Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish Intellectual World of Mantua in the 16Th–17Th Centuries Studies in Jewish History and Culture
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Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish Intellectual World of Mantua in the 16th–17th Centuries Studies in Jewish History and Culture Editor-in-Chief Giuseppe Veltri Leopold-Zunz-Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Halle-Wittenberg Editorial Board Gad Freudenthal Alessandro Guetta Reimund Leicht Hanna Liss Diana Matut Ronit Meroz Judith Olszowy-Schlanger David Ruderman VOLUME 35 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/sjhc Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish Intellectual World of Mantua in the 16th–17th Centuries Edited by Giuseppe Veltri and Gianfranco Miletto LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish intellectual world of Mantua in the 16th–17th centuries / edited by Giuseppe Veltri and Gianfranco Miletto. p. cm. — (Studies in Jewish History and Culture ; v. 35) “Proceedings of an international conference, organized by the Institute of Jewish Studies at Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), and Mantua’s State Archives”—ECIP data view. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22225-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Moscato, Judah ben Joseph, ca. 1530– ca. 1593—Congresses. 2. Rabbis—Italy—Mantua—Biography—Congresses. 3. Jews—Italy— Mantua—Intellectual life—16th century—Congresses. 4. Jews—Italy—Mantua—Intellectual life—17th century—Congresses. I. Veltri, Giuseppe. II. Miletto, Gianfranco, 1960– BM755.M59R33 2012 296.092—dc23 [B] ISSN 1568-5004 ISBN 978 90 04 22225 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 22246 5 (e-book) Copyright 2012 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. CONTENTS Preface ......................................................................................... vii I. JUDAH MOSCATO. HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK 1. Judah Moscato: Biographical Data and Writings ................ 3 Gianfranco Miletto 2. Principles of Jewish Skeptical Thought. The Case of Judah Moscato and Simone Luzzatto ............................................. 15 Giuseppe Veltri 3. Moscato as Eulogizer ............................................................. 37 Marc Saperstein 4. On Kabbalah in R. Judah Moscato’s Qol Yehudah ............... 57 Moshe Idel 5. Amicitia and Hermeticism. Paratext as Key to Judah Moscato’s Nefuot Yehudah ....................................................... 79 Bernard Dov Cooperman 6. Judah Moscato, Abraham Portaleone, and Biblical Incense in Late Renaissance Mantua ................................................. 105 Andrew Berns 7. Judah Moscato’s Sources and Hebrew Printing in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Survey ............................ 121 Adam Shear vi contents II. ThE JEWISH INTELLECTUAL WORLD OF MANTUA IN 16TH–17tH CENTURIES 8. The Gonzaga Archives of Mantua and Their Rearrangements Over the Centuries, along with an Overview of Archival Materials on Mantuan Jewry .......... 145 Daniela Ferrari 9. The Levi Dynasty: Three Generations of Jewish Musicians in Sixteenth-Century Mantua ............................ 161 Don Harrán 10. Spatial Stories: Mantua and the Painted Jew ..................... 199 Dana E. Katz 11. Saladin the Crusader, the Christian Haman, and the Off-key Priest: Some Reflections on Christians and Christianity in Yiddish Literary Texts from the Italian Renaissance .......................................................................... 227 Claudia Rosenzweig 12. Some Unknown 16th-Century Documents about Abraham Yagel and a Possible Link to the Controversy about the “Holy Diana” in the Mantuan Synagogue ........ 247 Daniel Jütte 13. On Abraham’s Neck. The Editio Princeps of the Sefer Yeirah (Mantua 1562) and Its Context ....................... 253 Saverio Campanini 14. The Italian Translation of the Psalms by Judah Sommo ... 279 Alessandro Guetta 15. Savants and Scholars in Jewish Mantua: A Reassessment 299 Shlomo Simonsohn Bibliography ................................................................................ 311 Subject Index .............................................................................. 315 PREFACE The picture on the cover perfectly illustrates the content of the follow- ing volume devoted to the Mantuan preacher Rabbi Judah Moscato (1532/33–1590) and his life, thought, and cultural environment: Michelangelo’s Moses, with characteristic medieval Jewish traits, as reproduced in that handbook of Jewish tradition, the Pesa Haggadah. A glance at this Mantua edition of 1568 clearly reveals the influence of the Italian Renaissance on the traditional Jewish world: the woodcut of Rabbi Akiva is obviously inspired by Michelangelo’s Moses.1 Judah Moscato is a typical example of the Jewish intellectual who was influenced by the Italian Renaissance world. Confronted by the challenges of the new philosophical and humanistic knowledge, he did not reject it; rather, he strove to mediate between the secular culture and Jewish tradition. Even Moscato’s opponents recognized his exten- sive knowledge and the quality of his cultural and moral leadership of the Jewish Mantuan community. Because of the forced conversion of some Mantuan Jews, Moscato was imprisoned and subjected to intense psychological pressure in order to obtain his conversion as well. Yet the Carmelite fathers who argued with him for many days were finally forced to resign. They considered him “to be such a sagacious man that he alone could sustain the whole Synagogue and disturb all the Jews who intend to come to our faith.” As homo universalis, he combined in unique manner Jewish and Christian ideas, conceptions, and intel- lectual as well as scientific achievements: he was interested in natural science and Kabbalah and bridged the gap between Jewish tradition and the secular world. However, Moscato is not an exception. During the Renaissance period, Mantua was one of the most important, prosperous, and lively centers of Jewish culture. Eminent and influential scholars such as Azariah de’ Rossi, Moshe and Abraham Provenzali, Abraham Col- orni, Joseph Colon, Mordecai Finzi, and Salomone de’ Rossi lived and 1 See Julius von Schlosser, “Der Bilderschmuck der Haggadah,” in Die Haggadah von Sarajevo. Eine spanisch-jüdische Bilderhandschrift des Mittelalters, ed. David Heinrich Müller and Julius von Schlosser (Vienna: Hölder, 1898), 225. viii preface worked in Mantua. The importance of Mantua as a city of literacy, printed materials, and publishing houses was exceeded at that time only by Venice. So, for instance, the Nofet ufim by Judah Messer Leon (1474/76) and the first edition of the Zohar (1558–60) were produced by the Mantua printing house of Abraham Conat. In this stimulating cultural environment, Moscato could develop his literary creativity. Besides his two printed major works, the ample commentary on Judah Halevi’s Sefer ha-Kuzari, called Qol Yehudah, “The voice of Yehudah”,2 and the sermon collection Nefuot Yehudah (“The Dispersed of Judah”),3 Judah Moscato was the author of several responsa, son- nets, and liturgical poems that are still unpublished. His writings display his profound moral commitment and reveal his eclectic schol- arship and wide knowledge of rabbinical and classical authors. Espe- cially in the history of Jewish preaching, Judah Moscato occupies a unique position and he can be regarded “as the father of the modern Jewish Sermon.”4 His Sermons clearly reveal and in a sense anticipate a Baroque taste for the dialectic method of Jewish exegesis. Moscato raised Jewish homiletics to a new rhetorical level. He treated theologi- cal and philosophical subjects with elaborate metaphorical concepts that make his language fascinating, yet at the same time also diffi- cult even for a Baroque reader. In a letter to his teacher, R. Samuel Archivolti, Leone Modena compared the style of his own sermons with those of Moscato: “The sermon [i.e., Modena’s] is amplified through associations made in accordance with the art of rhetoric. I have not seen any printed sermons that follow this path. The language also is intermediate between the language of [ Judah] Moscato, of blessed memory, which is so highly polished and stylized that many do not like it, and the language of most of the Levantine and Ashkenazic rabbis, which is much simpler.”5 Particularly in his sermons, Moscato expressed his moral commit- ment not only to inquiry and truth, but also to teaching them to oth- ers. As a preacher, Moscato performed a mediating function between tradition and innovation, mixing and combining every source of his 2 Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1594. 3 Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1589. 4 See Israel Bettan, Studies in Jewish Preaching (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1939. Reprint, Lanham: University Press of America, 1987), 194. 5 Quoted from Marc Saperstein, Jewish Preaching: 1200–1800 an Anthology (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1989), 412. preface ix sermons, from the rabbinic to classical and contemporary