ENTERING the LABYRINTH: on the HEBRAIC and KABBALISTIC UNIVERSE of EGIDIO DA VITERBO Daniel Stein Kokin
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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). .