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Giovanni Pico della Mirandola And The Kabbalah Translated into Latin
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Published Books
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JUST PUBLISHED !
5. The Gate of
Heaven. Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an
English Version Edited with Introduction and Notes By Susanne Jurgan and Saverio Campanini with a Text on Pico By Giulio
Busi (The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 5) 2012, 574, 191* pp.,
$ 80,00. Buy it from amazon.com Shaar ha-shamayim, the Gate of
Heaven, is an essay about the symbolism of the sefirot, which was
probably written in Italy around the end of the 14th century by an author
unknown to us. The text is mainly an assembling of ideas drawn from different
kabbalistic sources; nonetheless it has its own value, because it explains in
relatively simple language the basic relationships and concepts necessary to
understand the sefirot. In this way a reader inexperienced in the kabbalah
receives initial information about the structure of the sefirot world and the
manner in which emanation functions; in addition he has at hand a sys-tematic definition of the most common symbols of the
sefirot.mThis trilingual volume offers for the first time the critical
edition of the Hebrew text of the work together with the Latin version made
in 1486 by the convert Flavius Mithridates for the Humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and an English
translation. 4. Yosef Giqatilla,
Book on Punctuation Edited by Annett
Martini with a Foreword by Giulio Busi 2010, 546 pp., $ 80,00. Buy
it from amazon.com The Book of Punctuation was written by Yosef Giqatilla (1248 – c. 1325) in his early philosophical-kabbalistic
period. The exact date of origin of this short treatise, however, cannot be
established with certainty. The text focuses first of all on Hebrew vowels,
which are fundamental elements in Giqatilla’s
theory of creation. The author integrates the vowels in a complex system,
assigning a specific task to each of them with respect to the cosmos and to
creation, according to their respective grammatical functions. The book,
which is inspired both by medieval cosmology and by the philosophy of
Maimonides, reveals a unique concept of linguistic mysticism. 3. Menahem Recanati,
Commentary on the Daily
Prayers Edited by Giacomo Corazzol with a
Foreword by Giulio Busi 2008, 860 pp., 2 vols., $ 90,00. Buy
it from amazon.com The Commentary
on the Daily Prayers was the
last effort undertaken by Recanati at the end of
his life. In this book he pursued the interest that had also characterized
his previous work, that is to use kabbalah as a
hermeneutic device demonstrating how the measure of halakic
norms coincides with the measure of the creation itself. This identification
was aimed at restoring Judaism to its wholeness after the blows inflicted
upon it by rationalistic philosophy. In Recanati’s
hands, the liturgy and its texts become a mosaic whose single tesserae (their
words and verses), rendered opaque by everyday recital, are
given new radiance by being envisaged as mises en abîme of the mysteries connected to the sefirot and the
celestial world. Recanati’s work deeply influenced Pico’s understanding of the kabbalah,
particularly as regards the structure of the upper merkavah,
its functioning, and its influence upon the creation – a model into which
Pico tried to fit Christian theology, Neoplatonic theurgy, and other traditions as well. 2. The Book of Bahir Edited by Saverio Campanini
with a Foreword by Giulio Busi 2005, 564 pp., $ 80,00. Buy
it from amazon.com This booklet full of parables has served for centuries as a concise
mystical encyclopedia of kabbalistic lore and has attained the status of an
important source of religious inspiration. The Bahir
is a collection of apologues, often sibylline, which stage oriental kings
together with even-tempered princesses, stupid soldiers and smart
administrators, passionate lovers and adorned brides. Short theoretical
passages link the tales, and explain the invisible worlds by means of a
celestial topography or with unusual metaphors, like the one of a huge tree
able to touch the limits of the divine thought. Also the order
of the sefirot are described with rich allegories, as, for
instance, the succession of the letters of the alphabet, the relationships
among the members of a family or even as forms of sexual attraction. Notwithstanding
the presence of a few more ancient elements, it looks as if that one or more
kabbalists edited the Bahir, as we know it,
between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. The Book of Bahir was explicitly
mentioned by Count della Mirandola
in his Conclusiones published in 1486 and represents a crucial source
for understanding Pico’s thinking. In fact, there is a surprising similarity
of themes and images between the symbolical world of the Bahir
and the harmonizing philosophy of Pico. 1. The Great Parchment Edited by Giulio Busi, with Simonetta M. Bondoni and Saverio Campanini 2004, 272 pp., $ 60,00. Buy
it from amazon.com This is a text of a
few extremely dense and symbolic pages. Some marginal annotations prove that
Pico read it, perhaps with the assistance of Mithridates. The work was
probably written at the beginning of the 14th century by an author whose name
remains unknown to us. Most likely, he was an Italian kabbalist. The title Great
Parchment refers to the physical appearance of the text. In fact, it was
originally written on a large parchment scroll, together with drawings
depicting the various stages of the emanation. In other words the written
text was conceived as a commentary on the graphic representation of the sefirot,
in a structure where theoretical analysis and visual depiction were intended
as a unit. Notwithstanding the hermetic style, the Great Parchment is
a forgotten masterpiece of kabbalistic literature. All together the work
contains seventeen short tales, which offer a gallery of biblical characters
conceived as actors in a sefirotic theater, like a scene where the sefirot
wear the clothes and share the feelings of the protagonists of the
Scriptures. |
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