEMANNO'S MESSIANIC THOUGHT Fabrizio Lelli
The threat of Ottoman expansion, especially after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, along with the political reorganization of western Europe in the aftermath of the Hundred Years War, were among those factors of social and religious instability that revived millenarian expectations in Christian and Jewish societies in fifteenth-century Italy. Scholars belonging to both faiths sought a response to the difficult conditions of those days in the prophetic computation of the end of the world.1 They generally agreed that the years 1490 or 1503 were the likely dates for the beginning of the age of redemption. Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508), a Portuguese intellectual who took shelter in southern Italy after the 1492 Gerush Sepharad, asserted in his messianic treatises that the year 1503 would mark the beginning of the end of times, which would find its completion in 1531.2 In this general context it is no surprise to find that the self-proclaimed Messiah, Solomon Molko, who arrived in Italy in the late 1520s, raised expectations about universal redemption.3 As is well known, Molko, formerly a converso, had been induced to embrace the faith of his fathers after the visit to the court of Portugal of a personality of messianic stature: David Reubeni.4 Reubeni claimed to be a Jewish prince who had
I owe special thanks to James Nelson Novoa and to Seth Jerchower for helping me translate and revise the original English draft of this article, for which I am using also material that I have published in my essay “Messianic Expectations and Portuguese Geographical Discoveries: Yohanan Alemanno’s Renaissance Curiosity,” Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas 7, 2007, pp. 163-84. 1 See Robinson, I., “Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi: Kabbalist and Messianic Visionary of the Early Sixteenth Century,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1980, pp. 26-7. 2 See Netanyahu, B., Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953, pp. 225-6. 3 On this subject, mention should be made of the establishment of a “marrano” press in Ferrara by the Portuguese exile Abraham ibn Usque (Duarte Pinel), an enterprise which was fraught with messianic overtones: see Roth, C., “The Marrano Press at Ferrara, 1551- 1555,” Modern Language Review 38, 1943, pp. 303-7. 4 On David Reubeni, see Cassuto, U., “Chi era David Reuveni?” Rassegna Mensile di Israel 2, 1969, pp. 59-84 (73-4); David, A., “A Letter from Jerusalem at the Beginning of the Ottoman Rule on the Land of Israel,” in Cohen, A. (ed.), Jerusalem in the Early Ottoman Period, Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi, 1979, pp. 39-60 (Hebrew); the Hebrew text of David Reubeni's diary was published by Neubauer, A., Medieval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895, I, pp. 133-223, and by Aescoly, A. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 193 come to Europe from the African or Arabian desert, through the Land of Israel, in order to meet the Pope – and subsequently the king of Portugal – with the intention of requesting the support of the Portuguese army in a war against the Muslims. His family name was supposed to derive from the tribe of Reuben: he was therefore assumed to be the descendant of one of the ten tribes of Israel, who, themselves, would play a major role in triggering the messianic advent.5 An extended opinion among Medieval Jews was that the Messiah would appear on the scene of history only when the ten “lost” or “hidden” tribes would return to the land of Israel. The tradition of the Oriental descendants of the Jews deported by Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II of Assyria (end of eighth century B.C.E.) from the Northern Kingdom was integrated with that of the “children of Moses,” an Asian population of Jewish origin who claimed to be distant descendants of the prophet of Sinai.6 Their manifestations in history would give way to the process of the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, which in turn would accelerate the long expected messianic event.7 Throughout the Middle Ages, several western travellers claimed that they had discovered the descendants of the ten hidden tribes in areas located between India and Central Asia. The tribes had been associated in particular with the Tartars, as in the widespread story of the Khazars, dating back to the eighth century C.E., and with the Mongols, a tradition that had originated when, in the thirteenth century, eastern armies had conquered the territories of the Abbasid caliphate and had approached the Holy Land, which in those days was still in the hands of the Crusaders.8 In the late Middle Ages the ten tribes had been also related to a Christian tradition based upon the imagined existence of the legendary
Z., Sipur Daܤid ha-Re’uveni, Jerusalem, ha-ণevrah ha-Erets Yisre’elit le-his৬oryah ৾e- etnografyah, 1940 (Hebrew); the English version of Reubeni's text was published in Adler, E. N. (ed.), Jewish Travellers, London, Routledge, 1930, pp. 251-328. 5 On the eschatological role of the ten tribes according to Isaac Abravanel, see Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, pp. 229-32. 6 See Toaff, A., “Il Sambation, fiume vivente,” in Id., Mostri giudei, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996, pp. 29-48; From Italy to Jerusalem. The Letters of Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro from the Land of Israel, E. Artom and A. David (eds), Ramat Gan, Bar Ilan University, Department of Land of Erets Israel Studies, 1997, p. 86 and notes (Hebrew). 7 It may be worthy of note that in the messianic writings of Isaac Abravanel the legend of the hidden tribes of Israel was, in the words of Benzion Netanyahu, “transformed from a phantom into a factor.” (Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, p. 229). 8 On possible messianic expectations related to such identification of the Mongols in Abraham Abulafia’s early thought, see Idel, M., Messianic Mystics, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 58. 194 FABRIZIO LELLI monarch Prester John, said to be of Jewish origin. His rule was said to extend over a vast area located in India, although this geographic term actually defined the Indian sub-continent and southern Arabia along with Ethiopia.9 This rather vague identification was due to the lack of precise geographic information on the “southern edges of the earth,” and to the widespread idea that the Indian Ocean was smaller than it actually is, thereby making it possible to consider all countries facing the ocean as virtually one region only.10 The various fifteenth-century Portuguese expeditions undertaken in order to circumnavigate Africa opened up new commercial routes, but had, in addition, the ambition of transmitting more exact information on the possible whereabouts of the allegedly lost tribes of Israel in India and Ethiopia.11 The Indian Jews of Shinkly (or Shingly, identifiable with Cranganore [Kodungallur], Kerala), on the one hand, and those of Ethiopia – the Falashas – on the other, were considered the descendants of either the Judean exiles who fled Jerusalem after Sennacherib’s campaign (705 B.C.E), or of the deported survivors of the Northern Kingdom. By their colonial expeditions, the Portuguese were the first westerners to re-establish contact, not only with the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia (once linked to Byzantium but then isolated for centuries on account of the Islamic expansion in surrounding lands), but also with the rest of Israel in India. As a matter of fact, the interest in the lost tribes constituted one of the principal aims of the Portuguese expeditions, which also claimed to look for the lands of Prester John. The latter was eventually identified, by the Portuguese, with the negus of Ethiopia.12
9 On “Prester John” see Rogers, F. M., The Quest for Eastern Christians, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1962; on the circulation of this legend among Italian Jews see Ullendorff, E. and Beckingham, C. F. (eds), The Hebrew Letters of Prester John, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982; Bar-Ilan, M., “Prester John: Fiction and History,” History of European Ideas 20/1-3, 1995, pp. 291-8. 10 See Le Goff, J., “L'Occidente medievale e l'Oceano Indiano: un orizzonte onirico,” in Cortelazzo, M. (ed.), Mediterraneo e Oceano Indiano. Atti del VI Colloquio Internazionale di storia marittima, Florence, Olschki, 1970, pp. 243-73. On this geographical identification, see also below, n. 63. 11 See Kayserling, M., Historia dos Judeus em Portugal (Portuguese trans.), São Paulo, Livraria Pioneira, 1971, pp. 76-7. 12 See Le Goff, “L'Occidente medievale e l'Oceano Indiano,” p. 255. Geographical discoveries were associated with messianic interpretations of history also in Christian milieus. Christopher Columbus’ search for the “Western Indies” had a definite messianic intent: see, e.g., Katz, D. S. and Popkin, R. H., Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium, New York, Hill and Wang, 1999, passim. A messianic interpretation of the discovery of America appears, for instance, in the notes to A. Giustiniani’s Polyglot Psalter, published in Genoa in 1516 (note D on Psalm 19). GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 195
David Reubeni’s project, nourished by the medieval saga of the ten tribes scattered between India and Ethiopia, could very well have been conceived in the context of the reaffirmation of commercial links between Portugal, Ethiopia and India. The purpose behind David’s proposal to the king of Portugal could be understood as an attempt to involve him in his own messianic enterprise13 of re-gathering the people of Israel into their land of origin, after the eschatological conflict between Muslims and Christians necessary for the appearance of the Redeemer.14 Before heading to Portugal, Reubeni travelled to Italy, where, following the Jewish messianic tradition, he should have met with the Pope.15 He was indeed received by Clement VII, a member of the Medici family (known for granting special privileges to Jews and for promoting the revival of the study of Hebrew16). The Medici, who had strong commercial connections with Portugal, had contributed in 1487 to the mission of the Portuguese navigators Pero da Covilhão and Afonso Paiva en route towards India and Ethiopia.17 It is noteworthy that Italian cardinals, active in Rome in the first half of the sixteenth century, were aware of the “messianic” role of Portuguese discoveries, which had the significant task of asserting stronger links between the Catholic Church and African and Asian Christianity.18 Before the age of the self-proclaimed messiahs, Italian Jews had already shown interest in Portuguese geographical discoveries related to
13 According to an ancient Jewish tradition (see Idel, Messianic Mystics, chapter 1), an important event in the origins of Christianity, the responsibility of the first Messiah, son of Joseph, was to introduce the arrival of the last Messiah, son of David. It is no coincidence that David Reubeni presents himself as a son of Joseph, and, as we shall see, the texts linked to the medieval tradition and the accounts of Portuguese explorers often speak of Jewish kings with this name. 14 On Reubeni as a Falasha Messiah, see Toaff, A., “Il Messia negro,” in Mostri giudei, pp. 49-63. 15 See Idel, Messianic Mystics, p. 62. 16 On this aspect of the Medici patronage of arts see Yohanan Alemanno’s praise of Lorenzo de' Medici in Melamed, A., “The Hebrew Laudatio of Yohanan Alemanno – in Praise of Lorenzo il Magnifico and the Florentine Constitution,” in Beinart, H. (ed.), Jews in Italy: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of U. Cassuto, Jerusalem, Magnes, 1988, pp. 1-34; Lelli, F., “Umanesimo laurenziano nell'opera di Yohanan Alemanno,” in Bemporad, L. D. and Zatelli, I. (eds), La cultura ebraica all'epoca di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Firenze, Olschki, 1997, pp. 49-67. 17 See Kayserling, Historia dos Judeus em Portugal, pp. 76-7. 18 This is documented, e.g., by the presence of Damião de Góis' Fides Religio Moresque Aethiopum in Pietro Bembo’s library (see Danzi, M., La biblioteca del Cardinal Pietro Bembo, Geneva, Droz, 2005, pp. 74-5) and by the beginning of Ethiopian print in Rome in 1513 (in pope Leo X Medici's period, 1513-21). 196 FABRIZIO LELLI the advent of the Redeemer.19 Among them, and motivated also by his special concern with the messianic issue,20 Yohanan Alemanno (1435 – after 1506) transcribed some information on the lost tribes in his ‘Notebook’ (Liqqutim).21 Alemanno’s intention was evidently to collect all available data concerning the descendants of those legendary tribes by comparing traditional Hebrew sources with the recent information provided by Portuguese discoveries.22 Alemanno started to assemble documents related to messianic events in 1490, following a long-established tradition that the Redeemer of Israel would come in that same year. In a passage in his Liqqutim23 drawn from the fourteenth-century Byzantine Sefer ha-Qanah (The Book of the Measure Unit, also known as Sefer ha-Peliah, The Book of the Wonder24), the author concisely explains his hope in a marginal note, which resumes the longer passage quoted on the same folio: “All this is based on what has been said, that the sefirot will rule 500 years each; thus all of them will rule five thousand years. And in the sixth millennium, Keter [Crown, the first sefirah] will re-establish her dominion, which will last for half of the period, i.e. 250 years: therefore in the year 5250 [= 1490] redemption will come.”25 At the same time, Alemanno was influenced by contemporary geographical concerns with the new commercial routes opened up by Portuguese sailors. As is well known, Alemanno was associated in Florence with the powerful Da Pisa family of Jewish bankers, who had raised him as a child and subsequently had hired him as a tutor for their
19 In the second decade of the sixteenth century Abraham Farissol, in his Iggeret Orhot `Olam (Epistle of the Ways of the World), deals with the country of Prester John and identifies it with the Indian coast of Malabar: see Ruderman, D. B., The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1981, pp. 134-6. Shortly afterwards, in his book Massoret ha-Massoret (The Tradition of Tradition), Elijah Levita held that the country of Prester John was Ethiopia: see the edition by C. D. Ginsburg, New York, KTAV, 1968, pp. 130-31. 20 See Beit-Arieh, M., and Idel, M., “An Eschatological and Astrological Treatise by Abraham Zacut,” Kiryat Sefer 54, 1979, pp. 174-94 (191-4) (Hebrew). 21 Ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Reggio 23 (=Neubauer, A., Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1886, n. 2234). 22 See Gómez de Santisteban, The Travels of the Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal, F. M. Rogers (ed. and trans.), Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1961; Iddio ci dia buon viaggio e guadagno. Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms. 1910 (Codice Vaglienti), L. Formisano (ed.), Florence, Polistampa, 2006. 23 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Reggio 23, f. 136r. 24 See Idel, M., La Cabbalà in Italia (1280-1510), Florence, La Giuntina, 2007, p. 357. 25 On similar interpretations of the end of times in Isaac Abravanel’s thought, see Ogren, B., “La questione dei cicli cosmici nella produzione pugliese di Yishaq Abravanel,” Itinerari di ricerca storica 20-21, 2006-2007, I, 141-61. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 197 children.26 The Da Pisas had direct relationships with Portuguese Jewish scholars such as Isaac Abravanel, who was also interested in the messianic clue provided by the new commercial routes opened up in his times.27 One of Alemanno’s informers who was knowledgeable about the commercial routes for the East, was Eleazar da Volterra, Yehiel da Pisa’s son-in-law.28 Moreover, Daniel da Pisa received David Reubeni during his visit to Rome to meet the pope and, later on, Reubeni was the guest in Tuscany of Yehiel Nissim da Pisa. Therefore, Alemanno’s interest in Indian and Ethiopian Jews could have been fostered also by information that he might have drawn from personal connections in his Tuscan environment.29 As a matter of fact, the texts concerning geographical discoveries and messianic expectations transcribed by Alemanno from around 1490 in his notebook30 can be distinguished according to two different kinds of sources: (1) traditional accounts, that is, documents produced by travellers from the past which dealt with the lost tribes and their location; (2) accounts of contemporaries of Alemanno, who informed their Italian counterparts, either in correspondence or directly, of what they saw or of what was told to them in the East, and mainly in the land of Israel.31 Among the traditional accounts are: a translation of a short fragment from Josephus Flavius’ Jewish Wars; a fragment of the Sefer Yosippon (ca. tenth century); longer selections from the tenth-century travelogue of Eldad the Danite; from the twelfth-century travelogue of Benjamin of Tudela; from the Hebrew version of the Tractato de le più meravigliose cose che si trovano in le parte del mondo, an Italian translation of the
26 See Lelli, “Umanesimo laurenziano nell'opera di Yohanan Alemanno,” p. 51. 27 On the connection between the Da Pisas and Isaac Abravanel see Lawee, E., Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance toward Tradition. Defense, Dissent, and Dialogue, Albany, SUNY Press, 2001, p. 31. On Abravanel’s concern with Portuguese routes and, particularly, with Indian Jews, see Lesley, A. M., “Contrasting Reactions of Isaac Abravanel and Yohanan Alemanno to Reports of Jews in India,” unpublished paper delivered at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, March 26, 1999. In 1504 Abravanel commented Jer. 3:18 by using information on Indian Jews similar to that quoted by Alemanno. 28 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Reggio 23, f. 42v. 29 See Cattaneo, A., “Mappae mundi e carte marine nel Rinascimento: una storia polifonica,” in Clericuzio, A. and Ernst, G. (eds), Il Rinascimento italiano e l'Europa. V. Le Scienze, Vicenza, Fondazione Cassamarca, 2008, pp. 551-69 (564-8). 30 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Reggio 23, fols. 39v-42v. 31 The messianic expectations that spread among the Italian Jewish communities at the turn of the sixteenth century induced many Italian Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and there await the arrival of the Messiah. From this point of view all information with respect to the Near East, based on reality or imagination, could be gathered, circulated, and put into use. 198 FABRIZIO LELLI fourteenth-century Voyages by John Mandeville.32 Alemanno even quotes a brief sentence from “Le meravigliose cose del mondo of Marco Polo.”33 All these texts seem to confirm the existence of the lost tribes in India and Ethiopia, as well as of Prester John and his connection to Judaism. Among the second type of account we find a long quotation from a letter sent from Jerusalem by the famous Italian Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro (born in Italy ca. 1455 and settled in Jerusalem in 1488, where he died ca. 1516) to his own brother, dated 1489/90, on Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews34 and on Prester John; the fragment of a conversation held in 1491 between Eleazar da Volterra and a certain “Gioan Gentili Indiano,” in which a voyage along the Red Sea coast towards Ethiopia and India is described (and comparisons between Tuscan cities and oriental towns briefly sketched) and Prester John is also mentioned; an excerpt from a letter sent from Jerusalem by Abraham of Siena, a disciple of Bertinoro (dated 1496), on both Ethiopian and Indian Jews; an excerpt from a letter of Moses ben Abba Mori (dated 1503) on Indian Jews; the last dated document (which apparently seems to be also the last dated document of the entirety of Alemanno’s literary production) is the 1503/04 letter, which seems to be quoted on the basis of direct conversations of the author with Portuguese sailors as to the existence of Jewish tribes in India and Ethiopia. On the basis of such oral testimonies, Alemanno gives us significant details concerning the circumnavigation of Africa, on the “land of Guinea,” Ethiopia, and India. An examination of the dates allows us to associate the documents pertaining to the 1490s with Alemanno’s presence in Tuscany. It is generally assumed that, since Jews were expelled from Florence in 1497, Alemanno left the city and
32 On Alemanno's Hebrew translation of this text see Lelli, F., “La version hébraïque abrégée des Voyages de Jean de Mandeville, réalisée par Yohanan Alemanno,” in Le Blanc, C. and Simonutti, L. (eds.), De la traduction parfaite. Philosophie et art du traduire du Seizième au Dix-huitième siècle, forthcoming. 33 On the diffusion of travelogues in Italian within private libraries of Northern Italian Jews, see Raines, D., “Judaism in the Eyes of the Venetian Patriciate in the Time of Leon Modena,” in Malkiel, D. (ed.), The Lion Shall Roar: Leon Modena and His World, Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2003, pp. 19-54 (39-40) (Hebrew). 34 Obadiah’s letter enjoyed a wide circulation in Florentine Jewish milieus. Beside Alemanno’s quote we find important evidence in Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano's Iggeret Hamudot (The Precious Letter), wherein is quoted exactly the same passage as that given by Alemanno. See Eliyyah Hayyim ben Binyamin da Genazzano, La lettera preziosa (Iggeret Hamudot), F. Lelli (ed.), Florence, La Giuntina; Nîmes, Editions de l’éclat, 2002, p. 138. Moreover, Genazzano’s writing can be dated to the same period as Alemanno’s geographical section of the Liqqutim, i.e. the last decade of the 15th century. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 199 headed to Mantua, where he should have spent his last years.35 However, Jews continued to reside in Tuscany at the beginning of the 16th century and the Da Pisas did live in Pisa and its environs, where they did not suffer the many restrictions imposed on Florentine Jews. Alemanno might have known of Moses ben Abba Mori’s letter and might have talked with Portuguese sailors (and possibly with a certain Hayyim Franco, of which mention will be made later on) in Pisa, in the environment of the powerful family, which was still maintaining its strong ties with the Medicis (whose major branch had been exiled from Florence in 1494). Moreover, Alemanno's “direct” testimonies extend from 1489/90 (the date of Obadiah of Bertinoro’s letter) until 1503/04, the date of the “good news” reported by Portuguese sailors. We have already pointed out why 1490 was a significant date in relation to Alemanno’s messianic expectations. 1503 was an even more significant year. Both Jews36 and Christians37 were firmly convinced that 1503 would witness the same celestial configuration that had foreseen the births of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.38 Let us examine in closer detail those texts quoted by Alemanno that are linked to Portuguese discoveries.39 A passage on fols. 39v-40r dealing with African discoveries made by Portuguese sailors may be related to the news transmitted by way of the missions sent by king John II in 1487 to look for Prester John from the western African coast (Guinea) and through the African continent. The Portuguese documents regarding those missions are scanty. The Portuguese seem to have reached Timbuctu and other courts of inland nations, such as the Oni of Ife, which are perhaps alluded to in the passage in Alemanno’s text:
35 On Alemanno’s stay in Florence see Luzzati, M., “Documenti inediti su Yohanan Alemanno a Firenze (1481 e 1492-1494),” in Bemporad and Zatelli (eds), La cultura ebraica all'epoca di Lorenzo il Magnifico, pp. 71-84; Lelli, “Umanesimo laurenziano nell'opera di Yohanan Alemanno,” pp. 49-67. We do not have evidence that Alemanno resided in Florence after 1494, though he might have lived in other Tuscan cities. 36 On Isaac Abravanel see also Attias, J. C., Isaac Abravanel, La mémoire et l'espérance, Paris, Cerf, 1992, pp. 42-6. 37 See Vasoli, C., “Temi mistici e profetici alla fine del Quattrocento,” in Id., Studi sulla cultura del Rinascimento, Manduria, Lacaita, 1968, pp. 180-240. 38 See Beit-Arieh and Idel, “An Eschatological and Astrological Treatise,” p. 825, n. 8. 39 The complete Hebrew texts of this section from Alemanno’s Liqqutim will be available in an edition that I am currently preparing. 200 FABRIZIO LELLI
[margin fol. 39v] ʬʥʧʫ ʡʸ ʭʲʥ ʸʴʱʮ ʯʩʠʬ 'ʩʫʬʮʥ 'ʩʡʸ 'ʩʸʲʥ 'ʥʬʥʣʢ ʺʥʰʩʣʮ ʹʩ ʭʥʸʣ ʣʶʬ ʭʥʩʤ ʤʥʹʮʬ ʸʥʡʲʺʥ ʤʠʩʒ ʒʰʩʫʑ ʠʥʤʤ ʡʥʹʩʤ 'ʸʷʰʥ ʯʲʰʫ ʵʸʠ ʣʢʰʫ ʣʲ ʡʸʲʮʮ ʡʥʹʩʤ ʬʩʧʺʮʥ ʭʩʤ ʺʴʹ ʬʲ ʸʹʠ 'ʩʹʰʠ ʭʲ ʩʺʸʡʣ ʩʰʠʥ 'ʥʰʩʩʷʥʠ ʭʩʡ ʡʩʡʱ ʥʴʩʷʤ ʸʹʠ ʺʥʩʰʥʠʡ ʤʮʹ 'ʩʸʡʥʲ ʥʬʠʢʥʨʸʥʴ ʩʹʰʠʥ 'ʩʥʬʹ ʤʮʤʤ 'ʩʹʰʠʤ ʩʫ ʥʣʩʢʤʥ .ʭʤʬ 'ʩʰʤʥʫ ʥʩʤʥ ʭʹ 'ʩʰʡʥ 'ʩʹʰ ʭʤʬ ʥʩʤʥ 'ʩʰʹ 'ʦʥ 'ʤ ʤʮʹ ʥʩʤ ʹʸʥʹ ʠʥʤ ʩʫ ʯʺʩʰ ʭʮʧʬ ʣʠʮ ʤʡʸʤ ʠʶʮʰ ʭʬʫʠʮ ʩʫ ʸʡʣ ʬʫ ʸʥʱʧʮ ʭʤʬ 'ʩʠʹ 'ʩʨʷʹʥ ʬʫʥ ʳʸʥʧʥ ʵʩʷ ʠʶʮʰʥ ʭʰʥʶʸʫ ʩʬʶʥ ʬʹʥʡʮ ʩʧ ʠʥʤʹ ʥʮʫ ʬʫʠʰ ʺʥʺʴʬʤ ʥʮʫ ʤʮʣʠʤ ʡʹʲʮ 'ʩʡʥʨ ʭʤ ʩʫ 'ʩʰʮʠʰ .ʭʤʩʮʩʮ ʨʷ ʨʲʮ ʭʠ ʩʫ 'ʮʣʠʤ ʺʣʥʡʲʥ ʤʹʩʸʧʥ ʤʲʩʸʦ ʩʬʡ ʤʬʥʫ ʤʰʹʤ 'ʢ ʪʥʺ 'ʩʡʰʲ ʬʥʫʹʠʥ ʤʸʥʮʦ ʺʥʸʡʬ ʬʫʥʺʥ ʵʲʤ ʬʲ ʣʩʮʺ ʯʴʢʤ ʩʡʰʲʥ ʭʤʩʺʥʸʩʴ .ʣʠʮ 'ʩʷʥʺʮʥ 'ʩʹʡʥʬʮ 'ʩʮʥʸʲ 'ʩʴʧʩ 'ʩʫʬʥʤ ʹʥʡʬʬ 'ʩʫʩʸʶ ʭʰʩʠ .ʤʮʧ ʵʸʠʤ ʸʧʠ ʬʥʫʹʠ ʬʥʮʢʺ ʭʩʮʩ 'ʩʸʦʬ ʣʱʧ ʩʬʮʥʢ ʭʤ ʩʫ ʸʩʧʮ ʠʬʡʥ ʳʱʫ ʠʬʡ ʥʩʧʩ .'ʮʩʬʫ ʠʬʥ ʤʹʥʡ ʠʬ ʭʹ ʯʩʠ ʭʰʥʶʸʡ [ʺʩʰʡʺ] ʭʤʩʤʬʠ .ʤʰʤ 'ʩʸʹʲ ʯʡʫ ʤʠʮ ʯʡʥ ʸʺʥʩʥ 'ʩʹʮʧʥ ʤʠʮ ʭʤʩʩʧ .ʭʺʥʷʹʤʬ ʭʬʩʫʠʤʬ ʤʹʔʩʴʑ 'ʸʷʰʥ ʤʡʷʰʬ 'ʥʣʡʥʲ 'ʩʹʰʤʥ ˣʣʠʡʔ ʸʥʴʍ 'ʸʷʰʥ ʸʫʦʬ 'ʩʣʡʥʲ ʤʶʷʮ ʭʲʤ ʬʫ ʤʡʷʰʥ ʸʫʦ ʬʠ 'ʩʰʴ ʭʤʮʲ ʭʩʸʡʣʮʥ ʭʰʡʸʷ 'ʩʬʫʥʠʥ ʭʤʩʬʲ ʭʮʣ 'ʩʷʸʥʦʥ 'ʩʴʥʲʥ 'ʥʮʤʡ 'ʤʩʤʬʠʬ 'ʩʧʡʥʦʥ 'ʩʮʩʹʮ ʯʤʫʬ 'ʩʠʡʹʫ 'ʸʥʮʫʤ ʩʰʤʫʥ .ʥʮʲ ʸʡʣʮʥ ʸʨʷʮʥ ʧʡʥʦʥ ʥʣʩʡ ʤ...ʮ ʤʹʠʥ ʹʩʠ ʬʫʥ 'ʩʰʴ ʭʹʮ ʥʺʠʶ ʩʸʧʠ ʥʺʥʠ 'ʩʣʮʬʮ ʩʫ ʣʲ ʤʰʤ ʸʹʠ ʺʠ ʧʫʥʹʥ ʥʸʠʥʶ ʣʲ ʭʥʸʲ ʵʧʸʬ ʵʧʸʮ 'ʩʮʡ ʭʥʩʤ ʤʥʹʮ ʺʧʺ ʺʧʠ ʩʠ ʭʹʬ ʡʥʸʷʥ .ʤʬʠ ʥʮʫ 'ʩʡʸ 'ʩʸʡʣʥ ʧʫʹ ʸʹʠ ʺʠ ʸʩʫʤʬʥ ʸʡʣʬ ʭʹ 'ʩʬʥʣʢ 'ʩʸʩʹʲ ʭʤʥ ʭʬʥʲʬ ʷʥʸʩ 'ʮʣʠʤ ʡʹʲʹ ʤʫʸʡ ʺʠ 'ʤ ʤʥʶ ʭʹ ʩʫ 'ʷʥʸʩ ʩʠ 'ʸʷʰ ʺʥʥʹ ʤʡʸʤ 'ʩʰʥʥʢʥ ʡʤʦʮ ʭʩʠʸʮ ʺʥʬʲʡ ʺʥʩʬʢʸʮ [ʠ40] ʺʥʩʬʢʸʮ 'ʥʡʥʨ 'ʩʰʡʠ ʡʤʦ ʺʥʸʴʲ ʬʲ ʠʥʤ ʡʤʦʡ 'ʩʴʩʬʧʮʥ 'ʩʰʥʷʹ ʤʮʥ ʺʥʸʢʺʬ ʠʬʥ ʭʬʥʲʡ ʭʣʠʬ 'ʩʫʩʸʶ ʭʰʩʠ .ʭʩʴʬʠʥ 'ʷʥʣ ʳʬʠ ʭʠ ʩʫ ʤʮʹ 'ʩʫʬʥʤ 'ʩʠ ʤʮʣʠʤ ʩʸʧʥʱ ʬʫʮʥ 'ʩʮʹʡ ʩʰʩʮ ʬʫ ʭʹʥ ʭʩʤʥ ʬʥʧʤ ʣʶ .'ʩʨʶʩʬʠʢʥʨʸʥʴʤ After the equator, towards the south, there are great nations, many cities and innumerable kings. There is a people, numerous as the sand on the shores of the sea, who inhabit a territory, which extends itself from the West roughly until the land of Canaan: it is called Guinea. The Portuguese who circumnavigated [Africa] in the Ocean visit them frequently with their ships. I spoke with some of the men who have been there for five or seven years and even had wives and children there. They also have priests. They said that those men are quiet and peaceful, and that they lack nothing, given that they have much food since their bread comes from the earth, because it is a root produced by a plant like the turnip, which can be eaten uncooked, boiled or grilled, according to one’s preference, and can be found during summer and winter all year long; it grows without the need to be planted and practically without the need to cultivate the earth (if not for a few days). They hold that they are very good and sweet. Their fruits and the grape of their vines are always on the tree: should a branch or a grape be cut, in three days the warm soil will replace it by a new one. They do not need clothing and walk around barefoot and naked, as they feel best, without being embarrassed or ashamed. They live without [need for] money and buy nothing, because they are generous and hospitable towards strangers and they feed them and give them drink. They arrive at the age of a hundred and fifty years old and more and those who are a hundred years old seem to be twenty. Their gods are [in the form of] men and women: the male population worships the male god who is called Forbado, while the GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 201
women worship the female divinity who is called Piasa;40 they sacrifice beasts and birds to them, spilling their blood on themselves, eating their sacrificial offerings and speak with their gods face to face. Every man [takes?] his wife by the hand and offers sacrifices, through the use of incense, and speaks with the god. Each member of the clergy who becomes a priest plunges in bath water and wash himself naked up to his neck and forgets what he was so far until they instruct him, after he has come out of the bath, by speaking and reminding him what he forgot and [they said] many similar things. There is an island close by, under the equator, which is called Green Island, because the Lord ordered there the blessing that the grass of the earth be green forever, and in that region they are very rich, because they have a vein of gold, precious stones and pearls [the text continues on the margins of fol. 40r], which resemble gold and of several colours and which are worth a thousand or two thousand ducats. They do not employ anyone for commerce and buy and trade everything with gold on the seashore, where they deal with every kind of spice and deal, of all the traders in the world, only with the Portuguese [portogalisti41]. The “green island” mentioned in the passage could be a reference to the Archipelago of Cape Verde.42 An interesting parallel source to Alemanno’s text can be found in the letters sent to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco Medici (a member of the secondary branch of the family, who was allowed to remain in the city after 1494) by Amerigo Vespucci in June 1501. Vespucci reports from Lisbon to his “Magnifico Padrone” about his own 1499 voyage with the Portuguese around Africa. He gives several details concerning the commercial links between Florence and Lisbon, where a thriving Florentine colony had settled to trade in the fifteenth century.43 After reminding his addressee that he had been invited by the king of Portugal himself to take part in the maritime
40 Proper names are written by Alemanno with vowel points. 41 I am enclosing between square brackets the various names used by Alemanno (and his sources) to designate the inhabitants of Portugal. All of the occurrences betray different uses current in contemporary Italian dialects, and particularly in Tuscan. The spelling of names of cities quoted by Alemanno also varies according to his informers. 42 See Ley, C. D. (ed.), Portuguese Voyages, 1498-1663, London and New York, Dent, Dutton, 1947; Cattaneo, Mappae mundi, p. 563. 43 See Cortesão, J., “Lisboa e Florença. A expedição de Pedro Álvares Cabral e a família dos Marchioni,” Seara nova 8, 1922, pp. 208-14; Rau, V., “Un Florentin au service de l'expansion portugaise, Francesco Corbinelli,” in Dini, B. et al. (eds), Fatti e idee di storia economica nei secoli XII-XX. Studi dedicati a Franco Borlandi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1977, pp. 277-86; Spallanzani, M., “Fiorentini e portoghesi in Asia all'inizio del Cinquecento attraverso le fonti archivistiche fiorentine,” in Aspetti della vita economica medievale. Atti del Convegno di studi nel X anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis, Firenze, 1984, pp. 321-32. I am grateful for these bibliographic references to Prof. Claude Huet of the University of California, Los Angeles. See also: Lowe, K. J. P. (ed.), Cultural Links between Portugal and Italy in the Renaissance, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. 202 FABRIZIO LELLI expedition, Vespucci introduces his narration by a concise description of what he is going to expound later on in his letter.44 Vespucci states at the beginning of his letter that he is sure that in previous years other Florentine traders active in Lisbon had certainly informed Lorenzo di Pier Francesco of his own activities. This statement allows us to understand that at the turn of the sixteenth century many descriptions of the Portuguese discoveries were available in Florence; Alemanno could have drawn the material for his notes from some of those letters, which he may have known directly, or indirectly through his Tuscan colleagues and friends. Alemanno’s passage, which reveals interesting data concerning the religious traditions of African tribes, continues on fol. 41r, where mention is made of the “good news” associated with the Portuguese discovery of Jewish tribes in India. Thus the two texts could also be considered as an exhaustive description of a voyage from Portugal to Africa and India, and, as such, can be attributed to Alemanno’s encounter with Portuguese members of a maritime expedition:45 [margin fol. 41r] .ʥʬʫ ʠʬ ʸʹʠ 'ʠʸʹʩ ʲʸʦ ʬʲ ʷʧʸʮ ʵʸʠʮ ʤʡʥʨ ʤʲʥʮʹ .ʩʹʹʤ ʳʬʠʬ ʣ"ʱʸ ʺʰʹ ʥʡʡʱʥ ʭʩʡʸ ʭʩʩʠ ʥʠʶʮʥ ʡʸʲʮ ʣʶʬ ʱʥʰʩʷʥʠ ʭʩʡ ʥʱʰʫʰ ʬʢʥʨʸʥʴ ʩʹʰʠ ʸʹʠ ʭʩʰʹ ʤʮʫ ʤʦ ʭʩʤ 'ʥʡʩʡʱ ʬʲ ʡʸ ʭʲ ʥʠʶʮʥ ʭʩʤ ʺʥʡʩʡʱ ʬʲ ʺʥʡʸ ʭʩʰʹ ʥʫʬʤʥ ʭʥʸʣ ʣʶʬ ʠʥʤʤ ʭʩʤ ʺʠ ʭʩ ʱʰʫʰ ʭʹʮ ʸʹʠ ʭʥʷʮ ʥʠʶʮʥ ʥʸʡʲ ʭʩʮʩʤ ʥʬʠʡʥ .ʬʩʲʬ 'ʦʰʤ ʤʠʩʰʩʫ ʩʹʰʠ 'ʩʠʸʷʰʹ ʥʺʥʠʮʥ .ʬʩʲʬ ʫ"ʢ 'ʦʰʤ ʥʣʥʤ ʭʩʠʸʷʰ ʣʥʠʮ ʬʥʣʢ ʭʩ ʤʹʲʰ[ʥ] ʭʥʸʣ ʣʶʮ ʵʸʠʤ ʪʥʺʡ ʱʥʰʩʷʥʠ ʭʩʡ ʭʺʫʬʡʥ .'ʠʸʹʩ ʩʰʡ ʥʸʡʲ ʥʴʥʱʡ ʸʹʠ ʳʥʱ ʭʩʠʸʷʰ ʬʥʣʢ ʭʩ ʯʥʹʬ ʥʴʥʱʮʥ ʱʸʴ ʭʩ ʤʹʲʰ ʪʬʥʮʤʥ 'ʩʨʥʢʩʬʷ ʺʠʸʷʰ 'ʠʬ ʤʬʥʣʢ ʸʩʲ ʠʩʤ ʺʧʠʤ .'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩʮ 'ʩʬʥʣʢ 'ʥʮʥʷʮ ʥʠʶʮ ʥʣʥʤ
44 The following version of the passage from Vespucci’s letter is based on the Italian text edited by L. Formisano in Iddio ci dia buon viaggio e guadagno, p. 117. My heartiest thanks to Prof. Formisano for showing me this reference and for sharing with me his wide knowledge on the literary sources related to the Portuguese expeditions known in Florence at the turn of the sixteenth century: “[from Lisbon] we travelled for half a day, and as we sailed we passed in sight of the Fortunate Isles, now called the Canaries, changing direction along the coast of Africa. As we sailed we approached a cape, called Cape Verde, the true beginning of the province of Ethiopia, south of the Fortunates [...] where we happened across two ships of the Portuguese Crown, returning from the East Indies, out of the same 13 ships that sailed for Calicut some 14 months ago, with which I had long discussions not so much about their voyage, but more about the coast of the land they ran along, the riches they found there and those they brought back. We shall briefly relate here to Your Magnificence: not about their cosmography, since there was no one dealing with this or with mathematics (a great mistake), but plainly, as they related to me, so I may be able to bring corrections to Ptolemy’s Cosmography.” 45 As held by Lesley, A. M., “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory and in Eyewitness Accounts,” The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 3, 2000, pp. 7-19 (8). GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 203
ʩʬʩʢʥʨʸʥʴʡ ʥʩʤ ʸʡʫʹ 'ʩʸʡʲʤʮ ʥʡʺʫʥ ʯʩʢʥʷ ʠʸʷʰ ʸʧʠ ʺʥʫʬʮ ʤʬ ʡʥʸʷ .ʣʠʮ ʬʥʣʢ ʤʩʬʲ ʬʹʥʮʤ ʪʬʮʤʥ 'ʩʣʥʤʩʮ ʤʬʥʫ ʺʡʹʥʩʮʥ 'ʩʮʩ ʥ"ʨ ʤʫʸʠ ʵʸʠ ʹʩ ʯʩʢʥʷʬ ʡʥʸʷ .'ʩʸʡʣʤ ʤʬʠ ʥʮʫ 'ʩʰʡʬʥ 'ʩʸʥʧʹ ʭʤʥ ʭʺʥʫʬʮ ʬʫ 'ʸʷʰ ʤʮʹ ʬʲʥ ʩʬʩʢʰʩʹ ʠʸʷʰ ʤʫʥʬʮʤ ʸʩʲʥ ʳʱʥʩ ʠʸʷʰ ʤʩʬʲ ʭʣʥʷ ʥʠʶʩʥ ʯʩʮʩʰʡʥ ʤʣʥʤʩ ʨʡʹʮ ʭʤʥ ʱʮ ʬʫʮ [...] ʩʰʡ ʭʤʥ .ʤʨʮʬʥ [...] ʭʹʥʡʬʮʥ .ʭʩʩʣʥʤʫ ʥʺʥʠ 'ʩʨʷʥʬ 'ʩʣʥʤʩʤ .'ʩʤʤ ʵʸʠʤʮ ʠʡ ʬʴʬʩʴʤ ʬʫʥ .ʩʰʹ ʺʩʡʡ ʥʸʦʧ ʠʬʥ ʸʶʰʣʫʥʡʰ ʺʥʬʢ ʪʬʮʬ ʱʮ 'ʩʲʸʥʴʥ ʭʹ 'ʩʡʹʥʩʤ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩ 'ʩʬʥʣʢ 'ʩʸʢʺ 'ʣʬ ʨʸʴʡʥ ʯʩʢʥʷʡ ʥʡʥʸ ʥʺʥʠ 'ʩʸʫʥʮʥ ʬʫ ʺʠ .'ʩʱʩʬʢʥʨʸʥʴʬ ʥʺʥʠ 'ʩʸʫʥʮ ʭʤʥ .ʯʩʢʥʷʡ ʭʤ ʭʠ ʩʫ 'ʩʣʥʤʩʤʮ ʺʥʰʷʬ ʬʫʥʩ ʭʣʠ ʭʥʹʹ ʭʤʮ ʭʩʰʡʸ ʩʰʹ ʬʠ ʸʡʣ ʥʮʶʲʡ ʠʥʤʥ ʥʷʰʸʴ ʭʩʩʧ ʭʩʰʴʬ 'ʦʰʤ 'ʩʬʢʥʨʸʥʴʮ ʣʧʠ ʸʴʱ ʤʬʠ 'ʦʰʤ 'ʩʰʡʸʤ ʩʸʠʺ ...[ʡ41 ʳʣ] /ʠʶʮʺʥ ʳʣʤ ʪʥʴʤ/ ʭʩʰʡʸʤʥ .ʥʡ ʸʡʣʬ ʤʩʰʠʤ ʬʠ ʥʠʡʹ ʣʧʠʬ ʵʩʩʥʶʮ ʯʨʷ ʺʬʨ ʷʥʬʧʤ ʺʧʺʥ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩʫ 'ʤʩʣʢʡ ʬʲ 'ʩʰʡʬ 'ʩʷʥʬʧ 'ʩʹʡʥʬ ʭʺʥʲʩʰʶʬ ʣʡʫʰ ʹʩʠ ʭʤʮʲʥ .ʤʴʮʥ ʤʴʮ 'ʩʩʥʬʺ ʥʩʺʥʩʶʶʥ ʺʴʸʶʮʫ ʥʹʠʸ ʬʲ ʥʺʥʠ ʠʹʥʰ ʩʰʹʤʥ ʭʤʬ 'ʥʡʸʲ ʥʹʲʩʹ ʬʴʬʴʤ ʩʰʥʷ 'ʩʬʲʮʹʩʤʮ 'ʩʸʢʺ 'ʣʤ ʭʲ ʸʡʣʬ ʧʥʬʹ ʳʱʥʩ ʪʬʮʤ ʩʺʸʹʮʮ ʩʣʥʤʩ .ʳʱʥʩ ʪʬʮʤ ʭʲ ʸʡʣʬ ʪʬʩʹʥ ʥʩʬʠ ʥʸʩʦʧʤʬ 'ʷʥʣ 'ʩʴʬʠ ʺʸʹʲ ʣʲ ʤʰʩʴʱʤ ʸʹʬ 'ʦʰʤ ʭʩʩʧ ʣʲʡ ʠʩʱʤʸʴʡ ʭʤʮʲ ʸʡʣ ʠʬʥ ʥʬ ʤʸʷ ʤʸʷʮʮ ʥʹʴʰʬ ʤʩʤ ʠʸʩ ʩʫ ʤʦʮ ʸʡʣʬ ʭʩʩʧ ʤʶʸ ʠʬʥ .ʤʶʮ ʺʥʹʲʬ ʤʨʧ ʺʥʰʷʬ 'ʩʬʣʺʹʮʥ ʦʸʥʠ ʠ"ʫ ʤʨʧ ʯʩʠ ʭʺʥʫʬʮ ʬʫʡ .ʤʰʩʴʱʤ 'ʥʣʠʮ ʥʺʠʸʩʮ .ʥʰʺʠ ʯʩʠ ʸʹʠʮ 'ʩʡʸ 'ʩʰʩʮʮ ʤʡʸʤ ʺʥʸʩʴʥ ʨʲʮ ʠ"ʫ ʭʹ ʯʩʠ ʯʩʩ ʭʢ Good news from a distant land about the seed of Israel who have not been destroyed (264th year of the sixth millennium [= 1503/04]). It has been some years since the Portuguese entered the Ocean from the West and found many islands and circumnavigated [Africa] towards the South. They have travelled for many years along this sea, discovering a great people close to the sea, called “men of Guinea [Kinea],” of whom we spoke above.46 In those same years they travelled even further47 and discovered a place through which the Ocean enters the land from the South, thus becoming a very great sea called the Indian Ocean, of which we spoke above. From that the Persian sea is formed and at the end of it the “tongue” of that great sea is called “sea of the Reed/End,”48 because the people of Israel crossed its end. Going into the Indian Ocean, [the Portuguese] have discovered great places belonging to the Muslims, one of which being a large city called Caligutim,49 whose sovereign is very great. Close to it is another kingdom which is called Coghin50 and some Jews who went there from Portugal wrote such things as the following. Near Coghin there is a region which is 15 days wide [by foot], which is inhabited by Jews and where the ruling king is called Joseph51 and the capital is called Shingly52
46 Alemanno hints at his previous description on fols. 39v-40r. 47 This information can be referred to Bartolomeu Dias’ mission to the southern extremity of Africa (1487-8). 48 The Red Sea in Hebrew is literally “Reed Sea”; here there is a pun based on the identical writing and pronunciation of the Hebrew words for “end” and “reed” [“swp”]. 49 Today called Kozhikode. 50 Present Cochin. 51 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Jews [accessed September 2010]: “An old, but not particularly reliable, tradition says that Jews of Cochin came in mass to Cranganore (an ancient port, near Cochin) after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. A chieftain by the name of Joseph Rabban, according to local tradition, was granted a 204 FABRIZIO LELLI
and the whole kingdom is designated by the same name. They are black and white like the Indians53 and their dress is [...] and below [... They are free from any] tribute, the children of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, who left [Israel] before the first exile of Nebuchadnezzar, and did not return in the Second Temple period. All the pepper comes from that country. The Jews pick it and sell most of it in Coghin, in particular to four great Muslim merchants who live there and pay a tax to the king, so that no one else in Coghin can buy from the Jews except them. The merchants sell it in turn to the Portuguese [Portogalisim]. All these things were told to me by one of the previously mentioned Portuguese [Portogalim], Hayyim Franco, who personally talked to two Rabbis among those who came to the boat to speak with him. And the Rabbis /turn the leaf and you will find/ [fol. 41v]… the appearance of the aforementioned Rabbis: on account of their modesty, they donned white tunics over their clothes, like the Muslims, and under the tunics one of them wore a fringed tallit qatan, while the other donned it on his head like a turban, its fringes hanging here and there. They were accompanied by a nobleman, one of the Jewish ministers of king Joseph,54 who had been sent to speak with the four Muslim merchants who buy the pepper, in order to obtain a guarantee for the aforementioned Hayyim [Franco] from the captain of the ship, up to 10 thousand ducats that would be returned to him, so that he should [go to] speak with king Joseph. However, Hayyim did not want to speak about the subject, because he feared for his life for an accident that occurred, and did not speak with them in public for fear of the commander of the ship. They lack wheat in all their reign, but they only grow rice; they do what they can to buy wheat for making matzah. They barely have wine while they have many kinds of fruit that are not found among us.55
principality over the Jews of Cochin by the Chera Emperor of Kerala, Bhaskara Ravivarman II. His descendants had, in effect, their own principality (called Anjuvannam in Indian sources) for many centuries until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers (one of them named Joseph Azar) in the 15th century. The dispute led neighboring princes to dispossess them. In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode), attacked the Jews of Cranganore on the pretext that they were tampering with the pepper trade. Most Jews fled to Cochin and went under the protection of the Hindu Raja there.” 52 Or Shinkly, nowadays Cranganore. From 1565 Jews left Shingly for Cochin, where they had been living until a few years ago, when most of them migrated to Israel after the establishment of the modern State. See Fischel, W. J., “Cochin in Jewish History,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 30, 1962, pp. 37-59; Ben-Zvi, I., The Scattered People of Israel, Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi, 1967, pp. 294-5 (Hebrew). 53 This could be a reference to the “Black Jews,” being the alleged descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel who had sought refuge in India around the eighth-seventh century B.C.E., with the “White Jews” European Jews who had migrated in Kerala region from the fifteenth century C.E. 54 See above, n. 13, on the Messiah son of Joseph. 55 The first English translation of this document was published by Lesley, “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory,” pp. 16-17. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 205
The reading of this passage allows us to hearken back to the information on Portuguese expeditions contained in the letters sent to Italy by the Florentine merchants from Lisbon,56 or to the accounts provided by the Portuguese missions of John II. The king intended to find a quick passage to India. Hence, as well as the expeditions by land directed towards the country of Prester John, he also supported a second expedition, in the same year of 1487, guided by Pero da Covilhão and Afonso Paiva, which had Aden as its destination and which sailed through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, in search of Prester John in Ethiopia and in India. Pero and Afonso were provided with a map, which had been derived from the map of the world compiled by Diego Ortiz de Vilhegas (Calcadilha, Bishop of Viseu), by Rodrigo de Piedras Negras, and by a Jew named Moses. The two explorers sailed from Santarém via Barcelona to Naples, where their bills of exchange were paid by the sons of Cosimo de' Medici. At this time, Alemanno was probably already in Florence, where he taught the children of Yehiel of Pisa, who was in close contact with the Medici, with Naples, and with the Iberian Peninsula. It is thus probable that the Florentine merchants of the Da Pisa circle heard about Pero da Covilhão’s feats in Naples. Paiva died before fulfilling the king’s orders, whereas Covilhão took ship to India and travelled the Malabar Coast from Goa to Calicut. In 1490 he returned to Alexandria and sent a report to the king from Cairo, lauding Calicut as a crucial port for the spice trade and providing information on the sailing routes from East Africa to India.57 Information about the achievements of Covilhão’s mission was brought back to Lisbon by two Portuguese Jews who had been sent by the king to meet Covilhão in Cairo: Rabbi Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamego, who reported to the king about the African and Indian journeys of the Portuguese explorer and about his observations on the cinnamon, pepper and clove trade in Calicut.58 Rather than relating to the medieval tradition of the lost tribes, the information that can be derived from Alemanno’s passage hints at the
56 See, for instance, the important information on Calicut, Cochin and other Indian territories reached by the Portuguese, in the letters sent by Bartolomeo Marchionni, Amerigo Vespucci, and other Florentine merchants from Lisbon: Formisano, Iddio ci dia buon viaggio e guadagno, passim. 57 See Kayserling, Historia dos Judeus em Portugal, pp. 76-7; Boyed, J. M., “Exploration,” in Grendler, P. F. (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, New York: Scribner’s, 1999, II, pp. 306-15 (309). 58 We find analogous information in Alemanno’s notes. On Covilhão’s exploration, see Alvares, F., The Prester John of the Indies, G. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (eds), Cambridge, Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1961, “Chapter CIV: How Pero de Covilham, a Portuguese, is in the country of the Prester, and how came here, and why he was sent,” pp. 369-76. 206 FABRIZIO LELLI strong interest shown by this Italian author in the same subjects as those cherished by both his Jewish and non-Jewish contemporaries. Alemanno seems to be attracted by the geographical descriptions that circulated among Jewish and Christian traders and that can be related to the material contained in the lost letters of Abraham of Beja and Joseph of Lamego and to the news concerning the major achievements of the Portuguese circumnavigations of Africa. The Jewish name quoted in the document, Hayyim Franco, most certainly of Sephardic origin, supports the theory of an oral source who provided this significant information.59 Further details on Indian Jews are offered by the following excerpt of a letter copied by Alemanno from a document by an otherwise unknown Moses ben Abba Mori, probably someone who had access to direct testimonies concerning Indian Jews: [margin fol. 41v] ʯʥʹʠʸ ʺʩʡ ʯʡʸʧ ʭʣʥʷ 'ʤ ʳʬʠʬ ʢ"ʱʸ ʩʬʢʰʩʹ ʩʹʰʠ ʥʡʺʫ ʡʺʫ ʬ"ʦ [ʩʸʥʮ ʠʡʠ ʸ"ʡ ʤʹʮ] ʵʸʠʡ 'ʩʡʹʥʩʤ ʥʰʧʰʠ .ʤʦʤ ʭʥʩʤ ʣʲ ʹʥʫʡ ʥʰʫʹʥ ʥʫʬʤ ʩʶʧʥ 'ʩʨʡʹ ʤʲʹʺ ʨʡʰ ʯʡ ʭʲʡʸʩ ʩʮʩʡ 'ʩʰʤʫʥ 'ʩʬʠʸʹʩʥ ʩʥʬʤ 'ʠʥʮʹ ʸ"ʮʫ ʠʡ ʩʰʹ ʺʩʡ ʯʡʸʧ ʸʧʠ .ʯʩʮʩʰʡʥ ʤʣʥʤʩ ʨʡʹʮ ʩʬʢʰʩʹ ʨʥʷʩʬʥʷ ʵʸʠʥ ʸʠʡʩʬʮ ʵʸʠ ʬʫ ʯʮʦʤ ʥʺʥʠʡ . ʩʬʢʰʩʹ 'ʩʡʹʥʩ ʤʡʹ ʸʩʲʤ ʭʹʥ ʸʠʔ ʡʩʔ ʬʑ ʮʒ ʵʸʠʡ .ʺʱʰʫʤ ʺʩʡ ʺʥʰʡʬ ʭʥʷʮ ʪʬʮʤʮ ʹʷʡ ʩʥʬʤ ʬʠʥʮʹ .|'ʩʰʩ ʣʡʥʲ| ʣʧʠ ʪʬʮ ʣʩʡ ʬʫʤ ʩʹʑ ʫʓ ʵʸʠʥ ʯʺʰ ʬʠʥʮʹ 'ʸʬ .ʨʥʷʩʬʷ ʸʩʲ ʯʺʰ ʩʸʑ ʮʍ ʱʔ ʪʬʮʬ .ʤʣʡʬ ʸʩʲ 'ʩʫʬʮʤ ʬʫʬ ʯʺʰ ?ʪʬʮ ʤʹʲ ʤʮ ʪʬʮ ʠʬ ʪʠ ʥʰʬ ʡʩʡʧ ʠʥʤʥ ʩʹʩʫ ʪʬʮʬ 'ʩʡʩʡʧ ʥʰʧʰʠʥ .ʩʹʩʑ ʫʒ ʯʺʰ ʩʬʩʑ ʥʩʑ ʡʒ ʪʬʮʬ .ʩʬʢʰʹ ʭʩʥʢʥ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩʮ ʱʫʮ 'ʩʧʷʥʬ ʥʰʠʥ ,ʸʹʤ ʤʩʣʲʱ ʸ"ʡ ʸʹʤ ʳʱʥʩ 'ʸ ʥʰʬʹ ʸʹʤʥ .ʥʨʥʷʩʬʥʷ 'ʩʮʧʥʬ ʥʰʠʥ ʤʲʸ ʥʰʮʲ ʺʥʹʲʬ 'ʩʬʥʫʩ ʭʰʩʠʥ ʤʴ 'ʩʡʹʥʩ ʥʰʧʰʠ 'ʥʫʬʮ ʥʮʫʥ ʭʬʥʲʤ ʺʥʮʥʠ ʬʫʮʥ ʱʰ ʥʰʬ ʤʹʲʰʥ ʥʰʡ ʭʧʬʤʬ ʥʴʱʠʰ ʭʤʮ 'ʥʡʸ ʺʥʩʰʥʠʥ .ʤʡʸ ʤʫʮ ʭʤʡ 'ʩʢʸʥʤʥ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩ ʭʲ ʤʮʥʧʰʺʥ 'ʩʠʩʡʰ ʤʰʮʹʥ ʤʸʥʺ ʩʹʮʥʧ 'ʤ ʥʰʮʲʥ .ʺʥʶʮ ʢ"ʩʸʺ ʩʸʮʥʹ ʥʰʠʥ .ʭʬʫ ʭʩʡ ʲʡʨʥ ʥʬʫ ʩʰʥʮʩʩʮʤʥ ʭʤʮ ʺʶʷ ʠʬʠ ʥʰʮʲ 'ʩʠ 'ʥʺʫʱʮ ʭʩʹʹ ʩʡʥʺʫʥ ʭʬʫ ʬʲ ʩʺʴʸʶʤ ʩʹʸ ʩʹʥʸʩʴʥ ʥʰʮʲ ʹʩ ʩʰʣʤ ʣʣʬʠ ʸʴʱ ʤʡʸ ʺʩʹʠʸʡ 'ʩʸʥʴʫʤ ʭʥʩ ʹʸʣʮ ʹʥʣʷʤ ʥʰʩʡʸʮ 'ʥʩʰʹʮʤ ʥʰʩʣʩʡ ʳʱʥʮ ʺʬʩʴʺ 'ʩʬʬʴʺʮʹ ʸʧʠ ʺʸʶʲ ʢʧ ʩʰʮʹ ʬʹ ʩʰʹ ʡʥʨ ʭʥʩʡ ʢʤʰʮ ʥʰʮʲ ʹʩʥ .ʬʬʫʮ ʸʴʱʥ ʧʡʹʥ ʸʩʹ 'ʩʸʮʥʠʥ ʺʱʰʫʬ ʵʥʧ ʡʤʦ ʩʰʥʮʸʥ 'ʥʠʬʹʬʹʥ 'ʥʣʥʮʧ 'ʥʧʴʨʮʡ ʺ"ʱ 'ʧ 'ʩʠʩʶʥʮʥ ʤʬʩʢʮʤ ʺʠ 'ʩʠʸʥʷ ʤʬʩʴʺʤ ʸʧʠ 'ʩʸʥʴʤ ʭʥʩʡʥ .ʤʧʰʮ 'ʩʬʬʴʺʮʥ ʴ"ʢ 'ʩʡʡʥʱʥ ʭʸ ʬʥʷʡ ʤʩʣʥʤʥ ʸʩʲʤ ʡʥʧʸʡ 'ʺʥʠ 'ʩʠʩʶʥʮʥ ʭʣʠ ʺʸʥʶʫ 'ʩʹʥʲ ʸʧʠʥ .'ʩʮʣʸʰʥ 'ʩʸʫʺʹʮʥ 'ʩʧʮʹʥ 'ʩʺʥʹʥ ʬʫʤʥ 'ʩʸʶʥʰʥ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩʥ ʭʬʥʲʤ ʺʥʮʥʠ ʬʫʥ .ʬʠʸʹʩ ʬʫ 'ʩʰʡʠʡ ʥʺʥʠ 'ʩʬʷʥʱʥ 'ʺʥʠ 'ʩʴʸʥʹʥ ʸ"ʡ ʤʹʮ .ʢ"ʱʸ 'ʩʴʬʠ 'ʤ ʨʡʹ ʤ"ʫ ʺʡʹʡ ʣʧʠʡ ʡʺʫʰ .ʤʹʲʮʤ ʤʦʡ 'ʩʮʬʫʺʮʥ ʯʩʹʩʡʺʮ .ʹ"ʸʥ ʩʸʥʮ ʠʡʠ [Moses ben Abba Mori,] of blessed memory, has written: “In the year 263 of the fifth millennium [= 1502/03] the inhabitants of Shingly wrote: ‘Before the destruction of the First Temple, in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, nine and a half tribes left and settled in Kush [= Ethiopia], where they still live. We, the inhabitants of the land of Shingly, are from
59 Lesley, “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory,” p. 8, holds that Franco was a convert and that he would have been one of Alemanno’s oral informers of the whole section related to the Portuguese route from Lisbon, through the Cape Verde islands, to India. In his essay, Lesley provides an English translation of the document on pp. 17-8. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 207
the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. After the destruction of the Second Temple, the honour of our master and teacher Samuel ha-Levi, with Israelites and priests, went to the land of Melibara [= Malabar], where is the city in which we live, Shingly. At that same time all the land of Melibara, as the land of Coliqut and the land of Keshi were subject to a sole king |Prester John60|. Samuel ha-Levi asked him for a place in which to build a synagogue. What did the king do? He gave a city to every king. To king Samri he gave the city of Caliqut and to Rabbi Samuel he gave Shingly. To king Bevili he gave Keshi. We are beloved of the king of Keshi and he loves us, but the same cannot be said of the king of Coliquto. Our prince is Rabbi Joseph the Prince, son of Rabbi Sa`adyah the Prince, and we collect taxes from the Muslims, from non-Jews and from all the nations of the earth; and we live here like a kingdom, and [because of this] they cannot do us any harm and we can fight Muslims, killing many with a great blow. Many of their ships [once] gathered to fight us, but a miracle occurred and they all sank into the sea. We keep the 613 commandments. We have the Pentateuch, eight Prophets, the Tanhuma and the commentary of the Frenchman Rashi above all others, but we do not have the texts of the sixty tractates [of the Babylonian Talmud] except very few, while of Maimonides we have everything; we have the Mishnayyot of our holy Rabbi, the Midrash for Yom Kippur, the Bereshit Rabbah, the book of Eldad the Danite, and the Miklol [by David Kimhi]. We also have the custom, on the second holy day of Shemini `Atzeret, after reciting the additional prayer, to bring eight Sifrei Torah in beautiful cases with chains and golden pomegranates out of the synagogue and to proclaim in a loud voice chants of thanksgiving, circling three times and reciting the Minhah prayer. And for Purim, after the prayer, we read the Megillah, we drink, we rejoice, we get drunk and fall asleep. Then we create [an effigy] like the form of a man and we take it out into the city street, we burn it and throw stones against it, all of Israel. And all of the nations of the world, Muslims, Christians, and everyone is embarrassed and ashamed by this matter’. Written on Sunday, 25 Shevat 5263. Moses ben R. Abba Mori. Keep well.” In this fragment dated 1503 (but evidently copied by Alemanno in a later period, when Moses was already dead, as is evident from the initial formula “of blessed memory”), Jewish inhabitants of Shingly are mentioned again, perhaps on the basis of accounts by Jewish travellers to India; an analogous subject is dealt with in the fragment of Abraham of Siena’s letter, dated 1496, transcribed in the margin of the same fol. 41v, immediately after the previous one:61
60 Alemanno added here a superscript/correction, which can be interpreted “Prester John.” 61 This document was published by A. David, Sha’alu shelom Yerushalayim [An anthology of Hebrew letters from the Mamluk period concerning Jerusalem and its Jews], Tel Aviv, ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uhad, 2003, pp. 139-41 (Hebrew). The first English 208 FABRIZIO LELLI
'ʩʡʹʥʩʤ 'ʩʣʥʤʩ ʭʩʫʬʮ ʤʹʮʧʮ ʥʰʲʮʹ ʥ"ʰʸ ʺʰʹ ʠʰʩʩʱʮ ʭʤʸʡʠ ʸ"ʤʮ ʭʩʬʹʥʸʩʮ ʠʡ ʡʺʫʡ ʠ"ʩʥ .ʠʷʩʮʠʬʡ 'ʩʫʬʥʤʤ 'ʩʬʠʲʮʹʩʤ 'ʩʦʦʥʡʥ 'ʩʬʬʥʹ ʭʤʥ ʹʥʫ ʺʮʣʠ ʩʴʬʫ ʭʩʮʸʤ ʭʩʸʤʤ ʬʲ ʩʹʠʸʡ ʭʺʥʠ 'ʩʠʹʥʰʥ ʭʴʺʫ ʬʲ ʥʡʫʥʸʥ ʬʮʢ 'ʩʣʣʥʹʥ 'ʩʸʥʡʢ ʭʤʥ ʤʹʮ ʩʰʡ ʭʺʥʠ 'ʩʸʥʷ ʩʫ ʤʮʹʹ ʺʧʠ ʩʠ ʭʩʤ ʪʥʺʡ ʧʸʦʮʤ 'ʥʶʸʠʡ ʩʫ 'ʩʰʥʮʠ ʹʩʠʥ ʭʫʧ ʲʮʹʹ 'ʺʫ ʣʥʲ .ʭʩʸʤʤ ʬʲʡʹʥ 'ʺʫʡʹ ʤʸʥʺ ʩʬʲʡ 'ʩʬʥʣʢ 'ʩʸʩʹʲ ʭʩʣʥʤʩʮ ʭʩʺʡ ʩʬʲʡ ʳʬʠ 'ʩʲʡʸʠ ʥʮʫ ʤʡ ʹʩ ʩʬʢʰʩʹ ʺʠʸʷʰ ʣʠʮ ʤʬʥʣʢ ʺʧʠ ʤʰʩʣʮ ʭʬʥʮʬʥ ʥʣʥʤ ʩʫʬʮ ʩʴʬʫ ʩʠʤ ʺʡʹʥʩʥ .ʩʣʥʤʩ ʪʬʮ ʭʤʬʥ ʤʴ ʩʹʥʷʡʥ ʣʠʮ ʲʸʥ ʤʹʷ ʸʡʲʮʤ ʩʫ ʩʠʤ ʸʥʡʲʬ 'ʩʬʥʫʩ ʭʰʩʠʥ .ʹʮʹʤʥ ʹʠʤ ʩʣʡʥʲ ʭʤʥ ʨʥʷʩʬʢ ʸʡʣ ʤʩʣʡʥʲ ʸ"ʸʤʮʥ .ʥʣʥʤ ʩʫʬʮ [ʣʩ] ʭʤʩʬʲ ʤʸʡʢ ʸʡʫ ʤʦ ʩʬʥʬʥ .'ʥʰʨʷ 'ʥʩʰʠʥ 'ʥʰʩʴʱ 'ʩʸʡʥʲ 'ʸ ʠʸʷʰ ʭʤʩʬʲ ʪʬʥʮʤʥ ʩʠʤ ʥʺʥʠʮ ʭʩʠʡ 'ʩʮʹʡʤ ʩʫ ʥʸʮʠʥ .ʭʹʬ ʥʩʤ ʸʹʠ 'ʩʣʥʤʩ ʭʲ .ʲʹʥʤʩ From a letter sent from Jerusalem by Abraham of Siena in the year [5]256 [= 1496] we have come to know of five Jewish kings who live on very high mountains in front of the land of Kush [= Ethiopia], who attack and rob the Muslims travelling to Mecca. Some people say that they call themselves “children of Moses.” They are courageous [and are able to] steal a camel at the same time as its rider and take it to the summit of the mountains. The author of the letter writes, in addition, that he heard from a Rabbi worthy of belief that in the lands of the Orient there is an island called Shingly in the middle of the sea, in which there are about forty thousand Jewish householders, extraordinarily wealthy, schooled in the written and oral Torah, governed by a Jewish king. This island is located in front of the kings of India and opposite there is a grandiose kingdom which is called Galiqut and they are fire and sun worshipers. It is not easy to reach the island because the passage [in the sea] is hard and very bad, and with difficulty small ships and boats pass. Were it not for this, the kings of India would already have subjugated them. Our master and teacher, Rabbi Obadiah [of Bertinoro] spoke with some Jews who had been there, who said that the spices come from that island and that its king is called Rabbi Joshua.62 The following marginal note on the same folio, derived from another unknown source, allows us to understand the geographical perception of India and Ethiopia in Alemanno’s days: as stated, both regions could be
translation of this document was published by Lesley, “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory,” p. 18. 62 The last part of Alemanno's quotation from the letter is not relevant for our analysis: 'ʮʠ 'ʥʲ .ʭʫʧ ʭʤʡ ʯʩʠʥ ʱʸʴʥ ʩʣʮ ʺʧʺ ʺʥʬʩʤʷ ʭʩʺʠʮ ʥʮʫ 'ʩʸʩʹʲ 'ʩʡʸ 'ʩʣʥʤʩ ʹʩ ʸʥʹʠ 'ʥʶʸʠ ʬʫʡ ʩʫ 'ʮʠʥ .'ʷʮʥ 'ʹʮʥ ʸ"ʺʮ .'ʩʺʡ ʩʬʲʡ ʺ"ʺʮ ʤʬʩʤʷ ʹʩ .'ʩʣʥʤʩʮ 'ʥʬʩʤʷ ʷ"ʺʺ ʥʮʫ 'ʩʣʥʤʩʤ ʭʤ ʱʸʴʥ ʩʣʮ 'ʥʶʸʠ ʬʫʡ ʩʫ .ʬ"ʫʲ .ʤʹʲʩ ʥʩʰʩʲʡ ʸʹʩʤ ʹʩʠʥ ʺʥʬʢ ʭʤʬ ʯʩʠʥ “It also told that in all territories of Assyria there are many Jews, who are wealthy, and that there are approximately two hundred communities in Media and Persia, though no Rabbi can be found among them. It furthermore said that in all the territories of Media and Persia there are about nine hundred Jewish communities (some of them counting eight hundred families, some six hundred, some three hundred), and they are not aware of the meaning of ‘diaspora’ and every one does according to his will [end of quote].” GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES 209 designated by the same term “India.”63 Alemanno deals with this issue because of his interest in revealing available information about Prester John: [margin fol. 40v] ʣʧʠʥ ʩʧʸʦʮʤ ʥʣʥʤ ʭʩʬ ʭʩʩʰʥʴʶ ʭʩʩʧʸʦʮ ʭʩʰʹ ʭʤ ʥʣʥʤ 'ʥʶʸʠ ʹʬʹ ʭʩʩʣʥʤʤ ʩʸʡʣ ʩʴʬʥ ʸʺʥʩ ʥʩʺʧʺʥ 'ʩʣʰʩʠʤ 'ʥʶʸʠ 'ʢʤ ʬʫʡ ʪʬʥʮ ʠʥʤʥ ʩʰʠʩ ʥʨʱʩʸʴʤ ʭʹʥ ʱʥʬʩʰ ʠʶʥʮʬ ʡʥʸʷ ʩʮʥʸʣ ʤʩʤ ʠʥʤ ʩʫ ʸʠʴʺʮʥ .ʭʥʸʣʡ ʡʸʲʮʤ ʺʥʶʷ ʣʲʥ 'ʩʩʰʥʴʶ ʧʸʦʮʤ ʺʥʶʷ ʣʲ ʷʸ 'ʩʫʬʮ ʣ"ʮʮ ʥʸʮʠ ʩʫ 'ʩʬʥʮʰ ʭʤ ʯʩʣʲʥ ʤʣʥʤʩ ʨʡʹʮ ʤʫʥʬʮʤ ʲʸʦʮ 'ʥʤ ʩʫʥ ʤʮʹ ʥʬʢ ʸʹʠ 'ʩʨʡʹʤʮ ʩʣʥʤʩ ʠʨʰʨʱʥʷ ʠʸʷʰ ʭʲ ʤʦ ʬʹ ʥʰʷʦʥ ʬʥʮʤʬ 'ʩʡʩʩʧ ʠʥʤʤ ʺʣʡ 'ʩʡʹʤ .'ʩʣʥʤʩʤ ʠʩʤ 'ʩʸʶʥʰʤ ʺʣ ʩʫ ʬʲ ʧʫʥʺʤʬ ʤʶʸʥ 'ʩʡʺʫ ʧʬʹ ʥʨʹʩʹ ʠʴʴ ʩʮʩʡʥ .ʬʥʣʢ ʥʧʫʥ ʭʩʰʹ 'ʩʸʹʲʥ ʭʩʺʠʮ ʤʩʧʥ .ʭʩʩʮʥʸʬ ʥʣʥʤʡʥ ʭʩʩʣʥʤʬ ʤʮʥʸʡ ʺʩʡ ʺʥʰʡʬ ʤʶʸʥ ʤʬʩʮʤ [...] as the Indians hold, of the three regions of India two are to the East and North of the eastern Indian Ocean and one is to the South, close to the place where the Nile begins: there Prester John is based, who reigns over all three Indian regions and who has in his power more than 44 kings, considering only those extending to the northeastern and southwestern borders. He boasts of being a Jew from one of the tribes who were exiled there and of coming from the royal seed of the tribe of Judah. To this day they are circumcised, because they say that Christian religion is actually Jewish religion, and those who embrace that religion must of necessity be circumcised. The oldest man of that people is called Costante, he is 220 years old and is still very strong. At the time of pope Sixtus64 he sent letters in which he wanted to debate with him regarding circumcision and to have a house built in Rome for the Indians and one built in India for the Romans.65 This text66 could have been derived from the tradition of the Portuguese geographical discoveries, in particular from the double expedition to Ethiopia and India in search of Prester John,67 a subject which was
63 A similar association appears in the already quoted passage of Abraham Farissol’s Iggeret Orhot `Olam, on which see above, n. 19. 64 See also next note and below. 65The author of the Hebrew text seems to refer to Emperor Constantine II (1471-1494) of Ethiopia, known also as Eskender (Alexander). However, he died at a young age: it is possible that Constantine II was confused with his grand-father Zara Yakob or Constantine I (1399-1468), who had sent a diplomatic mission, led by the Sicilian Pietro Rombulo, to Pope Nicholas V in 1450 (see Tamrat, T., Church and State in Ethiopia, Oxford, 1972, pp. 264-5). It is worth observing that the Portuguese expedition led by Covilhão reached Ethiopia during Constantine II’s reign. 66 The letter was already published in Italian version by Toaff, Il Messia negro, p. 53. 67 Prester John is mentioned in other texts quoted by Alemanno in this same section of his Liqqutim, e.g. on f. 39v, in Obadiah’s letter, and on f. 42r, in Gioan Gentili Indiano’s description (where the name of the legendary king occurs three times). In both sources, as well as in this one, Prester John is clearly associated with Ethiopia rather than with India. The three texts are contemporary with Alemanno and reflect the theory on which the 210 FABRIZIO LELLI central to many letters sent from Lisbon to Florence at the turn of the sixteenth century, though the evident hint at Pope Sixtus IV (who reigned from 1471 to 1484), who restored the Church of Saint Stephen in the Vatican, renaming it Saint Stephen of the Abyssinians in 1479, is very significant too.68 The note certainly dates to earlier than 1494, the year of Constantine II’s death, though Alemanno may have copied or translated it later. Be this as it may, Alemanno seems to be the first to deal in Hebrew with Prester John and the identification of this legendary figure with the Ethiopian negus.69 The Italian concern with Portuguese geographical discoveries and their association with messianism at the end of the fifteenth century – among both Jews and Christians – was certainly responsible for the widespread phenomena of messianic expectation that occurred in Italy in the first half of the sixteenth century. Yohanan Alemanno70 is certainly one of the characters who best expresses the versatility of Italian culture in the age of humanism: his research on the lost Jewish tribes, although founded on medieval tradition, belies the characteristic humanist interest that pushed the author to seek original information on topics that were largely debated in his time. The notes on the reappearance of the lost tribes in distant countries, contained in Alemanno’s Liqqutim, can thus be counted among the very first testimonies collected by a Renaissance Jewish intellectual on the documented existence of Jews in India and Ethiopia.
Portuguese based their identification of the Ethiopian negus with Prester John (on which see also above, p.210 and note 12). 68 Formisano, Iddio ci dia buon viaggio e guadagno, passim. 69 The first Hebrew version of the letters of Prester John was published in Constantinople in an undated edition, which scholars attribute to 1519. 70 Bibliographical information on Alemanno can be found in Alemanno, Hay ha- `olamim (L'Immortale). Parte I: la Retorica, F. Lelli (ed.), Florence, Olschki, 1995; Lelli, F., “Alemanno, Yohanan ben Isaac,” in Grendler, Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, I, pp. 40-42; Idel, La Cabbalà in Italia, chapter 14. 211
KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE, DE GUILLAUME POSTEL À JACQUES D’AUZOLES-LAPEYRE Frank Lestringant
On partira de deux figures séparées par presque un siècle, d’une part Guillaume Postel, kabbaliste chrétien de la Renaissance et lecteur de langues orientales au Collège royal, auteur en 1553 d’un traité Des merveilles du monde; de l’autre Jacques d’Auzoles, sieur de Lapeyre, auteur en 1629 d’une Saincte Geographie, un atlas de géographie sacrée ainsi nommée “parce qu’elle est toute tirée du pur texte de l’Escriture Saincte, ou de la doctrine des Peres et Docteurs de la Saincte Eglise.” L’ambition du géographe catholique est de montrer en effet que toute la science des Païens est contenue par avance et selon le sens littéral dans l’Écriture sainte. Encore doit-elle être éclairée par les commentaires anciens et notamment hébraïques. On verra à cet égard le rôle que joue pour les deux auteurs, également soucieux de marquer la place du Paradis terrestre sur le globe et d’accorder la géographie nouvelle issue des Grandes Découvertes à la tradition exégétique, le De Paradiso commentarius de Moïse Bar-Cépha.
********* Au seuil de sa Cosmographie universelle, André Thevet rappelle que Cosmographie n’est autre chose, qu’une description du Monde (ou Adonia en langue Ethiopienne) comprenant tout ce qui est environné par le plus hault ciel, comme les quatre Elemens (ou Pyrappatha en la mesme langue) et ensemblement tous les Cieux: lequel mot est prins des Grecs, qui cognoissans à la verité, qu’il n’y avoit rien, à quoy tout ce que Dieu a creé plein de beauté et delices, convint mieux qu’au Monde, l’ont appellé en leur langue Cosmos, qui vault autant que Ornement, ou si vous voulez, beau, plaisant et delectable.1 Ce que Belleforest disait de manière plus concise en préface de l’Histoire universelle compilée d’après Joannes Boemus: Ceci est une version autorisée, rééditée et augmentée, d’une contribution déjà parue sous le titre “Providence et Imago Mundi,” dans Hasard et Providence, XIVe-XVIIe siècles. Actes du cinquantenaire de la fondation du CESR et XLIXe Colloque International d’études Humanistes, Tours, 3-9 juillet 2006, publié par le Centre d’études Supérieures de la Renaissance, sous la direction de Marie-Luce Demonet, Tours, 2007. en-ligne: http://umr6576.cesr.univ-tours.fr/Publications/HasardetProvidence. 1 Thevet, A., Cosmographie universelle, Paris, Pierre L’Huillier et Guillaume Chaudière, 1575, t. I, livre I, chap. 1er, f. 1 r°. 212 FRANK LESTRINGANT
[le Monde] a esté nommé Monde par les Latins, et kosmos par les Grecz, à cause de sa grand beauté, et pour la perfection de son artifice.2 En grec, puis en latin, un jeu de mots ancien associe le monde et la beauté. Cosmos en grec est tout à la fois nom et adjectif. C’est parce qu’il est “orné” que le monde s’appelle ainsi. Même allusion en latin: mundus exprime à la fois la totalité, quand il est substantif, et la pureté, quand il est qualificatif. Il est dès lors tentant de voir dans l’image du monde l’expression de la bonté et de la générosité divines, et c’est ce que ne manquent pas de faire, au seuil de leurs ouvrages encyclopédiques, les cosmographes de la Renaissance, de Pierre Apian à Ortelius et à Mercator. La description générale du monde devient dès lors le prétexte à une “méditation cosmographique” sur l’admirable dessein du Créateur.3 L’univers est donc assimilé à un spectacle visuel dont l’inépuisable variété fait le prix et que Dieu a réservé depuis les origines à l’homme pour sa récréation et son instruction. Cette pédagogie du Créateur, qui recourt à l’image — ou plus exactement aux images innombrables et variées que déploie, de la base au sommet, l’immense échelle des êtres — pour faire comprendre à l’esprit humain, par inductions successives, l’unité du grand Tout, est à son tour imitée par les auteurs de “philosophie naturelle,” naturalistes, médecins et géographes. Forts de cette certitude selon laquelle cosmétique et cosmographie procèdent du même principe divin de la variété, les uns et les autres font de leurs descriptions savantes cette “marqueterie mal jointe” chère à l’auteur des Essais, où l’éparpillement d’objets singuliers interdit toute classification trop précise.4 Le problème surgit, pourrait-on dire, avec la doctrine chrétienne et l’inscription du péché dans la Création. La conception d’une nature fondamentalement bonne, chez saint Augustin déjà, se conjugue, en une tension non résolue, à l’idée, à première vue contradictoire, d’une nature déchue, défigurée et corrompue par les suites inéluctables du péché originel. Cette “incertitude de la pensée explicite de saint Augustin,” pour reprendre l’analyse de Jean Céard portant sur les monstres,5 se
2 Belleforest, F. de, Histoire universelle, Paris, Gervais Mallot, 1570, “Preface au Lecteur,” f. non chiffré. 3 Pour ce concept de méditation cosmographique, voir Les Méditations cosmographiques à la Renaissance, Cahiers V.L. Saulnier, n° 26, Paris, PUPS, 2009. Cf. Besse, J.- M., Les Grandeurs de la Terre, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 2003, p. 309-36. 4 Lestringant, F., L’Atelier du cosmographe ou l’image du monde à la Renaissance, Paris, Albin Michel, 1991, p. 51. 5 Céard, J., La Nature et les prodiges. L’Insolite au XVIe siècle en France, Genève, Droz, 1977, p. 29. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 213 reflète par exemple dans l’œuvre d’Olaus Magnus, placé entre deux impératifs contradictoires, celui d’exalter les merveilles du Septentrion et celui de traquer, à travers une multitude d’indices et de prodiges, les progrès du mal dans ces régions, autrement dit ceux de l’hérésie luthérienne favorisée par le roi de Suède Gustav Vasa.6
Éloge de la sphère
Or il en va de la figure de la terre comme de l’homme et de toutes choses créées. L’ambivalence des monstres, dont le statut hésite entre l’anomalie défectueuse et l’accomplissement, se retrouve dans tout ce qui semble contredire à la perfection du cosmos. Parmi ces singularités qui oscillent entre la difformité et la plénitude, je retiendrai les montagnes et les îles. Les unes comme les autres introduisent l’irrégularité et la disparate dans l’ordre apparent du cosmos. Tantôt elles dressent des aspérités qui blessent l’œil du spectateur; tantôt elles aménagent des vides qui déçoivent son attente. Dans tous les cas, elles heurtent l’idée d’accomplissement et de perfection. C’est par exemple le débat qui oppose, à propos des îles de l’archipel universel, Vincenzo Coronelli à Jacques d’Auzoles-Lapeyre. Les îles de l’Océan, dont la multiplication est, selon toute apparence, consécutive au Déluge, sont-elles la marque du péché de l’homme ou bien le signe de la perfection divine, laquelle, dans son infinie sagesse, a voulu ainsi orner le monde? Même problème encore pour les montagnes, dont certains prétendent qu’elles sont consécutives au Déluge, et qu’elles défigurent par conséquent la rondeur originelle du monde. C’est contre cette “sotte opinion” que s’élève Paul Merula dans sa Cosmographia generalis publiée à Leyde en 1605.7 Les montagnes ne sont nullement liées à la faute, comme le prouve le témoignage de la Bible, tant dans la Genèse que dans les Psaumes de David et les Proverbes de Salomon. De surcroît elles concourent à la beauté du monde et possèdent leur utilité. Cette “sotte opinion,” c’est par exemple celle de Sébastien Münster, reprise sur ce point sans correction par François de Belleforest, son 6 Voir Johannesson, K., The Renaissance of the Goths in Sixteenth-Century Sweden. Johannes and Olaus Magnus as Politicians and Historians, J. Larson (trad. et éd.), Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1991. 7 Merula, P., Cosmographiae generalis libri tres: Item Geographiae particularis libri quatuor, Leyde, ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengi, 1605, I, III, XII, “De forma terrae,” p. 186. Voir le commentaire de Céard, J., “La Montagne des cosmographes: Paulus Merula,” dans Gorris-Camos, R. (éd.), Les Montagnes de l’esprit: Imaginaire et histoire de la montagne à la Renaissance. Actes du Colloque international de Saint-Vincent (Vallée d’Aoste) les 22-23 novembre 2002, Aoste, Musumeci, 2005, pp. 171-82 (175). 214 FRANK LESTRINGANT commentateur et continuateur, au deuxième chapitre de la Cosmographie universelle: Comme ainsi soit que l’Escriture dise que les eaux du deluge creurent, et se esleverent grandement par dessus la terre, et que l’arche flottoit sur la face des eaux, et ce pendant que le Seigneur Dieu a transporté le vent sur ceste inondation, afin que les eaux par le souffle d’iceluy s’en retournassent de dessus la terre, jusques à ce qu’elle fut seichée, il n’y a point de doute que ceste impetuosité d’eaux, à flotter et reflotter, n’ait fait beaucoup de cavernes, d’ouvertures et de goulphes en la terre: et là où auparavant le deluge il n’y avoit nulle mer, desja nouvelle mer y est venue: par mesme raison, beaucoup de montagnes et de vallées se sont faictes par le cours des eaux, là où la terre estoit auparavant toute plane.8 Mais on voit que l’opinion que Merula combat est plus nuancée et moins sotte qu’il ne le dit. Münster suggère seulement que certaines montagnes, comme la plupart des mers et des fleuves, sont postérieures au Déluge. Il n’exclut nullement que d’autres montagnes et d’autres mers, à commencer par l’Océan circulaire, remontent à l’origine du monde. Avec beaucoup de prudence, il s’abstient du reste de distinguer entre montagnes originelles et montagnes subséquentes, laissant au lecteur une certaine marge d’appréciation. En ce qui concerne les fleuves, Münster a plus de certitudes: puisque la Bible ne fait mention que des quatre fleuves issus du Paradis terrestre, à savoir le Géhon ou le Nil, le Phison, le Tigre et l’Euphrate, tous les fleuves de l’Europe sont nécessairement postérieurs au Déluge. D’où sa conclusion sur ce point: Et mesmes beaucoup de grands fleuves, comme sont le Danube, le Rhin, le Rhosne, et autres, pour la plus grand’part, ont prins leur origine au deluge, quand les fontaines du grand abysme se sont ouvertes: Dieu pourvoyant ainsi à l’homme qui devoit estre espars par toute la terre, afin que les hommes et les pays se peussent mutuellement aider l’un l’autre.9 Une solution se dessine ici, qui ne sépare pas le mal de son remède, mais les lie fortement. Les fleuves qui découlent du Déluge et donc du péché de l’homme sont aussi et en même temps une manifestation de la Providence divine qui remédie par là même à la dispersion de l’humanité, en aménageant des voies de communication entre ses parties séparées. De sorte qu’un mal peut être aussi un bien, tant il est vrai que Dieu continue d’agir dans une Création qui, quoique défigurée, porte
8 Münster, S., Cosmographie universelle, Bâle, Heinrich Petri, 1556, livre I, chap. 2: “De la division de la mer, et de la source des fleuves,” pp. 1-2. Même texte dans Münster et Belleforest, F. de, La Cosmographie universelle de tout le monde, Paris, Nicolas Chesneau et Michel Sonnius, 1575, t. I, livre I, chap. 2, colonne 8. 9 Münster, ad loc., à la suite. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 215 toujours sa marque et dit sa gloire. C’est cette solution de l’accomplissement de la Création que reprendra Jacques d’Auzoles- Lapeyre au siècle suivant. Il reste qu’îles et montagnes, dans l’imaginaire de la Renaissance, représentent d’emblée des irrégularités, des anomalies qui contreviennent à la belle image du monde ou à sa bonne forme. J’allèguerai ici le témoignage de deux poètes, Ronsard et d’Aubigné. Ronsard tout d’abord. Dans un passage de la Responce aux injures, où il réplique au ministre Zamariel qui le blâmait d’avoir changé sa couronne de laurier pour celle de la tonsure, le poète célèbre la rondeur comme symbole de perfection, une rondeur observable à tous les étages du cosmos: Car rien n’est excellent au monde s’il n’est rond: Le grand ciel est tout rond, la mer est toute ronde, Et la terre en rondeur se couronne de l’onde, D’une couronne d’or le Soleil est orné, La Lune a tout le front de rayons couronné [...].10 D’Aubigné ensuite. Aux tout derniers vers de “Misères,” le premier livre des Tragiques, le poète-prophète appelle sur la nouvelle Babylone le feu du Ciel: Frappe du ciel Babel, les cornes de son front Desfigurent la terre, et lui ostent son rond.11 Des flèches et des dômes de l’Église de Rome, qui manifestent son orgueil, et qui dentellent la terre comme autant de montagnes artificielles, d’Aubigné tire une admirable métaphore: ces accidents de terrain, faits de main d’homme, brisent la régularité de la surface terrestre, son plat ou sa courbe — son plat si l’on s’en tient au regard rapproché, topographique; sa courbe ou son rond, si l’on adopte le regard éloigné du cosmographe. Or c’est cette rondeur que la corne, le clocher ou déjà la montagne interrompt, brise et déforme. C’est cette rondeur synonyme de perfection qu’avant même le triomphe de la Nouvelle Babylone les montagnes nées du Déluge altèrent et défigurent. Ou comme le dit encore d’Aubigné dans sa Méditation sur le Psaume 133: “ces roches cornuës qui passent la region moyenne [de l’air], pour de leur front endurci rompre et troubler les exercices des nuës, qui
10 Ronsard, P. de, Responce aux injures, v. 1046-50, dans Œuvres complètes, P. Laumonier (éd.), t. XI, Paris, (S.T.F.M., diff.), Les Belles Lettres, 1973, p. 169. 11 Aubigné, A. d’, Les Tragiques, I, v. 1379-80, J.-R. Fanlo (éd.), Paris, Champion, 1995, t. I, p. 151. 216 FRANK LESTRINGANT deffigurent la rondeur de la terre,” sont “propres seulement à donner dommage sans profit, et l’effroi sans plaisir.”12 Elles sont l’image exacte de l’État inique qui opprime les hommes et insulte à la majesté divine. Elles sont la marque de l’hybris qui altère jusqu’à la nature des choses. Le monde dentelé de montagnes et de vallées, ce serait donc un monde défiguré, un visage marqué de plaies, une main plantée de verrues - ce terme que Paul Merula affectionne pour décrire les montagnes dans lesquelles, pourtant, il voit une manifestation de la divine Providence: verrucarum instar in manu.13
De l’Archipel comme cataclysme et comme chute
Le reproche que Merula adresse à ses devanciers concernant les montagnes, il aurait tout aussi bien pu le faire à propos des îles. Münster déclarait en effet dans son chapitre sur l’origine des îles: Il y en a eu beaucoup de celles-ci crées dés le commencement du monde, aussi y en a-il eu beaucoup, lesquelles par succession de temps sont survenues en la mer, à sçavoir Delos, Rhodes, Alone, Thera, Sicille, Therasie, et autres, et ce pour diverses causes.14 Il y a donc des îles d’avant la Chute et celles d’après le Déluge. Mais il existe une position beaucoup plus radicale que celle, assez nuancée en définitive, du cosmographe allemand, qui, en toute occasion, sait faire la part des choses. Cette position extrême, c’est celle des théologiens chrétiens, et avant eux, de certains moralistes anciens, qui voyaient dans la complexité du monde un signe manifeste de sa dégradation. Dans l’hypothèse de l’usure du monde par suite du péché originel, montagnes et îles apparaissent comme les signes tangibles de la Chute, inscrits sur le corps de la Terre et la déformant. Le monde, alors, serait le vestige éclaté de l’unité primordiale perdue. Cette terre en lambeaux, engloutie aux quatre cinquièmes, divisée et accidentée, n’a pas toujours été ainsi. Ce visage raviné et meurtri résulte d’un cataclysme ancien. Des nombreux mythes qui le racontent, j’en retiendrai deux, l’un emprunté à l’Histoire variée d’Élien, l’autre à une interprétation serrée des premiers chapitres de la Genèse par un théologien géographe du XVIIe siècle, Jacques d’Auzoles, sieur de Lapeyre, l’auteur de La Saincte Géographie.
12 Aubigné, A. d’, Meditation sur le Pseaume 133, dans Œuvres, H. Weber et al. (éds), Paris, Gallimard, “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,” 1969, p. 501; Œuvres complètes, t. I. Petites œuvres meslées, V. Ferrer (éd.), Paris, Champion, 2004, p. 148. 13 Cité par Céard, “La Montagne,” p. 174. 14 Münster, op. cit., 1556, livre I, chap. 3, p. 3. Même texte en 1575, t. I, livre I, col. 9. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 217
Dans la préface de son Isolario ou livre des “Iles les plus fameuses du monde,” Thomaso Porcacchi da Castiglione invoque l’autorité d’Élien, Romain hellénisé du temps d’Héliogabale, un des représentants les plus illustres de la seconde Sophistique. Élien, au livre trois de l’Histoire variée, rapporte lui-même le témoignage de Théopompe, mettant en scène la rencontre de Midas, roi de Phrygie, et d’un certain Silène, fils d’une nymphe. “Ils parlèrent de sujets nombreux et variés, et voici en particulier ce que dit Silène à Midas. L’Europe, l’Asie et l’Afrique étaient des îles, autour desquelles l’Océan coulait en cercle.”15 Au-delà, en dehors de ce monde borné que nous connaissons, se situait la Terre ferme ou le Continent, de grandeur infinie, où vaguaient de gigantesques animaux, où vivaient des hommes d’une taille double de la nôtre et jouissant d’une existence semblablement deux fois plus longue. Ils habitaient des villes grandes et nombreuses, dont les lois et les coutumes étaient à l’opposé des nôtres. Théopompe, au dire d’Élien, ajoutait mille détails fabuleux. Sans s’attarder à ces sottises, Thomaso Porcacchi ne veut retenir de la fable de Silène que son début et cette vérité imagée selon laquelle la terre habitée aurait la forme d’une île, entourée de toutes parts de l’Océan: “cioè che questo nostro mondo sia à guisa d’un’Isola, circondato d’ogn’intorno dall’Oceano.”16 Cette hypothèse s’accorde du reste avec le dire des géographes anciens, comme Strabon au premier livre de sa Géographie ou Pline au début de son Histoire naturelle.17 Dans sa traduction française de Pline, Antoine Du Pinet glissera ce commentaire: “c’est comme qui jetteroit une boule en l’eau, dont une partie fust hors de l’eau, et l’autre dedans.”18 Si tant est que notre monde se dessine à la manière d’une île à la surface des mers, il ne représente qu’un reste éparpillé par rapport au vaste continent des origines. Que ce continent originel soit inaccessible pour des raisons historiques ou géographiques, peu importe au demeurant. Il s’agit de toute manière d’un continent perdu. Retenons cette conséquence capitale: l’humanité, d’emblée, est séparée de la terre ferme habitée par des êtres de haute stature et de longue vie. Insularisée 15 Élien, Histoire variée, 3, 18, A. Lukinovich et A.-F. Morand (trad.), Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1991, p. 40. J’adapte légèrement cette traduction. 16 Porcacchi da Castiglione, T., L’Isole piu famose del Mondo, Venise, Simon Galignani & Girolamo Porro, 1572, “Prohemio,” f. b 3 v°. 17 Pline l’Ancien, Histoire naturelle, II, LXVI-LXVIII; Trad. A. Du Pinet sous le titre: L’Histoire du Monde de C. Pline Second, Lyon, 1562; rééd. Lyon, Charles Pesnot, 1581, livre II, ch. LXVI: “De l’appuy de l’eau sur la terre”; ch. LXVII: “Des mers, et rivieres navigables traffiquées et cognues”; ch. LXVIII: “Des parties de la terre, qui sont habitables,” pp. 78-80. 18 Ibid., p. 78, manchette marginale. 218 FRANK LESTRINGANT et rapetissée, notre humanité est une humanité naine, au souffle court et de peu de vie, et le monde qu’elle habite un monde miniature par rapport à l’immense terre émergée où marchaient les dieux. L’île serait en quelque sorte l’emblème géographique de notre infirmité. Image et lieu d’un exil, auquel l’associe une ancienne étymologie,19 l’île est le résultat et l’emblème tangible d’un arrachement. À notre être déchu correspond en toute exactitude cette forme géographique mutilée. L’île à la merci des flots, c’est l’image de la miseria hominis.
Après le déluge
La fable de Théopompe a son équivalent en contexte chrétien. Sa forme la plus achevée se rencontre dans l’atlas de géographie sacrée que Jacques d’Auzoles, sieur de Lapeyre, publie à Paris en 1629. Mais avant d’en arriver à cette version savante, fruit d’une longue tradition exégétique, il n’est peut-être pas inutile de remonter aux premiers siècles de notre ère. La nostalgie du continent primitif se reflète vers le milieu du VIe siècle dans la Topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès, un chrétien d’Alexandrie qui professait le dogme de la terre plate. Cosmas imagine un œkoumène oblong et rectangulaire, incliné “à la manière d’une piste de ski” depuis le nord-ouest vers le sud-est, de sorte que les régions nordiques et occidentales sont élevées comme un mur.20 L’œkoumène environné par l’Océan est l’île où se concentre désormais l’humanité. Mais au-delà existe un continent en forme de “corniche” ou de cadre qui enferme et contient l’Océan. Cette terre extérieure inclut le paradis terrestre, situé dans sa bordure orientale, et aussi les régions arides où Caïn et sa descendance trouvèrent refuge après le meurtre d’Abel. Lors du Déluge, Noé et les siens ont traversé l’Océan en 150 jours et sont venus s’établir sur l’île centrale, loin d’un paradis terrestre hors d’atteinte désormais. Pour comprendre le sens de cette perte, il faut remonter plus haut, à l’inspirateur de Cosmas, à savoir Ephrem de Nisibe ou Ephrem le Syriaque, né en 306 et mort vers 373. Selon Ephrem, le paradis escarpé
19 Littré, s. v. île: “du latin insula; qui vient de in, en, et du même radical que dans ex-sul, prae-sul, etc.” Littré rappelle ensuite l’étymologie traditionnelle par in salo (dans la mer). L’étymologie proposée par Littré n’est plus retenue par Rey, A., Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris, Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1992, s. v. île. 20 Kitamura, K., “Cosmas Indicopleustès et la figure de la terre,” dans Desreumaux, A. et Schmidt, F. (éds), Moïse géographe. Recherches sur les représentations juives et chrétiennes de l’espace, Paris, J. Vrin, 1988, pp. 79-98 (84). Cf. Delumeau, J., Une histoire du Paradis. Le jardin des délices, Paris, Fayard, 1992, p. 62. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 219 entoure la terre comme le halo entoure la lune ou comme la couronne d’or entoure l’autel des parfums d’Aaron. Le paradis est encore comparé à une ceinture ceignant les reins du monde.21 Cette terre heureuse, formant muraille et attachée aux extrémités du ciel, est terre interdite. Du moins les pénitents se pressent-ils à sa base pour recueillir les “miettes” paradisiaques tombées d’en haut. Il y a loin en apparence de cette cosmologie mystique, où le monde se confond avec le tabernacle de Moïse, à l’essai de description méthodique élaboré au temps de la Contre-Réforme par un laïque français. Et pourtant le symbolisme géographique est assez comparable: ici et là la morphologie actuelle de la terre entérine une dégradation, et c’est dans un continent perdu ou inaccessible que résident et l’origine et la félicité première de l’humanité. Comme l’île-œkoumène de Cosmas, les îles- continents de d’Auzoles-Lapeyre témoignent du péché de nos anciens parents, et aussi de la réparation partielle, que dans son infinie Providence, le Créateur et Juge a bien voulu accorder à leurs descendants. La Saincte Geographie de Jacques d’Auzoles-Lapeyre est ainsi nommée “parce qu’elle est toute tirée du pur texte de l’Escriture Saincte, ou de la doctrine des Peres et Docteurs de la Saincte Eglise.”22 L’ambition du géographe catholique est de montrer en effet que toute la science des Païens est contenue par avance et selon le sens littéral dans l’Écriture sainte, éclairée par les lumières de l’Église. Le fait est que les géographes profanes “ne nous apprennent rien qui ne soit contenu dans les Saincts Livres,” mais “qu’ayant prins d’iceux ce qu’ils nous en enseignent, ils n’ont fait que déguiser les matieres, et nous dire les mesmes choses en plusieurs et differents langages.” Cette sainte géographie, ornée de nombreuses cartes, est diachronique. Elle montre à l’œil “les divers changements de la forme et figure de la Terre, tant devant le deluge que après iceluy, et jusques à maintenant.”23 Certaines parties de l’ouvrage, par leur séquence de cartes et figures, font penser à une sorte de bande dessinée cartographique. On y voit le chaos originel céder la place à l’ordre progressif de la Création, au fil des six premiers jours. Un cercle noir uniforme représente, selon un schématisme limpide, le chaos originel. Ce disque aveugle symbolise
21 Kitamura, p. 89. 22 Auzoles, Jacques d’, Sr de Lapeyre, La Saincte Geographie, c’est-à-dire, exacte description de la terre, et veritable demonstration du Paradis terrestre, depuis la creation du Monde jusques à maintenant: selon le sens literal de la Saincte Escriture, et selon la doctrine des Saincts Peres et Docteurs de l’Eglise, Paris, par Antoine Estienne, imprimeur ordinaire du roy, 1629, “Aux Lecteurs, sur le subjet de la Saincte Geographie,” f. â v r°. 23 Ibid. 220 FRANK LESTRINGANT assez bien la “forme, informe, du monde.” “Telle estoit, assure d’Auzoles-Lapeyre, la face de l’Univers, comme nous la pouvons representer, couverte de tenebres.”24 La séparation de la lumière et des ténèbres n’est pas moins facile à figurer: ce sera un disque mi-parti, blanc et noir, la moitié supérieure éclairée et la moitié inférieure d’un noir d’encre.25 Ce disque de lumière et d’ombre inclut les cercles concentriques des éléments, eau, air et feu, et ceux des planètes. Ces derniers, et pour cause, sont encore vides. La structure géocentrique est prête, et n’attend plus que d’être remplie. La pure abstraction jaillie de l’entendement divin précède de la sorte la matérialisation du monde, ou du moins son effectuation. Ensuite la “Seconde figure du Monde depuis la lumière créée” voit l’éclaircissement de l’hémisphère inférieur. En haut, un Soleil ovale et légèrement écrasé projette sa lumière depuis le quatrième ciel. Ne subsiste que l’ombre portée de la Terre, qui “va seulement en pyramide jusques au second Ciel, qui est le Ciel de Mercure,” tronc de cône obscur dressé sur sa pointe.26 Avec le troisième jour, apparaît la distinction de la terre et des eaux. À partir d’une source unique située en haut de la carte, les cours d’eau, quatre, puis douze, divergent en éventail à travers la terre régulièrement plantée d’arbustes, sorte de verger universel, pour se jeter tout en bas dans la mer réduite à une flaque.27 La grande idée de d’Auzoles-Lapeyre, et qu’il répète volontiers, est que “par le Deluge la forme et face de la terre a esté changée, sinon du tout, pour le moins en partie.”28 La terre, à l’origine, était plus grande que la mer, beaucoup plus grande. La “Carte du monde avant le septième jour” prouve cette vérité qu’enseigne l’Apocalypse d’Esdras:29 les six septièmes de la terre sont émergés et forment un bloc solidaire. De la fontaine circulaire située au centre du monde s’écoulent les quatre fleuves du Paradis, qui irriguent la totalité de l’immense continent primitif. Égaillés sur un fond de carte soigneusement quadrillé de dix en dix degrés, des animaux minuscules parsèment l’étendue, comme répandus sur un carrelage: chameaux, chevaux, chèvres, chiens, sangliers, cerfs, éléphants, lions, rats, antilopes, lapins, moutons, etc.30
24 Ibid., livre II, p. 48. 25 Ibid., livre II, p. 51. 26 Ibid., p. 52. 27 Ibid., p. 60. 28 Ibid., livre I, p. 28: “Conclusion 8.” 29 4 Esdras 6, selon la nomenclature de la Vulgate, citée par Auzoles-Lapeyre, pp. 75, 136, etc. 30 Ibid., livre II, p. 77. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 221
Dans la carte en projection cylindrique qui récapitule “la saincte géographie depuis l’origine du Monde jusques au déluge,”31 la mer est repoussée à droite et à gauche sous la forme de deux étroites bandes verticales qui bordent symétriquement un vaste espace central. À l’intérieur du rectangle ainsi dégagé, les quatre fleuves de la Genèse décrivent leur cours sinueux, ne laissant aucun recoin à l’écart de leurs eaux bienfaisantes. Telle est l’affirmation capitale de d’Auzoles-Lapeyre, confirmée par raisons géographiques et exposée dans les cartes successives de sa Saincte Geographie: la terre, à l’origine, n’était qu’un vaste continent entouré d’un liseré de mer. Les montagnes et les vallées qui la tramaient “n’empeschoient pas que la Terre ne fut toute contiguë et ronde en sa surface, et toute en soy ramassée et circulairement environnée de la Mer.”32 Or le Déluge, en sanctionnant le péché des hommes, a bouleversé cet ordre géographique primordial, renversant la proportion de la terre et de l’eau et aggravant les accidents du relief. L’auteur de la Saincte Géographie raisonne ainsi: si le moindre tremblement de terre est capable de faire venir des fleuves, des lacs, des étangs, là où il n’y en eut jamais, “que devons-nous estimer qu’aura fait le Déluge envoyé tout exprès pour perdre la terre?”33 Le Déluge a dissocié l’unique continent primitif, il a ouvert partout des lacunes et des gouffres, restreignant sur la surface du globe la part laissée à l’homme. En d’autres termes, le Déluge a engendré les îles. Au tems devant le Deluge, une fontaine arrousoit toute la surface de la Terre, Ge. II. 6. et ainsi la Terre estoit toute continente. Apres le Deluge nous ne voyons plus cette admirable fontaine, et tant s’en faut que la Terre soit continente, qu’elle est divisée en plus de portions qu’il n’y a des estoilles au Ciel, si de chaque Isle, cogneuë et incogneuë, nous faisons portions distinctes, comme cela se peut, puis qu’elles sont divisées du reste de la Terre.34 La fin du cataclysme ne ramène nullement l’état de choses antérieur. La terre sortie des eaux représente un état dégradé de la Création, comme si, malgré le pardon divin et l’alliance conclue avec Noé, l’action délétère du péché originel continuait de faire son œuvre. La terre ressort amoindrie du Déluge, et morcelée à l’extrême, en plus de portions, écrit joliment l’auteur de la Saincte Géographie, qu’il n’y a d’étoiles au ciel.
31 Ibid., p. 89. 32 Ibid., livre II, p. 63. 33 Ibid., livre II, p. 137. 34 Ibid., p. 136. 222 FRANK LESTRINGANT
De cette constellation des îles nouvellement apparue, ne résulte aucun sentiment d’euphorie, bien au contraire. Certes, dans la lignée du théologien Pererius, le père jésuite Bento Pereyra, auteur de Commentaires sur la Genèse, dont il adapte la leçon,35 d’Auzoles-Lapeyre s’efforce, d’un autre côté, d’inscrire le Déluge dans le plan général de la Création. C’en serait le troisième et dernier degré, après la création proprement dite, au premier jour, et le passage du Non- Etre à l’Etre et du Rien au Tout, et la distinction, au cours des cinq jours suivants, du bien au mieux et de l’imparfait au parfait. Le rétablissement de la terre après le Déluge permettrait donc d’accéder au troisième degré, celui de l’ornement et de l’accomplissement. Le premier degré fait éclater la toute-puissance de Dieu, le deuxième sa sagesse et le troisième sa bonté.36 Mais comment ne pas voir que ce schéma théorique d’une Création accomplie, par-delà la catastrophe du déluge, en trois étapes hiérarchiquement ordonnées, est contredit et comme sourdement miné par l’idée contraire d’une dégradation? Le fait que le monde, en l’espace de quarante jours, ait pu changer aussi radicalement de face témoigne éminemment de sa caducité. S’il est “muable” en effet, c’est qu’il est aussi périssable à plus ou moins brève échéance. Instructive est l’insistance avec laquelle d’Auzoles-Lapeyre se plaît à imaginer la surprise de Noé et de sa famille au sortir de l’arche après le retrait des eaux. Grandement “étonnés,” c’est-à-dire stupéfaits, “de voir ce piteux changement de la Terre, en tant et tant de parts delabrée,”37 Noé et ses fils tombent de haut, dans tous les sens du terme. Du mont Ararat où l’arche s’est échouée, ils descendent en Palestine, leur premier séjour, qu’ils ont bien de la peine à reconnaître. Rien ou presque ne subsiste du paysage antérieur. De la terre naguère si généreuse, il ne reste que le relief escarpé du Liban, réduit à la roche nue. Le site du Paradis terrestre en particulier, que le géographe place en Galilée, terre promise à Abraham et à sa lignée, terre où plus tard Dieu s’incarnera,38 est
35 Pereyra, B., de Ruzafa, S.J., Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim, tomi duo, Lyon, Giunti, 1593-4; Commentariorum [...] tomi quatuor, nunc primum editi, Cologne, A. Hierat, 1601. Cité par Auzoles-Lapeyre sous la forme latine de Pererius. 36 Auzoles-Lapeyre, livre II, p. 136: “Divers degrez de Creation.” 37 Ibid., p. 138. 38 Ibid., p. 188. La vingtième conclusion affirme en effet “qu’en cette mesme terre de Chanaan qui n’est autre que le Jardin d’Eden, nostre Seigneur Jesus-Christ a esté incarné, et a esté faict Homme pour sauver les hommes.” — Cette hypothèse situant le paradis terrestre en Syrie-Palestine rencontra un égal succès chez les protestants et les catholiques; les deux autres hypothèses les plus fréquemment retenues aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles étaient l’Arménie et la Mésopotamie (solution proposée par Calvin). Sur cette question de la localisation, voir Delumeau, Une histoire du Paradis, chap. VIII, pp. 203-27 et notamment pp. 220-22. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 223 méconnaissable. Plus de chérubins au glaive flamboyant pour en garder l’entrée, plus de hautes murailles pour en dérober au regard les arbres précieux et la fontaine jaillissante. Du “divin Parc” ne subsistent ni fossés, ni haies vives, “ny ces espées flamboyantes ou murailles de feu qu’ils souloient voir, non pas mesmes qu’il y eût eu aucune apparence de jardin.” En désespoir de cause, ils se résignent à habiter cette terre, “quoy que changée et comme defigurée.” C’est ainsi que la famille de Noé s’établit sur l’emplacement du paradis terrestre, où le paradis n’est plus: car auparavant le Deluge personne n’y avoit jamais habité, que l’on sçache, sinon Adam et Eve qui en furent chassez, et Henoch qui y fut porté par grace speciale: mais après le Deluge ce lieu fut la principale demeure de Noé et de ses enfants, jusques aux partages de la Terre faicts entre les enfants dudit Noé.39 Comme ils ont emporté avec eux les ossements d’Adam, ils les enfouissent à nouveau, Sem l’aîné inhumant le crâne au mont du Golgotha, comme le rapporte Moïse Bar-Cépha, là même où sera plantée la croix de Jésus. Une face “défigurée,” tel est bien le visage méconnaissable qu’offre la terre aux survivants du Déluge universel. La marque la plus évidente de cette défiguration est l’éclatement du continent originel en un grand nombre d’îles. Là où s’étendait une “grande et belle plaine, par laquelle les quatre fleuves couloient au sortir du Paradis terrestre,” on n’aperçoit plus “que quelques Isles, tout le reste estant devenu Mer.”40 L’hypothèse du continent primitif préservait le dogme de l’unité du genre humain;41 les îles postdiluviennes signifient la dispersion de l’humanité jusque-là unie et soudée, et son exil dans un monde devenu étranger à lui-même. De la sorte, l’éparpillement des peuples après l’épisode de la tour de Babel (Genèse, 11, 1-9) est inscrit par avance dans la nouvelle géographie surgie du Déluge, programmé en quelque sorte par la configuration lacunaire des terres émergées. Dans l’introduction de son Isolario dell’Atlante Veneto, publié à Venise en 1691, le père Vincenzo Coronelli enregistrera, non sans réticence ni regret, l’hypothèse de “Giacomo d’Auzoles La-Peyre, auteur en langue française d’un volume de Géographie sacrée.”42 Impossible pour Coronelli de souscrire au jugement négatif de d’Auzoles-Lapeyre 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., livre III, p. 149. 41 Voir sur ce point le livre de Gliozzi, G., Adam et le Nouveau Monde, (trad. fr.), Lecques, Théétète éditions, 2000. 42 Coronelli, V., Isolario dell’Atlante Veneto, 2 t., Venise, 1691-7, t. I, “Introduttione,” p. 1. 224 FRANK LESTRINGANT concernant les îles. De l’archipel, le Vénitien retient non les lacunes et les vides, mais les points et les pleins, les jalons alignés à travers la mer et les passerelles ainsi apprêtées à l’homme pour circuler sur toute la surface du globe. Le finalisme de la Création et la providence partout lisible dans le riche tableau qu’elle offre au regard ne se manifestent nulle part mieux que dans l’archipel universel qui rend la terre tout à la fois plus praticable et plus belle. Car le bénéfice des îles est non seulement pratique, mais aussi esthétique. Avec leurs ports abrités et leurs plages accueillantes, les îles favorisent la maîtrise de l’homme sur le monde et sur sa partie la plus rebelle et la plus hostile en apparence, à savoir l’élément marin, et dans le même temps elles contribuent à l’embellissement de la nature en augmentant sa variété. En effet, si les vastes continents permettent d’admirer la Création dans sa grandeur incomparable, les îles en révèlent la grâce et le charme, cette vaghezza qui s’accroît de la diversité des apparences, lesquelles donnent matière à des comparaisons continuelles.43 Le chatoiement des îles, leur côté gorge-de-pigeon en quelque sorte, offrent une prise commode au discours géographique, qui additionne, rapproche et compare. On constate en définitive qu’à l’archipel comme dégradation et comme faute, résultant d’un cataclysme ancien et marquant à jamais le péché de l’homme dans la forme de la terre, s’oppose la vision euphorique de l’archipel universel comme achèvement du cosmos et accomplissement du projet divin. Deux hypothèses se dressent face à face, difficilement compatibles l’une avec l’autre: la première fait des îles la marque du péché, et donc de la finitude de l’homme; la seconde, au contraire, voit dans les îles variées à l’extrême l’action directe d’une providence attentive et bénigne infiniment.
Inégalité humaine, égalité divine
L’archipel, pour Coronelli, c’est en quelque sorte le monde mis à la portée de l’homme, et fait pour récréer ses yeux. Même chose pour les montagnes dans la Cosmographia generalis de Paul Merula. Les montagnes adaptent la Création aux besoins de l’homme. Tout comme les îles de Coronelli, elles rendent le monde plus praticable:
43 Ibid., un peu plus haut: “E che, havendo rotta la Terra co’ Seni di Mare, e co’ Fiumi, perche fosse più facilmente comunicabile, habbia voluto seminare d’Isole il Mare, per renderlo più praticabile; disponendo in esse Porti, e Spiagge commode pel rifugio, ed hospitio alle Navi, ed à Naviganti; onde se ne’ Gran Continenti si ammira la bellezza della Terra senza paragone diverso; nell’Isole la di lei vaghezza si accresce nella diversità dell’apparenze, che danno motivo di continue comparationi.” KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 225
Grâce à elles, plus tempérée est la salubrité de l’air, plus forte la fertilité des céréales et des plantes, plus grande la maturation de toutes choses; elles brisent les attaques de la mer et réfrènent la fureur des vents.44 La commodité de la Terre - commoditas Terrae - s’en trouve augmentée, mais aussi, à y bien réfléchir, sa dignité (decus) et sa beauté. Un nouvel ornatus se découvre alors: ce n’est plus l’égalité et la régularité qui produisent le cosmos ou belle forme, mais l’inégalité - inaequalitas, si ita appellanda.45 Encore cette inégalité n’est-elle perceptible qu’à l’échelle humaine. De loin et de haut, la terre est parfaitement ronde et lisse, tout comme au commencement. L’harmonie est donc une question d’échelle. Comme le remarquait déjà Sébastien Münster: les montagnes bien hautes, ou les cavernes qui sont cavées par les flots de la mer n’empeschent point que la terre ne soit ronde. Car jaçoit que les montagnes soyent eslevées au ciel de deux ou trois lieues, et que la mer ait cavé une fosse aussi grande en la face de la terre: que sera-ce en comparaison de toute la terre, laquelle en sa circonference a 5400. lieuës d’Allemagne?46 Paul Merula ne dit pas autre chose, dans la comparaison des montagnes avec des verrues: Terra igitur est rotunda, huc illuc in aequabilem tumorem adsurgens. Nam excelsi Montium vertices, declivesque Vallium descensus cum totius Terrae vastitate commissi inaequalitatem nullam pariunt aut diversitatem; habentque se in hac mole Montes altissimi verrucarum instar in manu; Valles autem, etiam profundissimae, ut rimae in magno globo.47 Dieu donc, du plus haut ciel, voit le monde comme une sphère toujours égale, sans défaut ni aspérité. Mais pour peu que le regard descende au niveau de l’homme, alors se découvrent des montagnes et des abîmes, des mers et des îles. Ces accidents sont tout à la fois la marque du péché d’Adam et le remède à celui-ci. Ils attestent, sur toute la surface de la terre, la dispersion de l’humanité, et, contradictoirement, ils permettent sa réunion, par les jalons qu’ils disposent et les routes qu’ils aménagent. Mais ils ne valent jamais qu’à hauteur d’homme, pour le malheur de ce dernier ou son salut. Que le regard reprenne de l’altitude, le détail
44 Merula, P., op. cit., Pars I., liber III., cap. XII, p. 185; (cité et traduit par Céard, “La Montagne,” p. 174.) 45 Merula, P., ibid.; cité par Céard, “La Montagne,” p. 174, note 8. 46 Münster, op. cit., 1556, livre I, chap. 16: “De la grandeur de la terre,” p. 26. 47 Merula, P., op. cit., Pars I., liber III., cap. XII, p. 185. 226 FRANK LESTRINGANT s’efface, l’unité et la perfection sont reconquises. L’égalité règne sans partage.
Le prétendu “défaut” des îles et des montagnes
L’idée selon laquelle les îles et les montagnes manifesteraient le “défaut” de la terre vient de Lucrèce.48 Pour le poète et philosophe latin disciple d’Épicure, il n’existe pas de Providence. À ses yeux, l’existence de montagnes inaccessibles et de mers infranchissables, reléguant les îles à l’écart, constitue bien la preuve que le monde n’a pas été fait pour l’homme, mais qu’il lui est indifférent. Le monde dans son désordre hostile ne reflète nul dessein supérieur. Il est le résultat du hasard et non l’œuvre de la Providence. C’est une donnée brute dont l’homme, au fil des âges, a dû s’emparer et qu’il a réussi à faire sienne, en triomphant un à un des obstacles qui lui étaient opposés: [...] tanta stat praedita culpa. Principio quantum coeli tegit impetus ingens, inde avidam partem montes silvaeque ferarum possedere, tenent rupes vastaeque paludes, et mare quod late terrarum distinet oras.49 “[...] J’oserais soutenir que le monde ne fut pas créé/ divinement pour nous, si grand est son défaut./ De l’espace que l’immense élan du ciel englobe,/ les montagnes, les forêts pleines de fauves occupent/ une part dévorante, les rocs, les marais désolés,/ la mer qui largement sépare les rives terrestres.”50 Or les cosmographes de la Renaissance ont tous à l’esprit ce passage répété de Lucrèce au sujet duquel, d’une manière ou d’une autre, ils doivent prendre position. Toutefois il y a pour eux au moins deux manières de relever ce que l’on pourrait appeler le défi épicurien. La première solution est de prendre acte du défaut du monde, en considérant celui-ci non plus comme une donnée première, mais comme le résultat de l’action humaine, à savoir la conséquence différée de la Chute, et telle est la thèse, on l’a constaté, de Jacques d’Auzoles-Lapeyre. Dans cette hypothèse, le processus est inversé par rapport au schéma dessiné par le De rerum natura: alors que Lucrèce décrivait un processus d’appropriation progressive du monde, peu à peu adapté par l’homme à ses besoins vitaux à force de labeur et d’ingéniosité, le cosmographe 48 Lucrèce, De rerum natura, II, 167-83 et V, 199-203. 49 Lucrèce, De rerum natura, V, 199-203. 50 Lucrèce, De la nature, J. Kani-Turpin (trad.), GF-Flammarion, Paris, Flammarion, 1997, p. 327. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 227 chrétien, au contraire, imagine le phénomène inverse d’une dégradation continue à partir de la perfection originelle, et d’une sorte de désappropriation progressive, qui finit par faire de l’être humain un étranger sur une terre conçue à l’origine pour son usage exclusif. La faute de l’homme lui a rendu le monde étranger et hostile, ce qu’il n’était nullement à l’origine, tel qu’il sortit des mains de Dieu. La seconde manière de réfuter l’affirmation provocatrice de Lucrèce quant au “défaut” du monde, c’est de montrer qu’il n’en est rien, et que ce défaut apparent procède d’une erreur de lecture, en quelque sorte, ou pire, d’une interprétation maligne. Le monde, tel qu’il est encore et tel qu’on peut le voir, est beau et bon — ce qu’expriment précisément les mots de cosmos en grec, de monde en latin. Encore faut-il savoir le regarder, et le lire avec les bonnes lunettes. C’est la réponse choisie par Paul Merula et par Vincenzo Coronelli, mais avant eux déjà par Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, “le pape des huguenots,” l’ami et le conseiller d’Henri de Navarre, le futur Henri IV. Tel est l’objet de son traité De la Verité de la Religion Chrestienne: contre les Athées, Epicuriens, Payens, Juifs, Mahumedistes, et autres infideles, ouvrage publié à Anvers chez Christophe Plantin en 1581. Le chapitre XI est employé à démontrer “Que Dieu conduit le Monde, et tout ce qu’il contient, par sa Providence.” Duplessis-Mornay, sur lequel il vaut la peine de s’attarder, car il fournit le modèle canonique de réfutation de l’épicurisme cosmographique, expose ainsi l’argument d’Épicure, repris par Lucrèce: “Ces derniers nient avoir apperceu ceste Providence ès choses. Car s’il y en avoit une, disent-ils, pourquoy les montagnes occuperoyent elles partie de la terre; et pourquoy les bestes sauvages; et pourquoy la Mer? Pourquoy aussi de ce peu qui reste de la terre, les deux parties sont-elles inhabitables, de chaud ou de froid, et la tierce proche de l’estre, si l’homme n’en arrache les espines de fois à autre?”51 À ces objections concernant la Providence, Duplessis-Mornay est bien aise d’opposer l’argument de la divine variété, la varietas qui fait la beauté de l’ensemble, et que Lucrèce autant qu’Épicure sont incapables de percevoir, car situés l’un et l’autre à trop faible distance de leur objet. Leur jugement blasphématoire sur le monde tient à leur myopie et à la petitesse de leur appréhension, à l’incapacité flagrante de leur vue. Car Dieu a horreur de l’uniformité, qui plaît au contraire à l’esprit borné et paresseux des hommes:
51 Duplessis-Mornay, Ph., De la Verité de la Religion chrestienne, Anvers, Christophe Plantin, 1581, chap. XI, p. 235. 228 FRANK LESTRINGANT
Si tout estoit d’une sorte, où seroit la Providence: car qu’est-ce Providence que la disposition de plusieurs differentes choses à un but: et quelle peut estre la disposition, si c’est par tout une mesme chose? Animal que tu es! Ainsi parleroit un Fourmy de toy. Il demanderoit à quoy sert l’eminence de ton nez, ou de tes sourcils en ton visage; de tes costes mesmes, qui sont plus haut eslevées sur ton corps, que ne sont les montagnes sur les plaines de la terre. Tu l’estimes beauté en ton visage; proportion en ton corps: et en deviens amoureux en l’autruy: et le veux blasmer en l’Univers, comme deformité et faute d’ordre. Mais oserois-tu, je te prie, ainsi parler d’un Peintre, ou toy mesmes Lucrece, ne te feroit-il point mal qu’on parlast si lourdement de ton livre?52 On relève au passage l’allusion au livre biblique des Proverbes: “Vade ad formicam.”53 “Va-t’en à la formy...,” traduit exactement Du Bartas dans son poème de La Sepmaine ou Creation du monde, publié trois ans plus tôt.54 Qui n’est frappé, d’autre part, par le caractère circulaire et tautologique d’un raisonnement qui assigne un sens et une intention au monde, et qui, pour le prouver, recourt à l’image du peintre dessinant — et “desseignant” tout à la fois — son tableau, en projetant et en prévoyant aussi bien le moindre détail que la structure d’ensemble. On remarque également l’analogie traditionnelle entre macrocosme et microcosme, qui permet à l’apologiste de glisser sans transition du corps du grand monde au corps du petit monde, avec ses reliefs et ses creux, ses lumières et ses ombres, ses beautés et ses laideurs. Pour finir, Lucrèce est renvoyé à sa propre œuvre et à son propre dessein poétique. Le De rerum natura répond, de toute évidence, à un projet. Il développe un programme philosophique. Il propose une dogmatique. Pourquoi n’en serait-il pas de même du monde, dont parle justement le De rerum natura? Pourquoi n’en devrait-il pas être de même? Mais c’est là que le bât blesse. Comparaison n’est pas raison. À vrai dire, dans la démonstration de Duplessis-Mornay, la conviction sous-jacente, le présupposé constant, c’est que la nature imite l’art, plutôt que l’inverse. La nature, pour parler comme Montaigne, est “artialisée” a 52 Ibid., p. 237. 53 Proverbes, VI, 6: Vade ad formicam, o piger, et considera vias ejus, et disce sapientiam. Sur ce “lieu commun,” voir Curtius, E. R., La Littérature européenne et le Moyen Âge latin, Paris, PUF, 1956, et Agora, 1986, t. II, p. 35. 54 Du Bartas, G. de Saluste, La Sepmaine ou Creation du monde (1578), VII, 647-52, Y. Bellenger (éd.), Paris, STFM, 1993, p. 333: Paresseux, si tu veux aprendre ta leçon, Va-t’en à la formy, va-t’en au herisson. Cestui-ci de son dos ravit les fruicts d’automne, L’autre les fruicts d’aesté de sa bouche moissonne, Afin d’avitailler pour la froide saison Cestui-ci son logis, l’autre sa garnison. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 229 priori. Elle est l’œuvre d’un Dieu artiste, et par conséquent il est aisé de l’expliquer par la production artistique des hommes, les tableaux, les statues, les jardins et les palais de la Renaissance. Pour en revenir au prétendu “défaut de nature” stigmatisé par Lucrèce, il ne s’agit en réalité que d’une composante indispensable à l’harmonie de l’ensemble. L’erreur de Lucrèce est de s’arrêter au détail au lieu de saisir l’ensemble, et ensuite de raisonner en termes d’utilité et non de plaisir. Certes, pour Duplessis-Mornay, le monde est bien commode pour l’homme, mais de plus il est agréable à contempler, pourvu qu’on n’en rejette rien et qu’on le saisisse en totalité: C’est que ce qui est laid à part, embellit l’œuvre; l’ombre plus que la couleur, et le noir plus que l’esclattant quand il y est mis à propos. Et les païsages ne sont beaux, qu’autant qu’ils sont divers. Et si sur une plaine tu voys pendre un rocher ombrageux, et au bout d’une claire riviere un antre moussu dont elle sort; tu en loües le tableau, et en admires le Peintre d’avantage. Non, peut estre, que la plaine ne te plaise plus que la montagne, et la riviere que le rocher; mais par ce que sans iceux ils ne te plairoyent pas tant. [...] Or cela soit pour responce à tous ces Philosophes, qui veulent contrerooller les parties d’une œuvre qu’ils ne comprennent pas. Car blasmer l’Univers pour la montagne, et la montagne pour la forest, c’est blasmer l’homme pour moins qu’une verruë, ou un poil. Et le poil mesmes que le Barbier jettera au feu, quand il l’aura couppé, tu l’honores au vieillard, et le vieillard pour luy.55 On constate, par cet exemple-ci et par celui de Merula analysé plus haut, l’extraordinaire fécondité de “l’argument de la verrue,” comme il convient de l’appeler. Il faut donc, quand on regarde le monde, avoir l’œil de l’amateur de peinture et non celui du barbier. — Apprécier le paysage général de la Création jusque dans ses ombres, et non pas avoir la prétention d’extraire la verrue ou de couper le poil follet. Une prétention proprement blasphématoire, quand le visage en question est celui du monde créé par Dieu!
Kabbale et cosmographie: l’exemple de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie
Le problème, au départ, réside peut-être dans le fait que le cosmos est une idée grecque. Comment accorder cette idée grecque à l’histoire judéo-chrétienne de la Création et de la Chute? Certes les deux conceptions s’accordent à voir dans le monde l’expression d’un ordre transcendant et d’une volonté supérieure. Mais on a vu que la
55 Duplessis-Mornay, op. cit., chap. XI, pp. 238-9. 230 FRANK LESTRINGANT cosmologie épicurienne s’écartait déjà du consensus en substituant à la Providence le hasard et en reléguant les dieux au rôle passif de spectateurs. Or, avec la redécouverte de Lucrèce et ses éditions savantes et commentées, notamment par Denis Lambin, l’épicurisme fait son grand retour à la Renaissance. Pour le combattre, et c’est là la principale cible de Duplessis-Mornay, il faut rechristianiser le monde et son image, en s’aidant au besoin des propres arguments des païens eux-mêmes, quant à la caducité du monde par exemple. Et sur ce point précis, Lucrèce peut servir d’allié dans une controverse destinée à ruiner sa cosmologie matérialiste.56 Rechristianiser l’imago mundi— voire l’hébraïser. Tel est le projet, exactement contemporain de celui de Duplessis-Mornay, de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie, dans son poème La Galliade, ou de la revolution des arts et sciences, publié à Paris en 1578 et de nouveau en 1582, et dédié au roi de France Henri III. Le titre même de ce grand poème scientifique en “cinq cercles” est un jeu de mots sur le latin et l’hébreu. On y reconnaît immédiatement le mot latin Gallia, la Gaule à qui le poème de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie attribue un rôle providentiel dans le dessein divin de la Restitution de toutes choses. Mais le mot renvoie aussi à l’hébreu “gallalal,” qui veut dire, selon La Boderie, “reployer, retourner.” “‘Galal,’ dont est deduit le mot de Galliade, signifie retourner et reployer,” explique la première manchette marginale du “premier cercle.” La Galliade décrit donc, dans son quintuple mouvement circulaire, le trajet d’un retour à l’origine, d’une restitution. Cette restitution universelle – restitutio omnium rerum – conduit donc à un retour à l’origine, en amont du péché originel et de la dégradation consécutive de la Création. Cette “révolution,” au sens étymologique et géométrique, qu’exprime le titre de Galliade, ramène aussi à la vraie étymologie des Français ou Gaulois, qui sont à l’origine de tous les arts et sciences sur la terre, selon la théorie de Guillaume Postel. La Galliade est un livre de la révélation. Le Fèvre de La Boderie rappelle au seuil de son grand poème le verset du livre des Proverbes, XXXV, 2: “La gloire de Dieu est de cacher la Parole.” ou, comme le traduit ce distique:
56 Voir Fraisse, S., Une conquête du rationalisme. L’influence de Lucrèce en France au XVIe siècle, Paris, Nizet, 1962; Gambino Longo, S., Savoir de la nature et poésie des choses: Lucrèce et Épicure à la Renaissance italienne, Paris, Champion, 2004; Renaissance de Lucrèce, (sous la direction de Naya, E.), Cahiers V.L. Saulnier n° 27, Paris, PUPS, 2010. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 231
C’est la gloire de Dieu la parole cacher, C’est la gloire des Rois la parole chercher.57 Cette révolution emprunte la voie postélienne de l’“émithologie,” du mot hébreu “émeth,” signifiant la vérité. L’émithologie, c’est en quelque sorte l’étymologie retournée ou renversée, les Grecs étant réputés pour leurs mensonges. C’est l’étymologie redressée et ramenée à la langue originelle et véridique, qui est l’hébreu, au contraire du grec, langue d’erreur et de mensonge, la langue traîtresse d’Ulysse le hâbleur et de Sinon, le faux transfuge qui fit entrer le cheval dedans Troie. Or l’émithologie selon Postel ramène aux flots du Déluge la naissance des Gaulois, l’origine de ce peuple appelé à jouer un rôle providentiel dans la Restitution. Dans son traité De ce qui est premier pour reformer le monde, Postel, parlant des flots qui environnent le monde après l’avoir recouvert, écrit: Leur revolution sur la terre tout à l’entour se dit “Gallal,” de là où pour guarder en nostre Sainct et Tres-Ancien surnom dict “Galli” ou “Gallim” la memoire dudict Miracle, nous sommes appellez Gaulois, et nostre peuple Celtique ou Gallique.58 Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie hérite de cette émithologie postélienne, quand il évoque, au premier cercle de La Galliade, “nos vieux peres/ Du Deluge sauvez aux Scythiens repaires/ Dont ils ont retenu jusqu’aux derniers ayeux/ Le surnom de GAULOIS emprunté des Hebrieux.”59 Une note marginale explique: “Car Gallim signifie flots des eaux: et de là selon le tesmoignage de Berose furent nommez les Gaulois.”60 Le poème de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie épouse ce mouvement circulaire, simultanément sur le plan historique et sur le plan spatial. C’est un parcours en rond du savoir, une Encyclopédie, ou plutôt une Encyclie, pour reprendre le titre d’un autre ouvrage de La Boderie, L’Encyclie des secrets de l’Eternité,61 et en même temps le parcours d’un temps circulaire, celui de la Restitution, et enfin, servant de support et d’illustration tout à la fois à ces deux mouvements, le parcours de l’espace terrestre, déployé d’Est en Ouest sur la mappemonde étalée sous
57 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, G., La Galliade, ou de la revolution des arts et sciences, (Paris, Guillaume Chaudière, 1582, “A Monseigneur”), F. Roudaut (éd.), Paris, Klincksieck, 1994, p. 159. 58 Postel, G., De ce qui est premier pour reformer le monde, dans Dubois, C. G., Celtes et Gaulois, Paris, Vrin, 1972, p. 161. 59 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, La Galliade, I, 100, (éd. Roudaut, F.) op. cit., p. 169. 60 Ibid., p. 169, note marginale. 61 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, G. L’Encyclie des Secrets de l’Eternité, Anvers, Plantin, 1571. (Édition critique en préparation par F. Roudaut). 232 FRANK LESTRINGANT les yeux du lecteur.62 C’est donc une “méditation cosmographique,” au sens que Mercator, un peu plus tard, donnera à l’expression.63 De même que la Kabbale lurianique dont parle ici même Yossi Chajes,64 La Galliade de La Boderie demande à être cartographiée — begs to be mapped. Le Premier Cercle de La Galliade est une sorte d’ekphrasis cartographique, décrivant une navigation circulaire au lendemain du Déluge, dont je ne citerai qu’un extrait: Or il pleut à Janus que Gomer le Gaulois Donnast ainsi que Roy à l’Itale ses lois Comme fils de l’aisné, et qu’il eust la province Premiere de l’Europe où son pere estoit Prince. Puis il feist embarquer ses autres petits fils, Qui en l’art de nager ont devancé Typhis, Comme les Gallions de la race Gauloise Long temps devant Argon (la belle nau Gregeoise, Que l’arrogance Grecque a bien osé nommer La premiere des naus) avoient couru la mer. Et seroit plus seant que l’Arche du refuge, Gallere des Gaulois échappez du Deluge, Trouvast sa place au Ciel, que celle de Jason Le gentil Conquereur de la jaune Toison.65 Ce passage est révélateur de la méthode kabbalistique de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie. Son récit général opère un triple parcours circulaire, encyclopédique, historique et géographique, en ramenant, de point en point de l’itinéraire, la totalité des connaissances, de l’histoire et de la géographie, à la vérité hébraïque. La vérité de l’émithologie abolit l’étymologie. Les héros bibliques, Noé, Japhet, Gomer, effacent l’empreinte mensongère des Grecs, Jason, Tiphys et les Argonautes, et réduisent à néant leur arrogance. L’arche de Noé remplace dans le ciel la constellation d’Argô. Par exemple, la Sicile est dite de Sechel Iah, qui veut dire “intelligence ou entendement de Dieu.” L’histoire antique vérifie du reste cette émithologie, comme l’assure La Boderie: Car icy lon a veu meint homme desirable Doué d’entendement divin, et admirable.
62 Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie, La Galliade, I, 179-192. 63 Voir Les Méditations cosmographiques à la Renaissance, cité ci-dessus à la note 3. 64 Voir la communication de Chajes, Y., “It’s Good to See the King: Toward a Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Jewish Cosmological Cartography” (non imprimée). 65 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, La Galliade, Cercle I, vers 179-92; éd. Roudaut, pp. 175-6. KABBALE ET COSMOGRAPHIE 233
À preuve: Platon, Archytas de Tarente, Théocrite de Syracuse, Empédocle et Archimède. À quoi s’ajoute le séjour du divin Virgile.66 Autre exemple d’émithologie: La Hougue (St-Vaast-la-Hougue) dans le Cotentin, en Normandie, est rapprochée d’Ogige, l’un des noms de Noé, du participe Ogeg, qui signifie “faiseur de fouaces, pour l’invention de cuire le pain sur les cendres.”67 Gomer, débarquant en Gaule, [...] s’en vint surgir en ce lieu de renom, Auquel de son ayeul il donna le beau nom, Qui a esté tousjours, et est encore, en vogue, Et d’Ogige le vieil est appellé la Hogue.68 Noé, le héros fondateur, présente dans La Galliade un aspect protéiforme. Comme l’observe François Roudaut, il reparaît sous cinq noms différents, qui sont comme autant d’avatars: Janus, le dieu des portes et des seuils (vingt-six fois), Deucalion (quatre fois), Ogyge (cinq fois), Œnotrien (deux fois) et Olamab (une fois).69 Quelques brèves remarques en guise de conclusion: On sait que la réduction à l’unité est une des obsessions de la Renaissance, pour ne pas dire son obsession principale. La tentative kabbalistique de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie est d’autant plus spectaculaire et pathétique qu’elle se situe dans un contexte historique particulièrement défavorable. La chrétienté est déchirée entre protestants et catholiques, notamment en France, plongée pour une vingtaine d’années encore dans la tourmente des guerres civiles. L’effort de Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie porte à la fois sur le plan religieux et sur le plan politique, ces deux plans étant intimement liés dans la conception traditionnelle de la société. L’émithologie est destinée à conjurer le désastre de l’Histoire par le recours incantatoire et analogique à la langue et à la culture hébraïques comme langue et culture des origines — la langue même qu’Adam parlait au Paradis. La Galliade apparaît en ce sens comme une longue incantation. Il s’agit de réparer le défaut de la terre par le retour à sa forme première supposée, et de redresser le double déficit de l’Histoire, tant politique que religieux, par une refondation symbolique de la monarchie française dans la légitimité de l’hébreu comme langue originelle. Cette simplification géniale de la mappemonde et de l’histoire universelle repose au départ sur le principe que “tous les habitans de
66 Ibid., Cercle I, vers 1165 sqq; éd. Roudaut, p. 239. 67 Ibid., Cercle I, vers 218; éd. Roudaut, p. 177. Pour le nom d’Ogige, voir p. 167. 68 Ibid., Cercle I, vers 215-18; éd. Roudaut, p. 177. 69 Roudaut, F., Le Point centrique, Paris, Klincksieck, 1992, p. 85. 234 FRANK LESTRINGANT ceste terre ronde/ Sont enfans d’Israël, pour qui fut fait le monde.”70 Tous les hommes sont enfants d’Israël, mais c’est aux Français, si l’on en croit Guy Le Fèvre de La Boderie, que revient une sorte de droit de primogéniture, et le privilège d’orienter l’avenir du monde.
70 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, La Galliade, Cercle I, vers 595-6; éd. Roudaut, p. 203. Conclusion 236
RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN FASCIST ITALY David Baum
Italian Fascist antisemitism has always had a sort of asterisk beside it, as if it weren’t really Italian, or perhaps not even really Fascist. In one of the earliest pieces by an American historian on the subject of Italian antisemitism during the regime, Michael Ledeen pointed to the difficulty Italian historians had encountered in trying to situate Fascist racial attitudes within the larger narratives of Italian history being crafted by the mostly centre-left professional historians who dominated Italian historiography just after the war.1 Federico Chabod, for example, argued that the Racial Laws of 1938 were perceived by most Italians as a foreign import enacted to appease the Germans, and signaled the beginning of the waning of public support for the regime.2 This supposed breach between Mussolini and the broad middle classes envisioned by Chabod allowed for the eventual evolution of the revisionist “brava gente” school which sees Italians as essentially “nice people” dragged reluctantly by Mussolini into policies and eventually into a war they neither desired nor understood. Renzo de Felice, in his ground breaking work, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo,3 had argued something similar, that antisemitism was not a natural feature of Italian society and that the Racial Laws represented a Fascist innovation. Whatever Mussolini may have hoped by radicalizing Fascism in the late 1930’s by attaching it to antisemitism, antisemitism itself was not an essential part of Fascism as it originally developed just after WWI. Ledeen, although sympathetic to certain of de Felice’s views on Fascism, rejected this argument. For Ledeen, antisemitism was a fundamental element of Mussolini’s thinking from the beginning of Fascism, and its ultimate form under the regime – how and when it was actually manifested – simply had to await the unfolding of particular historical events. For Ledeen and for most of the scholars who followed him, the trigger for the rise of an official antisemitism was the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The invasion brought Fascist racial anxieties to the surface, called into question the allegiance of various elements within Italy, in particular Italian Jews, and inaugurated a second wave of the “re-Romanization” of Italian society
1 Ledeen, M. A., “The Evolution of Italian Fascist Antisemitism,” Jewish Social Studies 37, 1, 1975, pp. 3-17 (3). 2 Chabod, F., L’Italia contemporanea (1918-1948), Turin, Einaudi, 1961, pp. 91-100. 3 De Felice, R., Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo, Turin, Einaudi, 1961. RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 237 reminiscent of the early “revolutionary” days of the Fascist regime when Rome was synonymous with the fascist program of national renewal. This essay is not intended as a full examination of the “Jewish Question” as it unfolded under Italian Fascism, but is instead limited to a few observations on the relationship between the rise of official Fascist antisemitism and certain developments in Fascist-era Renaissance historiography. This attempt serves two functions: first, to illustrate through a consideration of certain publications, both popular and professional, the degree to which antisemitism infiltrated Fascist views on history and culture, in this case on the nature of the Italian Renaissance and its role in the project of national renewal; and second, to recover the legacy of this historiographical enterprise which was obscured following the war. In particular, I would like to consider briefly some developments that might be of passing interest to a volume devoted to the Hebraic aspects of the Italian Renaissance, in particular: (1) the concept of Romanitá as it evolved under Fascism with its implications both for the redefinition of the classical and neoclassical elements in Italian history, as well as of their relationship to non-Roman elements, including Italian Jews; (2) the advent of official antisemitism and its promotion through journals like La Difesa della Razza that targeted educated Italians with scholarly, or more usually, pseudo-scholarly articles on science, culture and history; and (3) the Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento and its journal, La Rinascitá. What we can see through such a study is, I hope, both the character of attitudes towards what we are calling here the Hebraic Aspects of the Italian Renaissance, that is towards the Italian Jews of the 15th and 16th centuries, as manifested under late Fascism, and the manner in which certain larger conceptions of the Renaissance as a period responded to shifting views on Jews and Judaism from the mid-thirties to the end of the regime. Prior to the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 there was no consistent Italian Fascist perspective on race; indeed, many Fascists, Mussolini included, wondered aloud whether then dominant racial theories and Fascist revolutionary thought were even compatible.4 With the invasion
4 While there can be no doubt that Mussolini was from the beginning of the regime convinced of the validity of race as a category and was an enthusiastic proponent of eugenics, he was never consistent in articulating his racial viewpoints. He tried to cleave to respected scientific theories (and therefore rejected Nazi race science until on the eve of the Manifesto on Race) and wavered between a “spiritual” understanding of the Italian race and a less metaphysical cultural view. His emphasis seems always to have been on the regeneration of Italians as a serious type of European in which racialism was more valued for its rhetorical dimensions, than on establishing Italian claims along Nazi lines to a position of racial superiority. See Gillette, A., Racial Theories in Fascist Italy, New York, Routledge, 2002, pp. 40-42. 238 DAVID BAUM of Ethiopia, however, the racial question, including antisemitism, came to the fore in Fascist thought as Italy wrestled with the implications of its expanding African Empire. In response to renewed questions of Italian identity raised by the war, Mussolini revived the early Fascist program of Romanitá which was now more consistently and broadly applied to Italian society. New cultural institutions were founded, including the Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, to support the regime’s renewed attempt to “Romanize” modern Italian society, while already established historical and cultural organizations were brought more tightly under the control of the increasingly antisemitic minister of popular culture, Giuseppe Bottai. The trend throughout this period – that is, from the advent of the Ethiopian campaign to the promulgation of the Manifesto on Race in July, 1938 – was the convergence of Fascist racial thought and the program of Romanitá. As longstanding difficulties in the Italian tradition of racial theory were overcome and as a dominant view on race emerged, the historical and cultural institutions founded or supported by Fascism were charged with working out and disseminating the historical and cultural implications of Fascist racial science. For a number of writers working on the Italian Renaissance, the merger of Fascist racial science and Romanitá provoked both obvious and subtler responses in their work, including their conceptions of the Renaissance period itself. The history of racial thought in Fascist Italy is more than a little convoluted, especially when Mussolini’s own vacillations on the subject are factored in.5 In general we can identify two principal competing schools of racialist thought during the period, Mediterraneanism and Nordicism. Their names suggest partisanship, the latter arguing the supremacy of the Nordic races, the former the Mediterranean, but the differences between them were of a different order than the competition for racial supremacy. Mediterraneanism was less an attempt to establish the ascendancy of the Mediterranean races than it was simply an attempt to situate them in the larger racialist schemes floating around Europe beginning in the second half of the 19th century. Mediterraneanists tended to reject biological materialism and to promote instead a kind of “spiritual” racism which, given the employment of that word elsewhere in Italian intellectual life, we might think of as viewing race as a function of culture. As such, it was capable of being assimilated either consciously as an act of will, or unconsciously as a result of habituation over time. In this view, groups that were not originally part of a particular racial stock could eventually be transformed through the
5 Ledeen, p. 4 RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 239 influence of culture, which was understood in its broadest sense as the workings not only of particular outlooks and practices, but also through the effects of the local geography which created the physical context in which the more abstract elements of culture operated. Initially, that is until the eve of the enacting of the Manifesto on Race, Mussolini appears to have cleaved to this view of race. It comported with his own brand of existentialism which resisted any form of determinism, as well as with his sense of the historical development of the Italian people as the last and highest form of the Mediterranean races - Greeks, Egyptians, and their own Roman forebears – who had founded western civilization.6 Nordicism seemed, at least until 1935, to be in vogue only with the small group of Germanophiles in Italy clustered around antisemites and anti-intellectuals like Roberto Farinacci and Guido Landra. Mussolini openly mocked Nordicist claims to racial superiority, and most Italian intellectuals, even those who thought little of racial theory in general, allowed themselves the opportunity to luxuriate in a moment of patriotic outrage when responding to Nordicist scholarship. For example, Giovanni Papini, later director of the Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, followed Mussolini’s lead in 1934 with a blistering attack on German racism in a widely distributed pamphlet, Razzia dei razzisti,7 in which he attributed the Nordicist perspective to typical German arrogance. Tellingly, both Mussolini and Papini, two of the most important and most vocal critics of Nordicism, biological racism, and violent antisemitism, would reverse themselves by 1938 and openly embrace most of the Nordicist agenda. Prior to 1938, however, things were quite different. For example, Mussolini observed in a speech given in 1929 that the Jews had been a regular fixture of Italian life for over two millennia, and that there remained roughly the same number of Jews – 50000 – in Mussolini’s Italy as in Augustus’s Rome, the role of Jews in both modern Italy and in Italy’s sense of its past seemed fairly secure. As a Mediterraneanist, Mussolini argued that over the centuries Italian Jews had become just that, Italian Jews - Italians who happened to be Jews. Modern Jews reflected the triumph of the Italian landscape and Roman culture over their historic Jewishness, and their assimilation into modern Italian life, their patriotism, and their support for Fascism gave evidence of the legitimate place of Jews in the Italian nation.8
6 Gillette, p. 86 7 Papini, G., Razzia dei razzisti, Brescia, Marcelliana, 1934. 8 The quotation, which includes not only a defense of Jews in Italian history, but also a dismissive swipe at German claims to racial and cultural superiority, is: “Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with disdain upon certain transalpine doctrines held by the 240 DAVID BAUM
The war in Ethiopia, however, triggered a shift in Mussolini’s thinking on race generally and on Jews in particular, and did so on two grounds: the first, the need to present the invasion central as part of a larger historical process, that is, as the foundation of a truly re- Romanized Italian society; and second, the criticism of or lack of enthusiasm for the war expressed by many Italian Jews, which Mussolini considered a betrayal and as probable evidence of the essential un- Romanness of Italian Jews. From 1935 on Jews were increasingly scrutinized by Fascist intellectuals grown daily less convinced of the transformational powers of geography and history, at least as they applied to the Jews. By 1938, the Nordicists were poised, with the tacit support of the Duce, to redirect Italy’s prevailing thinking on race. Following the enactment of the Manifesto on Race, the Nordicists went on the offensive against the Mediterraneanist reading of history, which had revealed a long record of supposed racial absorption and transformation in the Mediterranean world and which led to regular revivals of civilization and the appearance of newly invigorated hybrid races (the Greco-Roman being pre-eminent). The Mediterraneanist perspective, as Mussolini once understood and as Papini had eloquently argued, had no place for biological antisemitism: the Jews were a Mediterranean race transformable by time and place into Romans and thus, subsequently, into Italians. Nordicists, in particular, Telesio Interlandi, the editor of La Difesa della Razza, sought to rewrite Roman history not as a narrative of the triumph of racial and cultural assimilation, but as the centuries long struggle between the Romans and the Semites. Antisemitism was recast by Interlandi from an accidental feature of late Roman society, to an essential feature – the defining feature – of Roman civilization itself. Thus, beginning in November, 1938, La Difesa ran a series of articles on antisemitism in Roman Antiquity, all of which pointed, through appeals to classical authors progeny of people who, having not yet learned to write, could not pass on to their descendents the documents of their life, at a time when Rome had a Caesar, a Virgil and an Augustus” and continued: “It is ridiculous to think that synagogues may be closed. The Jews were in Rome at the time of the Kings...they numbered fifty thousand at the time of Augustus and they asked to weep at the bier of Julius Caesar. They will not be disturbed.” For Mussolini’s relationship to Jewish intellectuals and the Zionist question from a personal perspective, see Foa, P. P., “Science, Pseudoscience, and Public Policy in Fascist Italy,” where Foa relates how his father, a medical school dean in Rome and a convert to Zionism inspired by the Zionist leader Sabatino Lopez, had a two-hour interview with Mussolini on the “Jewish Question” in which he found the Duce warm to him personally and quite friendly to Zionism and its objectives (accessed Oct. 2010 at cmmg.biosci.wayne.edu/asg/PieroFoa/eugenics_paper.pdf). The experience mirrors the experience of Cesare Goldman, a Jewish “Fascist of the First Hour,” whose 1934 meeting with Mussolini ended with the Duce exclaiming “I am a Zionist. Me!” See Ledeen, p. 7. RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 241 ranging from Cato the Elder to Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and others, to the apparent fact that the Romans were thoroughly antisemitic and that a historic enmity had always existed between Italians and Jews. Interlandi felt that this point needed to be made with great force in order to blunt criticism emerging even in Fascist quarters that the recently promulgated Manifesto on Race represented an unacceptable innovation in Fascist theory, even that it was a reversal of Mussolini’s own longstanding public positions on race and Italian Jews. La Difesa’s articles argued that Rome’s history was built on its struggles against and eventual triumphs over Semites, from the Punic Wars to the occupation of Palestine and suppression of its early Christian era revolts. The very character of Rome – its Romanitá – was formed in these battles, indicating that Rome was not accidentally and only occasionally antisemitic, but necessarily and fundamentally so. Any true program for promoting the resurgence of Romanitá, such as Mussolini’s, understood this relationship implicitly, even if political necessities in the past had required the Duce to emphasize other aspects of the historic interactions between Italians and Jews. In its promotion of Romanitá and Italian racial purity, La Difesa had no similar series dealing with racism and the Italian Renaissance, but it did print several pieces, including a widely influential one by Julius Evola, that addressed the problem of cultural and political decay and revival in Italian history as a function of race, and that further staked out positions on post-Fall of Rome Italy that held implications for the Fascist interpretation of Medieval and Renaissance history. In particular, Evola argued a point supported by Interlandi and other Nordicists at La Difesa, that moments of cultural collapse in Italy were periods in which the peninsula’s original Aryan stock had become corrupted through admixture with inferior – read African and Semitic – races. The fall of Rome, which La Difesa dated from Caracalla’s extension of Roman citizenship to the whole empire which thus officially ended the ascendance of the Italian racial element in the Roman Empire, represented the most significant of such moments. The fall had traditionally been attributed, especially by Mediterraneanists, to the influx of German barbarians into the Empire in the 4th through 6th centuries. Under Nordicism, the Germanic invasions instead actually eventually saved Italy from racial and cultural decline by reinvigorating the Aryan stock in the Italian race. The process of racial healing was long, but eventually the Lombard racial strain in Italy along with occasional German racial booster shots in the later Middle Ages triumphed over 800 years of Levantine and African inspired racial and 242 DAVID BAUM cultural decadence in the outpouring of a thoroughly Aryanized Italian Renaissance.9 More than one Italian eyebrow was raised in response to the ascendancy of the Nordic racism reflected in the Manifesto on Race and in the pages of La Difesa della Razza. A few Italian intellectuals assumed a rigid anti-racist stance, most famously Benedetto Croce, who refused to sign the Racial Purity oath that followed the Manifesto by four months. But most Italian intellectuals who rejected Nordic racism did so out of a sense of nationalism not because of qualms over the application of race theory to scientific, cultural, and even political categories. Nordic racism offended the majority of Italian intellectuals because it clearly subordinated Italians and their historic accomplishments to the Germans. When the time came to act against the official Antisemitism announced by the Manifesto on Race by declining to sign the oath of Racial Purity which was a requirement for continued employment in culturally sensitive sectors of the Italian economy, fewer than a dozen followed Croce’s lead. The rest tried to hide their public betrayal of their Jewish colleagues behind private expressions of personal sympathy and regret. La Difesa’s attempt to situate Italy’s Jews racially by situating them historically was intended to sway middle brow readers not thoroughly grounded in the scientific literature on racism, nor the professional scholarship on the various historical subjects it treated. This is not to say, however, that professional scholars and the institutions that supported them were above incorporating racialist perspectives in their work. This is especially true in those subject areas most central to the revived program of Romanitá undertaken after 1935, and in particular in those institutions newly formed by the regime specifically on its account. One such institute was the Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento. The Centro was founded in Florence in 1937 under the aegis of Giuseppe Bottai, the Fascist Minister of Culture. Commissioned to support scholarship on the Renaissance and to promote an awareness of the period among a wider, lay audience, the Centro was envisioned by Bottai as an important element in the resurgent program of Romanitá sponsored by the regime as a consequence of the Ethiopian campaign begun in 1935. Romanitá, briefly, described both a program initiated by Mussolini in the early days of the regime that encouraged the re-“Romanization” of contemporary Italy as the necessary cure for its various social and political ills; and a Romantic-era outlook that grew with the Risorgimento hoping to identify for modern Italians the historical precedents upon which a modern nationalism could be built.
9 On Evola, see Gillette, pp. 154-74. RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 243
Programmatically, Romanitá sought to re-instill Roman traditional virtues: militarism, courage, sacrifice, and patriotism. As an anschauung, Romanitá was intended to convince Italians of the validity of the very category “Italian;” that is that the national concept made sense when applied to the peninsula by pointing to a shared past when Italy led the civilized world. As one of the two periods of national greatness, the Renaissance expected and received its share of official attention. Bottai appointed as the Centro’s founding director one of Italy’s best known writers and controversialists, Giovanni Papini. The choice was both unorthodox and inspired. Papini was not a true scholar of the Renaissance, although he had written several works on the period including a well-received literary biography, Dante vivo, and the first installment of a history of Italian literature which focused on the thirteenth century. Papini’s strength, however, as director of the new Centro was not founded on his scholarly bona fides. Rather, it was his ability to recruit, promote, and mollify a diverse core of centristi whose attitudes towards the Renaissance and whose ambitions for the new Centro were not nearly as much in accord as Papini’s leadership made it appear to the outside world. For seven years Papini held this group of scholars, essayists, and critics tight. Together they hosted numerous exhibitions, including the important 1938 Medicean Exposition, and published the house journal, La Rinascitá, which brought forward over thirty issues that included the work of up-and-coming scholars like Hans Baron, Paul Kristeller, Giuseppe Cammelli, Roberto Ridolfi, and Eugenio Garin, as well as innovative features such as reviews of Renaissance-themed movies, plays, and novels, which were later abandoned by La Rinascitá’s stodgier successor, Rinascimento. Following the First World War, Papini embraced a kind of neo- Giobertianism which brought along with its fusion of Roman Catholicism and Italian patriotism a very traditional form of antisemitism. Papini had earlier in his career ridiculed antisemitism, even adopting the Wandering Jew for himself as a literary persona. After his conversion to Catholicism in 1919 and the publication of his celebrated Life of Jesus two years later, Papini consistently characterized Jews as the antithesis of the true Christian and rehearsed the customary charges against them: deicide, usury, global conspiracy against Christianity. Papini’s tone from this point forward, as well as the literary talent he brought to bear expressing his antisemitism, is for readers of English familiar from the writings of Pound and Eliot. Papini’s antisemitism knew limits, however, and in 1934 he expressed through a blistering essay, “Razzia dei razzisti,” his contempt for Nazi biological racism. More or less, Papini followed in this essay the line of 244 DAVID BAUM argument put forward by the Church, which held that the primary issue between Jews and Christians was religious and not racial and could be remedied through conversion. In later writings Papini became less convinced that conversion would resolve the “Jewish Question,” and there appears to be the distinct possibility that Papini’s antisemitism referred less to an actually existing people who might chose conversion as a way out of their spiritual, moral, and political predicament, as it did to a concept or an archetype whose historical and material reality was irrelevant to the matter of Jewishness, and therefore to antisemitism. “The Jew” stood in Papini’s mind as whatever was not Christian; it was a negative category with no material reality, a pure anti-thesis. By fusing the concepts of Christian and Italian through his neo-Giobertianism, Papini simultaneously created the concept of the non-Italian, that is, the Jew. That Jews belonged to a category and not to an actual race may be supported by Papini’s views on the positive category of “Italian,” which seemed equally ideal and disconnected from any actually historically existing race. Like Mussolini, Papini seemed to detest the very people who he was called to lead to greatness, and like Mussolini, Papini grew increasingly desperate to provoke into being the Italian (and Fascist) New Man.10 Despite the centrality of antisemitism to much of his post-WWI outlook, and despite the mandate to engage both academic and lay clients, Papini managed to keep the Centro and La Rinascitá pretty well free of the overt antisemitism of middle brow Fascist reviews like La Difesa della razza, La Critica Fascista, and La Civilta Fascista (the same, by the way, was not exactly true when it came to the African question; Papini allowed or encouraged several articles establishing historic cultural and political links between Italy and Africa, including timely articles on Petrarch’s epic poem, a new version of which was reprinted elsewhere and reviewed in La Rinascitá). In 1941, however, the Centro’s house journal, La Rinascitá, published an article by the artist and critic, Ardengo Soffici, entitled “L’essenza del Rinascimento.”11 Soffici had been with Papini almost from the beginning. They had embraced first Pragmatism and then Futurism together (Soffici’s conversion to the latter coming rather dramatically as Marinetti literally stood poised to beat him in the middle of the Piazza della Repubblica as retribution for a negative review of the movement published in Lacerba), then Interventionism, and eventually Fascism. Soffici declined to follow
10 Papini, “Il nostro impegno,” Lacerba (November 15, 1914), called Italy a nation of “botched attempts” and later argued that Italy needed to be beaten (presumably by Mussolini). 11 Soffici, A., “L’essenza del Rinascimento,” La Rinascita, IV, 1941, pp. 113-19. RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 245
Papini’s return to Catholicism, but he did join him in rejecting Futurism (and, of course, in his developing antisemitism). Freed from Futurism’s out-of-hand rejection of “Pastism” Soffici and Papini set out to reconsider Italian history and to rework it into a “usable past” from which to fashion the New Italy. The Centro became for both Soffici and Papini a laboratory in which to experiment with various reformulations of what, especially for Tuscans like them, was the central moment in Italian history – the Renaissance. By inverting certain relationships and, most significantly for those interested in the Hebraic aspects of the Italian Renaissance, reworking the Renaissance period concept under the direct influence of his antisemitism, Soffici produced a novel take on the period. In this particular essay, Soffici rehearsed some of the better known commonplaces then current about Renaissance art, in particular those that stressed the integrated aspect of Renaissance life – its fusion of the public and the private, of body and spirit, etc. – that contributed to its realism. Soffici borrowed from Rimbaud the observation that we discover the truth in both a body and a soul as a good motto for this hylomorphic Renaissance. The whole piece would have been un- noteworthy – it was originally delivered as a short public address on the occasion of one of the Centro’s Renaissance art exhibitions and published initially in a popular Tuscan art magazine – except for Soffici’s brief attempts to distinguish Renaissance art from that of the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Greeks. The Middle Ages, Soffici argued, were ascetic, overly theological, formalist, and apocalyptic, and, true to their barbarian spirit, had lost contact with the world of real phenomena. Medieval art was abstract, monotonously reproducing the same arbitrary symbols, and it was squalidly hagiographic or iconographic, when it wasn’t merely wall decoration. The Byzantines, for their part, had been contaminated by Levantine influences that had corrupted the classical legacy of Greece fully as much as the Germans had ruined western art with their Nordic baroquisms – that is, the Gothic. Together medieval East and West seem to have declared war on the flesh in favour of some lifeless spirit. Their Christianity was moribund, a victim of their turn from mere (and permissible) anti-paganism to a virulent and inexcusable anti-Romanism. Stripped of its Roman elements this was hardly Christianity at all, and more than anti-Roman it had become anti-human, and beyond even this it had become Jewish. The attempt itself to smear the Middle Ages with charges of Judaizing Christianity were hardly new; such attacks date from the Middle Ages themselves, and by the 16th century Protestant polemic regularly identified Catholicism with Judaism when it wasn’t busy identifying both 246 DAVID BAUM with Satanism. What was different in Soffici’s comments was the juxtaposition of Judaism with Romanism, which allowed for an intensification of the dichotomy Middle Ages-Renaissance along lines very much at the heart of the idea of the Renaissance being worked out by certain factions at the Centro. The Centro’s several factions each seemed to reflect a different aspect of Papini’s personal vision of the Renaissance, a vision that did not always cohere in the minds of Papini’s readers and which certainly confounded his colleagues at the Centro. Papini’s Gentilian neo-idealism was shared by Garin, who in turn allowed himself, even against the advice of Delio Cantimori, to absorb Papini’s belief in the essential religiosity of the Renaissance. Papini’s sense of Toscanitá and even of Fiorentismo, which he opposed to Bottai’s Romanitá as the latter’s perfect form, was shared by Barna Occhini and La Rinascitá’s editor Ettore Allodoli; Papini’s Fascism was shared by Soffici and most notably by the historian Vittorio Cian; and finally Papini’s deep Catholic outlook and his belief in the near complete identification of the Renaissance and Catholicism was shared with the Neapolitan historian, Giuseppe Toffanin, and his circle, including Roberto Ridolfi, Rocco Montano, and Giuseppe Cammelli. No other of the centristi combined all four of these elements of Papini’s vision of the Renaissance, or even three, for that matter. Only Papini wove neo-idealism, Fascism, Catholicism, and Toscanitá into a workable outlook on the Renaissance.12 In the end, however, the factions came down to two. In 1937, Toffanin, by then the leading Catholic historian of the Renaissance, wrote several letters to Papini outlining his ambitions for the new Centro. His goals were comprehensive: he proposed exhibitions, monograph series, and themes for the journal running out several years. He also lobbied to include his protégés like Montano in the Centro’s work. Papini was already committed to Garin, however, whose genius he seems to have recognized early, and whom he saw as a kind of scholarly aide- de-camp. For the most part Papini allowed Garin to set the tone for the journal’s articles. Papini’s instincts in this case proved excellent. Garin oversaw some of the most extraordinary issues of La Rinascitá including Baron’s groundbreaking work on Florentine historiography, Garin’s own work on Pico and his review of Kristeller’s compendium of Ficino, and an early essay by Kristeller. Garin’s antipathy to Toffanin, which was already evident and was soon to assume legendary proportions, was insufficient, however, to keep Toffanin out of the Centro’s business.
12 On Papini and the Centro, see Calvi, G., “Il centro nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento fra discorso pubblico e storiografia (1937-1944),” Passato e Presente 18, 51, 2000, pp. 41-66. RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 247
Papini’s sympathy for Catholicism (despite his reservations about Toffanin’s enthusiasm for the counter-reformation) opened a space for Toffanin at the Centro and the journal, a space which Toffanin fully exploited. It was Toffanin’s unique, even spectacular revision of the Renaissance concept – the only truly original vision of the Renaissance in the historiography of the time – that allowed for the spirit of Soffici’s essay of antisemitic art history. The two prominent conceptions of the Renaissance in Italy between the wars belong to Gentile and Olgiati, the one an anti-clerical neo-idealist who accepted Burckhardt’s basic conclusions that the Italian Renaissance was individualistic, rational, secular and modern, and the other the leading Catholic scholar in Italy who held that while the Renaissance represented a particularly efflorescent moment in Italian history, the medieval period that proceeded it possessed most of its charms without the particularly objectionable vice of irreligion. Toffanin rejected both on nearly all counts. He saw the Middle Ages as deeply flawed, but not by religion, as Burckhardt and Gentile argued. Rather, he saw the Middle Ages, especially at their close, as both politically and religiously unorthodox in the extreme and proposed the Renaissance, specifically humanism, as the antidote. Toffanin’s were the Middle Ages of the communes, whose populist politics and vernacular literatures spawned a religious heterodoxy that hid behind the well-meaning label of popular piety. Humanism came into the world to help the Church to re-establish its spiritual authority first by attacking medieval populism at its most fundamental level – language. By restoring Latin as the primary language of both religious and political discourse, the humanists, in effect, disenfranchised the popular elements in late medieval Italian society, and began the move towards the re-establishment of conservatism and hierarchy completed by the Counter-Reformation which announced the beginning of Catholic modernity. Along the way, the Middle Ages were tossed on the ash heap of history vulnerable to Soffici’s vituperations against Europe’s artless and soulless Jewish centuries. Garin grew wild-eyed thinking of Toffanin’s writings on the Renaissance. Although he never attacked Toffanin directly (Papini’s spirited defense of Toffanin’s ideas against Croce’s attacks in the cleverly titled essay “Accusa senza scusa” probably warned him off), but he encouraged the like-minded Barna Occhini to go after Toffanin’s disciple, Rocco Montano, in the pages of La Rinascitá itself. But Garin, himself, is not without some blame here. Although he never gave off a whiff of antisemitism, at least not one that has ever been recorded, 248 DAVID BAUM
Garin’s work on certain Renaissance themes of interest to us today contain interesting omissions. Garin was among that chosen group of the 1930’s that included Kristeller and Cassirer, who first began serious study of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Garin’s study of Pico is still highly respected, and rightly so, but its account of the influence of Kabbalah on Pico’s thought is not what we would hope from a similar work today. Garin spends only a few pages on the subject and fails to consider it in a context wider than Pico’s supposed syncretism. Garin’s inability to do more with Pico and Kabbalah reflects the general state of interest in and studies of the contributions of Jewish thought to the Italian Renaissance during the 1930’s. Garin’s spiritual mentor, Giovanni Gentile, was similarly sparse in his comments on the influence of Kabbalah on the principal subject of his philosophical writings, Giordano Bruno. In his three works on Bruno, Gentile demonstrates no first-hand acquaintanceship with kabbalistic texts beyond what he has learned directly from Bruno. In part the problem here is linguistic; few if any Italian scholars of the day, except for Italian Jews, had sufficient Hebrew to attack the original sources. In the entries for the Enciclopedia italiana, edited by Gentile, all the contributors on Jewish topics, including Kabbalah and associated biographies, were Jewish.13 This may reflect Gentile’s desire to get the best available scholars for the particular job regardless of political orientation or religious or ethnic background, but it also points to a fact hard to miss: in 1930’s Italy there would have been virtually no takers for a volume like the present one. The Jews of the Renaissance were invisible as Jews and it is only in recent years that this has begun to change significantly. Returning to Toffanin before we leave off, he suffered with most of those who wrote on history during the era of fascismo a kind of dopo la guerra shadow life, his post-war nachleben affected by his inter-war attachments and associations. His first book, Humanism, continued to find readers, especially in Catholic college classrooms in the US. But in a way, Toffanin triumphed after all, as did Garin, as did, in fact the whole ensemble of the Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento. Despite its willingness to serve along side more explicitly propagandistic outfits like La Difesa della Razza in supporting the regime’s line on Romanitá and occasionally on race, the Centro’s scholars, Garin and Toffanin in particular, succeeded in Christianizing the Renaissance once and for all. That they did so, or at least that Toffanin did so, by opening
13 The article on Kabbalah was contributed by the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Elia S. Artom (who later converted to Catholicism), while most of the historical pieces were penned by Umberto Cassuto, author of Gli ebrei a Firenze nell’età del Rinascimento, Florence, Galletti & Cocci, 1918 (Olschki, 1965). RACE, ANTISEMITISM AND THE RENAISSANCE 249 up the Middle Ages to antisemitic attacks like Soffici’s that were nearly indistinguishable from the middle mind mush being peddled at La Difesa, etc., is now forgotten. Garin, of course, survived the war not only with his reputation intact, but destined for greatness. Although little consulted in the US which has fallen under the sway of Kristeller’s views on Renaissance humanism and philosophy, Garin’s more intriguing and vital reading of Renaissance intellectual life dominated in Italy for over half-a-century. Despite this extraordinary post-war career, or perhaps because of it, we should remain mindful of the environment in which Garin was formed, the associates among whom he worked, and the context and consequences of some of the professional and scholarly decisions he made. In particular we should consider the significance of Garin’s decision to publish his first broad work on the Renaissance, La Rinascitá, in 1942 under the Centro’s imprint. In his discussions with Garin on the project, Cantimori had argued in favour of preserving the sense of the Renaissance that he, Cantimori, had advanced in the 1930’s in his book, Italian Heretics of the 16th Century, where he tried to link the Renaissance to the progressive trends in European history, in this case Protestantism, that would stress the subversive even revolutionary character of the period. Garin chose instead to present a Renaissance almost irenic in the uniformity of its thought, the compatibility of its doctrines, and its common acceptance of an overarching intellectual and spiritual structure described by the union of classical Antiquity and Roman Catholicism. In short, the spirit of Romanitá – the union of classical Rome with Christian Rome – that excluded from this picture of Italy reborn, as Soffici understood so well in his nearly contemporaneous article, “L’essenza del Rinascimento,” both the Jews and the Middle Ages for their essential non-Romanness. In conclusion, then, we can say that clever but apparently too off the cuff remarks like Croce’s that “Fascism was a parenthesis in history” must be rejected. Fascist-era thought, both popular and scholarly, survived the war and has continued to influence approaches to important intellectual questions quite far removed from and innocent of their original associations and contexts. The victory of contemporary historical truth over Romantic-era fiction – that is, the emergence of a view of the Renaissance as it was, deeply religious and driven by spiritual questions of the most profound nature – was achieved, at least initially and in part, through the work of bigots and racists whose attitudes we deplore but whose work we use. The impulse behind Croce’s desire to banish Fascism from history, to sever its ties both to Europe’s past and its future, was understandable in the context of the 250 DAVID BAUM immediate post-war, but it was as it remains an irrational desire. Fascism was not only fully a part of our history; it may have been the central fact of history in the early 20th century. It led, especially in Nazi Germany, to spectacular innovations in human cruelty from which we are still reeling today. And there are, of course, the explicitly “Fascist” ideas like biological racism, and certain forms of hyper-nationalism, that continue to circulate among groups and political parties. And finally there are these other countless ideas and opinions that emerged under Fascism, or evolved more fully under Fascism, that were able to be reborn after the end of the Fascist era in more acceptable forms. Romanitá was one of these: central to Fascist racial thought, to Catholic extremist intellectuals, and to more moderately nationalist historians, it emerged after the war an amalgam of these views and one of the core principles of Italian thought on the Renaissance in the second half of the last century.
251
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INDEX
900 Conclusions, 6, 43-5 Annotationes ad loca quaedam difficiliora Veteris Testamenti, 132 Abba Mori, Moses ben, 198-9, 206-7 Anti-Barbarus Biblicus, 133 Abélard, 189 antiquity, 38, 43, 132, 134 Abraham, 100, 107, 222 antisemitism, 236-40, 243-4, 247 Abravanel, Isaac, 5, 54-61, 63-5, 67, Antwerp, 116 83-4, 92-4, 192-3, 196-7, 199 aphorisms, medical 50 Abravanel, Judah, see Ebreo, Leone Apian, Pierre (Peter), 212 Abravanel, Samuel, 66 Apología de la Compañía de Jesús, Abulafia, Abraham, 44, 50, 193 150 Accademia romana, 65 Apologia, 44 Adam, 4, 23, 80, 101, 140, 223, 225, Apologie de R. Sebon, 161 233 Aquinas, Thomas 52, 81-2 Aden, 205 Arabia, 194 Adler, E. N., 193 Arabic, 67, 81, 122, 127-30, 132-3 Aeneid, 36 Arab-Jewish, 83 Aescoly, A. Z., 192 Aragona, Tullia d', 62, 72-4, 76 Afia, Daniel Aron, 104 Aramaic, 132 Africa, 5, 194, 198, 200-203, 205-6, Arameans, 34-5 244 Archimède, 233 Agamemnon, 155 Archytas de Tarente, 233 Aguilar, Moses Raphael d', 104 Aretino, Pietro, 15 Akum Be’od Laila, 175 Argô, 232 Alatrini, Yohanan Yehudah Ben Argonautes, 232 Shlomo, 99 Arias Montanus, Benedictus, 130 Albeck, H., 35 Ariosto, Lodovico, 15, 68 Albo, Yosef, 84, 88 Aristotelian, 7, 50-51, 80, 82-4, 86, alchemy, 14, 21, 23, 25, 98 92, 94-5, 97, 166 Alejo Venegas, 139, 146-8 Aristotelianism, 91, 95 Alemanno, Yohanan, 5, 49, 92, 192- Aristotle, 22, 43, 47, 50-51, 80-82, 210 88, 90-91, 95-6, 101, 144 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 81, 88, 90 Arles, 7 Alexandria, 129, 205, 218 Arrighi, Ludovico degli, 69 Alfonsi, Petrus, 30 Asola, 68 Allen, M. J. B., 1, 17, 43 Assyria, 208 Allodoli, E., 246 astrological, 196, 199 Altmann, A., 32, 81, 105 astrology, 43, 47-52, 54, 59, 127 Amama, Sixtinus, 133 atara, 179 Amram, D. W., 69 Ateret Zekenim, 57 Anabaptism, 117 Athalie, 165 Ancône, 157 atlas, 10, 211, 218 Andreatta, M., 93, 171, 173 Attias, J. C., 199 Anjuvannam, 204 Aubigné, Agrippa d', 215-16 INDEX 277
Augustine, saint, 22, 212 Bereshit Rabba, 36, 207 Auzoles, Jacques. d’, sieur de Bernoni, D., 69 Lapeyre, 10, 211, 213, 215-16, Berns, A., 89 218, 219-23, 226 Bertinoro, Obadiah of, 34-5, 39, 193, Avalos, Alphonse d’, 15 198-9, 208-9 Averroes, 43, 51, 80, 83, 91, 95-6 Bertramus, 130 Ávila, Juan de, 150 Besse, J.-M., 212 Beza (de Bèze), Theodore, 124, 131 Babel, 133, 215, 223 Bible de Jérusalem, 188 Babylone, 215 Bible, 3, 7, 10-11, 27, 29-30, 34, 37, Bacich, C. D., 62, 67 49, 80, 115-16, 120, 122-3, 130, Baতya b. Joseph, Rabbi, 99 133, 157, 179, 182, 188, 190, 213- Balaam, 34 14, 228 Balakirsky-Katz, M., 160 Biblia Latina cum postillis, 34 Barbieri, F., 68 Biblia Rabbinica, 130 Barcelona, 205 Biblical (exegesis, studies, texts), x, Bar-Cépha, Moïse, 211, 223 3, 10, 49, 54, 111, 120, 124-6, 128- Bar-Ilan, M., 194 9, 131-3, 135, 157, 178-9, 185, Barletta, 64 187, 190, 232 Baron, H., 243 Biddick, K., 30 Baroque, 10, 83, 93-4, 100, 164-7, Binah, sefira 18-19, 173, 176, 179 178 Black, C., 49, 204 Barrientos, Lope de, 144 Blado, Antonio, 68, 73, 76 Barthes, R., 154 Bland, K. P., 95 Bastille, 161 Blau, J. L., 2, 9 Baum, D., 236 Blok, F. F., 124 Bayonne, 162 Blom, H. W., 118 Beckingham, C. F., 194, 205 Blum, P. R., 12, 81, 155 Begg, C. T., 32 Blumenkranz, P., 160 ynath ha-dath, 96 Bobadilla, Nicholas, 150ۊBe Beinart, H., 195 Bodian, M., 161 Beit-Arieh, M., 196, 199 Bodin, Jean, 122, 128 Beja, Abraham of, 205-6 Boemus, Johann, 211 Belgium, 116 Bologna, C., 14, 63, 66, 193, 201 Belleforest, François de, 211, 213 Bolzoni, L., 14, 16, 19, 21, 25-6 Belli, G., 69 Bonazzoli, V., 65 Bembo, Pietro, 15, 72, 74-5, 195 Bonfil, R., 93 Ben Israel, Menashe, 104-6, 113, Bonifaccio, Baldassare, 83, 100-101, 129,134 105 Benamozegh, Elijah, 111 Book of the Courtier, 72 Benjamin of Tudela, 197 Books of Psalms, 171 Ben-Shalom, R., 54 Bordeaux, 12, 160-62 Benz, E., 9 Boreel, Johannes, 129 Ben-Zvi, I., 192, 204 Borja (Borgia), Francisco de, 148, Berehiyah of Modena, A., 88 n.18 152 Bérénice, 164-5 Borodowski, A. F., 54 278 INDEX
Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 166 Catholicism, 11, 120, 243, 245-9 Bottai, G., 238, 242-3, 246 Cato the Elder, 241 Bouchard, Jean-Jacques, 156 Cattaneo, A., 197, 201 Boyed, J. M., 205 Catullus, 122, 241 Brann, R., 92 Céard, J., 212-3 Bregman, D., 5, 90, 170 Cebà, Ansaldo, 100, 102 Bretteville, Etienne de, 155 censeurs, 159 Brooks, W., 164 censure, 12, 152, 159-60 Bruno, Giordano, 63, 248 Centro Nazionale di Studi sul Brussels, 116, 118 Rinascimento, 237-9, 242, 248 Buchanan, George, 183 Cervantes, Miguel de, 62 Burckhardt, Jakob, 247 Cervini, Marcello, 69 Burnet, Thomas, 114 Chabod, F., 236 Burnett, S. G., 184-5 Charron, Pierre, 159, 162 Busi, G., 27 Chavel, C. B. (=H. D.), 48, 85 Buxtorf, Johannes, 130, 133, 184-5 Chesed, sefira, 19, 173, 176, 178 Byzantium, 194 Chiodo, D., 14 Chochma, sefira, 18, 173, 175 caballeros, 149 Christ, see Jesus Cairo, 205 Christian (readers, scholars, thought, Calicut, 202, 204-5 etc.), 1-6, 19, 22, 25, 27, 29-35, 40- Caligutim, 203 42, 44, 46-7, 51, 58, 62-3, 66, 73, Calvesi, M., 14 75-7, 80-83, 87, 92-3, 95, 98-102, Calvi, G., 117-121, 128, 133-4, 246 105-6, 108, 114-15, 125, 192-4, Calvinist Church, 117, 120 206-9, 241, 243-4, 249 Calvinist, 117-121, 128, 133-4 Christianity, 1, 4, 19, 24, 32-5, 39, Camerarius, collection, 183 42, 44, 54, 76, 96, 100, 102-3, 111, Camillo Delminio, Giulio, 14-26 122, 125, 134, 195, 243, 245 Cammelli, G., 243-6 Chronicum Universale, 126 Cantimori, Delio, 246, 249 Chronologiae sacrae isagogae, 126 Canzoniere, 108 Church, 24-6, 44, 82 Cappel, Louis, 132 Cian, V., 246 Cardoso, Isaac, 104 Cicero, 15, 241 Carnaval de Rome, 12, 155-6, 162 Cingolani, G., 14 Cartagena, Alonso de, 145-6 Clement VII, 38, 68-9, 195 Casaubon, Isaac (Casaubonus), 121-2 Cochin, 202-6, 208 Cassirer, E., 44, 248 Coddaeus, Guilielmus, 130-33 Cassuto, U., x, 66, 192, 195, 248 Coghin, 203 Castagnola, R., 19 Cohen Skalli, C., 54-56, 58 Castellion, Sébastien, 182 Cohen, G. D., 5, 32, 54-6, 58, 177-8 Castelvetro, Ludovico, 14-15 180, 192 Castiglione, Baltasar, 72, 75 Cohen, J. M., 178 Castille, 138, 141, 159, 162 Collège de France, 10 Catanzaro, G., 109 Collège de Guyenne, 12, 160 Catedra, P., 55-6 Collège Royal, 182, 185-6, 211 Catena, 158 Collegium Trilingue, 117 INDEX 279
Colonna, Vittoria, 69 Cursus honorum, 142 Columbus, Christopher, 194 Curtius, E. R., 228 Commentaires sur la Genèse, 222 Commentary on Deuteronomy, 93 Da Fonseca-Wollheim, C., 102 Commentary on Former Prophets, 58 Danielsson, O. A., 37 Commentary on the Torah, 48-9 Dante Alighieri, 90, 92, 99, 107, 243 Comparot, A., 160-61 Danzi, M., 195 confraternity, 171, 173-4 David, 22, 40, 114, 175-6, 178, 195, Constantine II ("Eskender", Emperor 213, of Ethiopia), 209-10 Davidson, H., 85 Constantine, 34-5 De ce qui est premier pour reformer Constantinople, 54, 192, 210 le monde, 231 conversos, 10-12, 104-5, 109, 138, De Felice, R., 236 143-5, 148-50, 152, 156, 159, 162, De Frede, C., 66 167 De Jong, M., 104 Cooperman, B. D., 66-7, 69 De jure belli ac pacis, 125 Copenhaver, B., 43, 46-7, 50 De medico haebreo enarratio Copio Sullam, Sara, 6, 83, 100-103, apologica, 99 105, 111 De observatione politiae Moysis, 130 Corbinelli, Francesco, 201 De Paradiso commentarius, 211 Cordoue, 7 De Republica Hebraeorum, 123, 127 Coronelli, Vincenzo, 213, 223-4, 227 De rerum natura, 226, 228 Corsi, P., 14 De resurrectione mortuorum libri III, Corso, 156-7 106 Cortesão, J., 201 De statu mortuorum et resurgentium, Cosmas Indicopleustès, 218-9 115 Cosmographia generalis, 213, 224 De unitate intellectus contra Cosmographie universelle, 211, 214 Averroistas, 81 Cosmographie, 211-34 De Veritate Religionis Christanae, Cosmos, 59-60, 211-13, 215, 224-5, 125, 134 227, 229 Dédéyan, Ch., 157 Costa, Uriel da, 83, 102-6 Defensorium Unitatis Cristianae, 145 Coudert, A., 4 Del Medigo, Elia (Elijah), 84, 87, 94 Counter-Reformation, 117, 219, 247 Delumeau, J., 218, 222 Courteault, 161 Den, T. J., 116. Covilhão, Pero da, 205, 209 Derech Emmet, 172 Cozzi, L., 101 Des merveilles du monde, 10 Cranganore (Kodungallur), 194, 203- Descartes, René, 83 4 Deuteronomy, 33 Creation, 10, 17, 20, 43-4, 47, 49, 60, devequth, 87 67, 84, 212, 214, 219, 221-2, 224, Di Leone Leoni, A., 66 229-30 Di Napoli, G., 81 Crescas, ণisdai, 84, 86-7 Dialoghi d’Amore, 6, 8-9, 55, 62-77, Croce, B., 242, 247, 249 92 Cunaeus, Petrus, 119, 122-3, 127, Dias, Bartolomeu, 203 129, 130-31 dicta probantia, 120 280 INDEX
Dietro il sipario della vita, 111 Épitre aux Romains, 149 Dieu, Louis de 132 Equicola, Mario, 72 dignitas hominis, 138, 141 Erasmus, Desiderius, 15, 17, 117-8, Dijksterhuis, E. J., 127 122, 124-5 Dionisotti, C., 65, 69, 75 eros, 91 Discorso intorno a l’humana miseria, Erpenius, Thomas, 129, 132 99 Esau, 32, 34-5 Discours sur la dignité de l’homme, Espejo de verdadera nobleza, 139, 44, 140 141 Divine Comedy, 90, 107 Essais, 12, 154, 157-9, 212 Domenichi, Ludovico, 70 Ester (poem), 100 Doni, Anton Francesco, 20 Esther (play), 165 Donnelly, J. P., 150 Ethiopia, 194-6, 198, 202, 205-6, Dorat, Jean, 182-3 208-10, 236-7, 240 Dorez, L., 69 Etruscans, 38-9 Dousa, Janus Jr., 129 Ets Hayim, 175 Drusius, Johannes, 121, 130 Euphrate, 214 Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, Europe, 2, 7-8, 12, 15, 62-3, 98, 116- 228 17, 119, 121-2, 126, 135, 140, 161, Du Bellay, Joachim, 182-3 164, 192-3, 214, 217, 232, 238, Du Pinet, Antoine, 217 247, 249 Dulles, A., 125 Évangélisme, 144 Duplessis-Mornay, Philippe, 125, Evola, Julius, 241-2 134, 227-30 Exame das tradições phariseas, 104 Exercitationes Sacrae, 124, 128, 132 Éboli, prince of, 149 Exodus, 39, 176, 188 Ebreo, Leone (Léon l’Hébreu / Judah Expulsion of 1492, 9, 12, 55, 60, 64, Abravanel), 5-6, 8-9, 54, 62-77, 92 66, 93, 159, 192 Eden (and gan ‘eden, see Paradise), Eyffinger, A., 116, 123, 126-7 4, 85, 89 Eyquem, Pierre 160-62 Edom, 32-6, 38-9 Eekhof, A., 118 Fagius, Paul, 128 Egypte, 7, 155 Faivre, A., 9 Ein Sof, 173 Falashas, 194 Eldad the Danite, 197, 207 Farinacci, R., 239 Elegie di Salomone Fiorentino, 107 Farissol, Abraham, 196, 209 Élien, 216-17 Feldman, L., 33 Elijah, 24 Feldman, S., 86, 95, 101 Elisabeth I, 183 Felice, R., 236 Eloquence de la chaire, 155 Ferdinand I, 64 Empedocles, 87, 233 Ferdinand II (of Aragon), 63 Enciclopedia italiana, 14, 69, 248 Ferdinand II (of Naples), 64 Encyclie, 231 Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo, 64 Enrique de Villena, 56 Ferrara, 54, 66, 178, 192 Ephrem de Nisibe (le Syriaque), 218 Festus, Sextus Pompeius, 36 Epicurus, 99, 101, 226-7, 230 Fiorentino, Salomone, 106-7, 109-11, 113, 115 INDEX 281
First Temple, 206 Genazzano, Elijah Hayyim Ben Fischel, W. J., 204 Binyamin da., 42, 198 Fisher, Sh., 87 Genesis, 20, 25, 31, 33, 44, 47, 126, Fishman, T., 94, 101 175, 188, 213, 216, 221, 223 Flood (Déluge), 10, 37, 107, 213-16, Geneva, 131 218, 221-3, 231-2 Gentile, G., 33, 247-8 Florence, 5, 20, 68, 73, 106, 196, Géographie sacrée, 10, 211, 218, 223 198-9, 201-2, 205, 210, 242 Gersonides (Levy ben Gershom), 83, Florentinus, 126 86, 91, 101 Foa, P. P., 240 Gevura, sefira, 19, 173, 179 Fonseca, Isaac Aboab de, 94, 104-5 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamed, 91 Fontanesi, G., 67 gilgul ha-nefashoth, 93 Forbado, 200 Gillette, A., 237, 239, 242 Ford, Ph., 10, 182 ‘Gioan Gentili Indiano’, 198, 209 Fortis, Umberto, 100, 103 Giorgio (Zorzi), Francesco, 19, 22 Fortunate Isles, 202 Giunta, Benedetto, 69, 72-3, 76 Fraisse, S., 230 Gliozzi, G., 223 Frajese,Vittorio, 101 Gnoli, D., 65 Frame, D., 161 Goa, 205 France, 10, 12, 15, 50, 119, 129, 159, God (Dieu), 18, 20, 24-6, 35, 41, 47- 162, 230, 233 8, 57-8, 60-61, 67, 80, 82-4, 86-8, Francès, Ya‘aqov, 113 94-5, 97, 103, 108, 111, 114, 134, Franco, Hayyim, 199, 204, 206 140-41, 146-7, 160, 165, 175-6, Franeker, 121, 126-7, 130, 133 188-9, 211-12, 214, 222, 225, 227, Frank, D. H., 95 229-32 Frattarelli Fischer, L., 109 Góis, Damião de, 195 Frederick I, 64 Goldenthal, Y., 90 Fregoso, Gian Battista, 72 Golgotha, 223 Friedländer, David, 112 Gomer, 232-3 Friedrich, Nicolai, 91 Gómez de Leon, Isabel, 152 Frisch, D., 171 González de Mendoza, Pedro, From Italy to Jerusalem, 193 Cardinal, 63 Fubini, R., 37-8 Gospels, 133 Fumagalli, G., 69 Gouvéa, André de, 161 Grafton, A., 46, 126-7 Galilei, Galileo, 115 Greco, Francesco, 15 Galiqut, 208 Green Island, 201 Gallia (Gaule), 230, 233 Green, A., 30, 41, 201 Gallico, Laura, 108 Grégoire XIII, 157-8 Gambino Longo, S., 230 Grohovaz, V., 14 Garfagnini, G. C., 19 Grotius, Hugo, 117-119, 121-31, 133- Garin, E., 243, 246-9 4 Garvin, B., 8, 71 Guarna, B. C., 72 Gebhardt, C., 62 Gudalahara, 63 Géhon, 214 Guetta, A., 5-6, 80-115 Gelderen, M. van, 116 Guicciardini, Luigi, 19, 23 282 INDEX
Guide of the Perplexed (Guide des Holzmann, A., 91 Egarés), 7, 50, 84, 90 Homo-religiosus, 103 Guidi, A., 67 Honess, C. E., 102 Guinea, 198-9, 200, 203 Honor, 143 Gutiérrez Nieto, J. I., 148 Horace, 30, 39, 241 Gutwirth, E., 54 Horowitz, E., 174 Guzmán, Diego de, 150 Hsia, R. P., 117 Humanism / humanists, 1-3, 5, 8, 10, Hachinota Maor, 173 30, 39, 54-6, 59, 61, 66, 69, 76, Hacohen, Binyamin, 173 117-19, 121-6, 128, 131-2, 135, Hadashim Labekarim, 171 138, 141, 143, 147, 159, 182-4, Hadas-Lebel, M., 32 190, 210, 247 Hakohen, Hayyim ben Avraham, 172 Husik, I., 88 Halamish, M., 171, 180 Ha-Levy, Yehudah, 97 Iberian Peninsula, 55, 205 Hamis, Yosseph, 172 Ibn Gabirol, Samuel (Albenzubron), Hankins, J., 81 67 Hanokh, 94 Ibn Habib, Moïse, 184 Haskalah, 92, 112 Ibn Tibbon, Samuel, 7-8 Hay ha-`olamim, 210 Ibn Usque, Abraham, 192 তazal, 85 Idel, M., 1-2, 16, 43, 45, 54, 67, 94, Hebraist, 126, 129, 134 174, 180, 193, 195-6, 199, 210 Hebrew studies, 116-7, 125, 128, 130 Iliade, 185 Hebrew (hébreu), 1-4, 6-11, 18, 21, Im Kol kinor David, 178 23, 27-8, 30, 32, 34, 36-8, 42, 44, imago mundi, 20, 230 46-7, 50, 55, 57, 60-61, 63, 65-6, Immortalità e Resurrezione, 88 69, 81, 83, 87, 95, 104, 106, 112- implicite, 12, 154 13, 115-17, 120-21, 123, 125-34, India, 3, 193-5, 197-8, 202, 204-210 170, 176, 179, 182-90, 196-99, Indian Ocean, 194, 203, 209 203, 209-10, 230-31, 233, 248 Inglese, G., 92 Heering, J. P., 134 inquisition portugaise, 11 Héliogabale, 217 Interlandi, Telesio, 240-41 Hen Kol Hadash, 170-71, 178, 180 Iphigénie, 155 Henri IV, 161, 227 Isabella I, 63 Heptaplus, 2, 19-20, 25, 44, 47, 49- Isagoge, 91, 124 50, 52 Isolario dell'Atlante Veneto, 223 Hermes (Mercurius) Trismegistus, 1, Isolario, 217, 223 24, 43, 94 Israel, 3, 27, 31-5, 48-9, 57-60, 89, Héroides, 189 173, 175-6, 193-7, 203-4, 207, 234 ,eshek, 87, 90-92 Italy, 3, 5, 15, 31, 55, 62-5, 68, 70ۊ Hezekiah, 39 73-4, 76, 83-4, 92-94, 97, 105, hidalgos, 149 114-15, 192, 195, 198, 205, 210, Hillel ben Shemuel of Verona, 81 236, 238-45, 247-9 Histoire universelle, 211-12 Histoire variée, 216-7 Jacob, 31-2, 34 Hod, sefira, 19, 173, 178-9 Janus, 37, 232-3 Hodgen, M. T., 2 Japhet, 232 INDEX 283
Jason, 232 Kabbalah (and Christian Kabbalah), Jean II, 138, 143 2, 4, 6, 9-10, 14, 16-17, 19-21, 23- Jeremiah, 93 30, 41, 42-52, 54, 83, 85, 88-9, 92- Jericho Labyrinth, 28-9 4, 97, 105, 109, 111, 113-14, 170- Jeroboam, 206 81, 211, 229, 232-3, 248 Jerusalem, 3, 31-3, 35, 37-8, 135, Kani-Turpin, J., 226 165-6, 188, 194, 198, 207-8 Kaplan, Y., 47, 104 Jesuits (Compagnie de Jésus), 11, Kaspi, Joseph ibn, 33 117, 120, 148-53, 159, 161-3, 167, Katz, D. S., 194 222 Kayserling, M., 194-5, 205 Jesus (and Christ), 18, 23, 25-6, 30, Keller-Dall’Asta, B., 14 34, 41, 44, 46-7, 102, 125, 134, Kerala, 194, 204 144, 146-7, 199, 222-3 Kern, H., 28-9 Jewish (culture, mysticism, scholars, Keshi, 207 sources, etc.), 1, 3-6, 24, 27-36, 39- Kessler-Mesguich, S., 8 44, 47-49, 51-2, 55, 57-67, 69, 73- Keter, sefira, 19, 43, 173, 179, 196 5, 77, 80, 81, 83-5, 88-100, 102-3, Khazars, 193 105-13, 115-16, 122, 125-6, 129- Kibre, P., 49-50 30, 133-4, 174-5, 178, 180, 185, Kieckhefer, R., 45 192-198, 202, 204, 206-210, 237, Kimhi, David, 207 240, 242, 244-5, 247-8 Kitamura, K., 218-19 Jewish Wars, 197 Klausner, J., 67 Jews (and Juifs), 4, 6, 12, 32-3, 38, Kodera, S., 67 55-6, 58, 61, 65-6, 81, 83, 89-90, Kossmann, E. H., 116 93-4, 98, 100-101, 103-6, 108-9, koteret, 179 111-12, 134, 138, 148, 150-51, Kozhikode, 203-4 154, 156-62, 165, 175, 180, 193-5, Kristeller, P. O., 2, 44, 243, 246, 248- 197-9, 203-8, 210, 227, 236-7, 9 239-44, 248-9 Kush, 206, 208 Johannesson, K., 213 Kuzary, 97 Jones, V., 4, 102 Joseph (Indian King), 203-4 L’Ancre, Pierre de, 160, 162 Joseph of Lamego, 205-6 L’Empereur, Constantijn, 126, 129, Joseph, 188, 195, 204 133-4 Josephus, Flavius, 184, 197 L’Hospital, Michel de, 182-3 Journal de Voyage en Italie, 12, 155 La Boétie, Etienne de, 160 Jowett, B., 91 La Cosmographie universelle de tout Judah and Benjamin, 204, 207 le monde, 214 Judah, 31-2, 204, 207, 209 La Difesa della Razza, 237, 240, 242, Judaism (Judaïsme), 4, 11, 61, 63, 74- 248 5, 89, 98, 102-3, 111, 113-15, 134, La Galliade ou de la revolution des 138, 145, 164, 166-8, 198, 237, arts et sciences, 230-34 245-6 La Physionomie, 154, 161 Junius, Franciscus, 120-21, 125, 130- La Rinascitá, 237, 243-4, 246-7, 249 31 La Saincte Geographie, 10, 211, 216, Juynboll, G. H. A., 129 219, 221 284 INDEX
La Sepmaine ou Creation du monde, Life of Jesus, 243 228 Limbrick, E., 161 Lachover, F. , 170 limpieza de sangre, 138, 148-50 Lachs, P. S., 134 Lipiner, E., 58 Laínez, Diego, 149-52 Lipsius, Justus 118-19, 121-2, 125 Lambin, Denis, 185, 230 Liqqutim, 196, 198-9, 209-10 Landra, G., 239 Lisbon, 63, 201-2, 205-6, 210 Laras, G., 88 liturgical, 170, 179, 185 Las excelencias de los hebreos, 104 Loarte, Gaspar de, 150 Las Opiniones sacadas, 104 Locci, A., 113 Lateran Council, 82 López Poza, S., 14 Latin, 1, 4, 15, 30, 36, 43, 50, 62, 65, Loppes de Villeneuve, 161 71-2, 95, 97, 99, 104, 125, 127, Lorette, 157 131, 151, 182-5, 188-90, 212, 222, Louis XII, 64 227, 230, 247 Louppes, 162 Lattes, Isaac ben Emmanuel di, 69 Louvain, 116-18 Law, V., 69 Lowe, K. J. P., 201 Lawee, E., 54, 197 Loyola, Ignace de, Saint, 11, 14, 117, Lawrance, J., 55 149-53, 167 Layton, E., 69 Lucrèce, 182, 226-30 Le Fèvre de La Boderie, Guy, 229-34 Lunel, A., 156 Le Goff, J., 194 Luria, Isaac (the Ari), 170-71, 175-6 Leaman, O., 95 Lurianic Kabbalah (Lurianism), 94, Lebanon, 89, 222 170-71, 173, 175-6, 180, 232 Lebram, J. C. H., 120, 124-6, 129, Lutheranism, 117 132 Lutherans, 123 Ledeen, M., 236, 238, 240 Luzzati, M., 199 Lee, E., 65 Luzzatto, G., 113 Leeb, I. L., 116 Luzzatto, Hayyim, 173 Legros, A., 163 Lyck, 63 Leiden, 116-135 Lyra, Nicholas de, 33-4 Lelli, F., 5, 42, 192, 195, 197-9, 210 Lenzi, Mariano, 66, 68, 70-72, 76 Ma‘avar Yabboq, 88 Leon, Moses de, 21, 44 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 15, 68 Les Juifs de Bordeaux, 160 Madrid, 118, 151 Les Tragiques, 215 Magnus, Olaus, 213 Lesley, A., 49, 197, 202, 204, 206, Maillard, J. F., 9 208 Maimonides, Moses 5, 7, 9, 49-52, Lestringant, F., 10, 163, 211-12 68, 81, 83-8, 90-91, 96, 98, 111, Lettere di Ansaldo Cebà, 100 134, 166, 207 Lévi, I., 160 Malabar, 196, 205, 207 Levita, Elias, 185, 196 Malchut, sefira 19, 173, 175-6 Lexicon Pentaglotton, 130 Malkiel, D., 110, 114, 198 Ley, C. D., 201 Malvezin, 161 Libellus de litteris hebraicis, 37-8 Mancha, 148 Liebes, Y., 171 Mandeville, John, 198 INDEX 285
Manetti, Giannozzo, 1, 3, 37, 128 195, 197, 204 Manifesto di Sarra Copia Sulam Messina, 64 Hebrea, 100 Métamorphoses, 189 Manifesto on Race, 237-40, 242 Micha, 34 Manuppella, G., 62 Middle Ages (and medieval period), Marcellus II, 69 84, 93, 193, 241, 245-7, 249 Marchionni, Bartolomeo, 205 Midrash Bereshit Rabba, 35 Margolin, J. C., 163 Midrash for Yom Kippur, 207 Marpe Lanefesh, 172 Midrash, 35, 44, 85, 88, 160, 175, Marpe lashon, 184 178-9, 207 Marques de Santillana, 56 Mif‘aloth Elohim, 93 Martín, F. R., 65, 146, 148 Mikhael, angel, 19, 58 Martin, F. X., 27 Miklol, 207 Martín, I. A., 146 Milan, 15, 68 Martini, Raimundo, 33-4 Milan, G., 106 Marx, A., 50 Miletto, G., 97 Mary, 23, 30, 41 Miller, P. N., 2, 52 Masa‘ ba-a‘rav, 112 Miqdash me’at, 90 Maskil Le Eitan ha-Emet, 176 Mishnah, 7, 50, 60, 85, 129, 133 Mathieu-Castellani, G., 12, 154 Mishnah, Pirkei Avot, 50, 60 Matthew, 18 Mishnayyot, 207 Maurice of Orange, prince, 127 Mishneh Torah, 50, 85 Maxim, P. A., 56 Mithridates, Flavius, 44 Mecca, 208 Modena, Leone, 94, 101 Media, 208 modernity (modernité), 10, 116, 138, Medici, Cosimo de’, 205 166-8, 247 Medici, family, 195 Molinié, A., 11, 138 Medici, Lorenzo de’ (il Magnifico), Molinié, G., 10, 164 195, 199 Molko, Solomon, 192 Meditationes de prima philosophia, Momigliano, A., 2 83 Mongols, 193 Mediterranean, 11, 122, 205 Montaigne, Michel de, 12, 62, 154- Mediterraneanism, 238-41 63, 228 Melamed, A., 1-3, 9, 12, 195 Montano, R., 246-7 Melanchthon, Philipp, 122 Monté, Andrea del, 157 Melibara, 207 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis, 106 Mena, Juan de, 56 Monti Sabia, L., 109 Mendelssohn, Moses, 91, 110-11 Mora, Marcos García de, 143-4 Mendès da Costa, E., 156 Morel, Camille, 10, 182-3, 187, 189 Mercator, Gerard, 212, 232 Morel, Jean de 10, 182-3 Mercier, J., 128, 186 Moreno, A. G., 55-6 Mercurian, Éverard, 152 Moroni, N., 14 Meroz, R., 171, 175-6 Morteira, Saul Levi, 104-5 Merula, Paul, 213-4, 216, 224-5, 227, Mosaic (doctrine, law, tradition), 2, 229 107, 127-8, 134 Messiah, 3, 36, 85, 102, 134, 192-3, Moscato, Judah, 6, 83, 92, 97-8 286 INDEX
Moses (Moïse), 1-2, 18, 20, 22, 24, Nierop, H. van, 117 43, 160, 176, 199, 219 Nile, 209, 214 Moses, Children of, 193, 208 Nishmath Hayyim, 105 Most, G. W., 28, 44, 172, 204 Noah, 37, 218, 221-3, 232-3 Mount Esau, 34-5 Noahide laws, 42 Mount Zion, 34-5 Nobbs, D., 117 Muhammad, 199 Nobilitas, 138-9, 141 Münster, Sebastian, 128, 213-4, 216, Nordicism, 238-9, 241 225 Normando, V., 14 Muslims, 193, 195, 203-4, 207-8 Mussolini, B., 236-40, 242, 244 Occhini, B., 246-7 Muzio, Girolamo, 16 Ogren, B., 93-4, 196 Old Testament, 51, 120-22, 125, 128, Nadler, S., 105 134 Nahalat Avot, 60 Oldcorn, A., 25 Nahmanides (Moshe ben Nahman), Olivier, François, 182 48-9, 84-5, 89, 92 Olympica, Corilla, 113-14 Nahon, G., 160-62 O'Malley, J. W., 27, 30, 32, 39 Nakam, Géralde 160-61 Oni of Ife, 199 Nakam, Géralde, 160-61 Or Haganuz Beloven Hamahsof, 173 Naples, 5, 55, 58, 64-6, 70, 76, 205 Oration on the Dignity of Man, 44, Narboni, Moshe, 91 140 nation, 12, 32, 38-9, 48, 57, 59, 139, Orfali, M., 104 140, 144, 147, 162, 239, 244 Orientalists, 121, 128-9, 132, 211 Naya, E., 230 Orlandini, Nicola, 151 Nebat, 206 Orlando Furioso, 68 Nebuchadnezzar, 33, 204 Orphic, 45, 127 Nefutzoth Yehudah, 97 Ortelius, Abraham, 212 Nellen, H. J. M., 118, 122-3, 125, Ortiz, A. D., 11, 149 132-3 Osorio, Jerónimo, 159 Nelson Novoa, J., 5-6, 9, 33, 62-3, Otzar ha Zohar, 171-2, 175, 177-8 104, 192 Ovide, 189 Nelson, J. C., 63 neo-Giobertianism, 243-4 pagans, paganism, 1, 10-11, 46, 166, Neoplatonic, 43, 60, 75-6, 82-3, 89, 211, 219, 230, 245 91-93, 97 Pagis, D., 93 Neoplatonism, 1, 63, 67, 75, 248 Pagninus, Santes, 130 Neshamah, 22, 90 Paiva, Afonso 195, 205 Netanyahu, B., 54, 93, 192-3 Paladio, Blosio, 68 Netherlands, 116 Palestine (and Holy Land, Land of Netzach, sefira, 19, 173, 179 Israel), 27, 33, 48, 129, 175, 193, Neubauer, A., 192, 196 197, 222, 241 New Testament, 9, 121-2, 124, 132 Papini, G., 239-40, 243-4, 246-7 Nicolai, Friedrich, 91 Paradise (see also Eden), 85, 87-8, Nicolas V, 138 90, 99, 211, 214, 218-20, 222-3, Nicoletti, G., 106 233 INDEX 287
Pascal, Blaise, 113 81, 183, 185-9, 228, 230-31, 244 Pasquier, Étienne, 159, 162 Polanco, Juan Alfonso de, 150, 152 Paul III, 68 Polyglot Psalter, 194 Pays-Bas, 190 Pomi, David de, 6, 98-100 Pelayo, M. M., 62-3 Pomponazzi, Pietro 6, 82 Pentateuch, 27, 132, 207 Pontano, Giovanni, 109 Pereyra, Bento (Pererius), 222 Pontón, G., 55 Pereyra, Bento, 222 Popkin, R. H., 194 Perez, B., 11, 138 Porcacchi da Castiglione, Tommaso, Peri, H. (Pflaum), 62 217 Perles, Joseph, 34 Pordenone, Giovanni Antonio, 15 Perry, T. A., 63 Porphyry, 91 Persia, 208 Portugal, 55, 58, 63, 106, 159, 192-3, Pertile, L., 25 195, 201-3 Pescatori, R., 62, 67 Portuguese, 5, 56-8, 61, 66, 75, 104, Peter, saint, 35-6 161, 192-203, 205-6, 209-10 Petrarca, Francesco, 107-8, 244 Postel, Guillaume, 10, 211, 230-31 Petrucci, Aurelia, 66-7, 69-71 Posthumus Meyjes, G. H. M., 119-20, Petrucci, Borghese, 70 123, 129 Petrucci, Pandolfo, 70 Pratesi, A., 69 Pfeiffer, H., 28 Prato, Felice da, 39-40 Phaedo, 1, 91-2 Predica Coattiva, 157 Philippe II, 149, 152 Prester John, 194, 196, 198-9, 205, Philon d’Alexandrie, 184 207, 209-10 Phison, 214 prisca theologia, 94 Piasa, 201 Pro suo de eloquentia theatro ad Piccolomini, Alessandro, 62, 72 Gallos oratio, 17 Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, Professor Controversiarum 51-2 Judaicarum, 133 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 2-6, Prophets, 58-9, 207 8-9, 19-20, 25, 31, 43-52, 95, 105, Provence, 7, 54, 86, 161 128, 140, 246, 248 Proverbes, 187, 213, 228, 230 Piedras Negras, Rodrigo de, 205 Psalms, 37, 39, 171, 187-8, 194, 213, Pines, S., 50, 67 215 Pinto, Isaac, 162 Psalterium, 40 Pisa, 199 Psammenitus, 155 Pisa, Yhiel Nissim da, 55, 196-7, 205 Ptolemy, 202 Pithou, 159, 162 Pugio Fidei, 33-4 Plato, 1-2, 19, 22, 43, 47, 70, 83, 91- Punic Wars, 241 4, 98, 233 pureté de sang, 11, 138, 146-51, 153, Platonism, 59, 80 161 Platter, Thomas, 182 Pyrappatha, 211 Pliny (the Elder), 217, 241 Pythagoras, 1, 22, 43, 70, 127 Plotinus, 22 poems, poetry, 6, 25, 59, 65, 88, 90, Qol sakhal, 101 100, 106, 108-9, 112, 114-15, 170- Qol Yehudah, 97 288 INDEX
Quod Nihil Scitur, 161 Rinascimento, 14, 21, 37, 50, 63, 65- Qur’an, 128, 133 6, 81, 197, 199, 243-4, 246, 248-9 Rivet, André, 124, 128 Rabban, Joseph, 203 Robinson, I., 3, 192 Rabbie, E., 123, 134 Rodocanachi, E., 156, 158 Rabbins, 4, 157 Rogers, F. M., 194, 196 Rabin, Sh., 9, 6, 43 Rois de Castille, 159 race, 39, 159, 162, 232, 236-50 Roma, Immanuel da, 108-9 Racial Laws, 236 Romanelli, Shemuel, 112-13 Racine, Jean, 164-6 Romanitá, 237-8, 241-2, 246, 248-50 racism, 11, 148, 238-9, 241-3, 250 Romanization, 236, 242 Rademaker, C., 124 Rombulo, Pietro, 209 Rahab, 28-9, 42 Rome, 5-6, 12, 15, 30-40, 62-3, 65-6, Raines, D., 198 68-9, 71-3, 76-7, 92, 118, 135, 150, Randall, J. H., 44 152, 154-7, 159, 162, 195, 197, Raphelengius, Franciscus, 129-30 209, 215, 237, 239-41, 248-9 Rashi, 34, 207 Romulus, 36 Rau, V., 201 Ronsard, Pierre de, 182, 215 Rauschenbach, S., 104-5 Rooden, P. T. van, 120, 124-6, 128-9, Ravitzky, A., 7, 54 131-3, 135 Ravivarman II, Bhaskara, 204 Rosen, T., 91 Razzia dei razzisti, 239, 243 Rosenberg, W., 96, 134 Rebekah, 33 Rosenthal, J., 33-4 Reform, 116-7 Ross, J. J., 96 Reformed Church (Eglise Réformée), Rossi, P. 16 117-8, 120, 182 Roth, C., x, 161, 192 Reggio, Isaac Samuel, 96, 101, 196-7 Rowland, I., 30-31 Renaissance de Lucrèce, 230 Rubiés, J. P., 3 Renaissance, 1-6, 10, 16-17, 30, 42-3, Ruderman, D. B., 9, 33, 94, 113, 196 54-6, 59, 61-3, 67, 75-7, 80, 82-4, Ruether, R. R., 32 92-4, 122, 155, 168, 183-5, 190, 192, 210-12, 215, 226, 229-30, Sa’adyah, Rabbi, prince 207 233, 236-8, 241-3, 245-50 Sabbath, 46 Reubeni, David, 192, 195, 197 Sack, B., 171 Reuchlin, Johann, 3-5, 31, 128 Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 162 Rey, A., 218 Saitta, G., 63 rhetoric, 15, 20, 54, 72, 75, 83, 97-8, Salah, A., 112 154-5, 160, 237 Salmasius, Claudius (Saumaise), 121, Riario, Raffaele, Cardinal of San 124, 128 Giorgio, 65 Salomon (King), 18, 58-9, 213 Ribadeneira, Pedro de, 148-52 Salomon, H. P., 104 Richardson, B., 73 salon littéraire, 100 Ridolfi, R., 243, 246 Saltaro, Yehudah, 89 Rieti, Moshe ben Yitzতaq da, 6, 83, Salviati, Francesco, 15 89-92, 97, 99, 109 Sanches, Francisco,12, 161 Rigolot, F., 155 Santarém, 205 INDEX 289
Santisteban, G. de, 196 Serlio, Sebastiano, 15 Santucci, F., 109 Sermoneta, Y. B., 81 Saperstein, M., 104 Sermonetta, G., 7 Sarfati, Georges-Elia, 164 sermons, 97-8 Sarfati, Joseph, 157 Seroussi, E., 172 Sargon II of Assyria, 193 Sforno, Ovadiah, 3, 5, 39 Sarpi, P., 101 Sha‘ar ha-Hesheq, 92 Sassoferato, Bartole de, 140 Sha‘arey gan ‘eden, 89 Sassoon, I. S. D., 104 Shaarey Tzion, 172 Scaliger, Joseph, 121, 124-7, 129-30 Shalev, Z., x scepticism, 99, 123, 125, 161, 166 Shalmaneser V, 193 Schäfer, P., 30, 41 Shapira, Natan, 175 Scheindlin, R. P., 90 Shear, A., 97 Schirmann, J. H., 112 Shefer Hatikunim, 172 Schmitt, C. B., 51 Shelat, Y., 85 Scholem, G., 9, 16, 43, 170-72, 174- Shingly, 194, 202-4, 206-8 80 Shomerim Laboker, 173-4 Schotanus(Schotte), Apollonius, 125, Shoulson, J. S., 4 131 Sicroff, A. A., 149 Scripture (Saintes Ecritures), 2, 10, Siena (Sienne) 70, 72-3, 157 32, 35, 101, 120, 123, 170, 182, Siena, Abraham of, 198, 207-8 211, 219 Silíceo, Juan Martinez, 150-51 Scrivano, R., 65 Sinai, 43, 160, 173, 193 Second Temple, 204, 207 Sirat, C., 96 Secret, F., 9, 16, 28-30 Sixtus IV, 210 Seder Tikun Hatzot, 172 Skinner, Q., 56 Seder Tikun Shovavim, 172 Smith, M., 159 Sefer Behinat ha-Dat, 96 Socrates, 94 Sefer Ben David, 94 Soffici, A., 244-7, 249 Sefer ha-‘ikkarym, 88 sola scriptura, 120 Sefer ha-Bahir, 44, 47, 92 Song of Songs, 30, 39, 41, 59, 110, Sefer ha-Peliah, 196 122 Sefer ha-Qanah, 196 Sonne, I., 64 Sefer Nefutzoth Yehudah, 97 Sosio, L., 101 Sefer Tagmuley ha-Nefesh, 81 Spain, 11, 21, 63-4, 66, 72, 108-9, Sefer Yetzyrah, 92 118, 138, 140, 148-9, 152-3, 159, Sefer Yosippon, 197 162 sefira, Sefirot, 17-9, 23, 29, 40-42, Spallanzani, M., 201 173, 175-9, 196 Spanish (and Iberian) Jewry, 58, 63, Seir, 33-4 66 Selden, John, 122, 134 Spiegazione dei vocaboli difficili Sem, 223 della Guida, 7 Sennacherib, 194, Spinoza, Baruch, 105, 167 Sephardic, 63-4, 67, 76, 103, 109, Stabile, G., 14 206 Statenbijbel, 133 Septuagint, 35, 120, 124, 132 Stein Kokin, D., 6, 27, 30 290 INDEX
Stein, S., 33 tikunim, 171 Steinschneider, M., 8 Timbuctu, 199 Stevin, Simon, 127 Tiphys, 232 Stillman, N., 112 Tishby, Y., 170-72, 176, 178 Stillman, Y., 112 Titian, 15 Stinger, C. L., 1 Titus, Flavius Vespasianus, 165 Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il Toaff, A., 193, 195, 209 fascismo, 236 Toffanin, G., 246-8 strategy, 59, 102, 154, 162 Tofteh ‘arukh, 88 Suisse, 190 Tolède, 138, 150-52 Summum Bonum, 87 Tolomei, Claudio, 68, 71 Sutcliffe, A., 92 Tolomei, Lattanzio, 68 Symposium, 92 Topographie chrétienne, 218 Synopsis purioris theologiae, 124, Torah (see also Pentateuch), 43, 45, 131 50, 60, 84, 86-8, 91, 95-6, 207-8 Syriac, 132 Torat Hacham, 172 Syska-Lamparska, R., 25 Tower of David, 39 Tractato de le più meravigliose, 197 Tacitus, 117, 241 Tractatus de immortalitate animae, tallit qatan, 204 82 Talmud (Babylonian), 207 Tratado da immortalitade da alma, Talmud, 7, 30, 32, 85, 88, 109, 120, 104 128, 133-4 Trelcatius, Lucas, 121 Tamrat, T., 209 Tremellius, Immanuel, 130 Targumim, 133 Trinkaus, Ch., 1 Tartars, 193 Trinquet, R., 161 Theocritus (of Syracuse), 122, 233 Trissino, Giorgio, 72 Theodor, J., 35 Tristan, F., 9 Theologia Christiana, 189 tselem elohim, 60 Theologia platonica de immortalitate Turello, M., 14 animorum, 82 Turkish, 128 theologian/s, 3, 18, 24, 82, 95-6, 114, Tuscany, 55, 197-8 121-4, 129, 132-3 Tyard, Pontus de, 8, 62 theology, 22-3, 25, 30, 83, 93, 100, Tyrrhenians, 39 110, 118, 120-21, 124, 126, 130-1, tzizit, 178 135 Théopompe, 217-18 Ullendorff, E., 194 Thesaurus Grammaticae Hebraeae Urbino, Baruch of, 63 Linguae, 130 Utenhove, Charles, 10, 182-90 Thevet, André, 211 Thomson, D.,161 Valcke, L., 49 Thraede, K., 32 Valencia, 64 Tibullus, Albius, 122 Valera, Diego de, 139-47 Tiferet, sefira,19, 173, 179 Valla, Lorenzo, 121 Tiglath-Pileser III, 193 Valtanás, Domingo de, 11, 139, 147- Tigre, 214 51 INDEX 291
Varchi, Benedetto, 62, 73-5 Wenneker, L. B., 18-19, 21-3 Vasoli, C., 14, 22, 24, 199 Wirszubski, C., 19, 43-4, 46, 50 Vatable, François, 128 Vatican, 28, 68-9, 160, 210 Ya‘ar ha-Levanon, 89 Vega, Garcilaso de la, the Inca, 62 Yaari, A., 28 Veltri, G., 9, 97, 100 Yates, F., 16 Vérone, 157 Yerushalmi, Y. H., 11, 104 Vespucci, Amerigo, 201-2, 205 Yesod, sefira, 19, 41, 173, 179 Viglius, Zuichemus, 17 Yochai, Shimon bar, 21 Vilhegas, Diego Ortiz de, 205 Yotser Hakol Umekor Hatov, 176 Viotto, Seth, 23 Yourcenar, M., 14 Virgil, 36, 233, 240-41 Yuval, I. J., 32 Viseu, 205 Viterbo, Egidio da, 6, 19, 27-42 Zacut, Abraham, 196 Vives, Juan Luis, 124-5, 160-61 Zacuto, Moses, 5-6, 88, 94, 170-81 Volterra, Eleazar de 197-8 Zaiser, R., 164 voluntas regis, 141 Zaja, P., 14 Vossius, Gerard, 121, 124, 126, 128, Zara, Yakob (Constantine I), 209 131 Zedler, B. H., 81 Vulgate, 120, 132-3, 188, 220 Zinguer, I., 7, 9, 12, 154-5, 182 zodiac, 48, 178 Walaeus, Antonius, 124, 131 Zohar, 21-2, 24, 44, 92, 170, 172, Walker, D. P., 2, 45, 59 175-177, 179 Wansink, H., 119 Zonta, M., 94 Weil, G., 27 Zoroaster, Zoroastrian, 1, 43, 45 Weiss, R., 37 Zorzi (Giorgio), Francesco, 19, 22
292
Figure 1. Giulio Camillo, Idea del theatro, Florence, Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550. FIGURES 293
Figure 2. Interpretation of “Lucrezia”, in Giulio Camillo, Opere,Venice, Domenico Farri, 1579, p. 307. 294 FIGURES
Figure 3. The tabernacle and its vessels, the Land of Israel, Jericho as labyrinth. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 6v. FIGURES 295
Figure 4. Jericho as Labyrinth, close-up. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 6v. 296 FIGURES
Figure 5. “Fratris Aegidii Viterbiensis Liber Leonis X Munus” (“A Book of Friar Egidio da Viterbo, the gift of Leo X”). Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Or 72, fol. 7r.