Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance Brill’S Series in Jewish Studies
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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 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. V 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