The translation and its colophon are worth examining, for what they do with Llull's ideas. According to Harvey Hames, in a series of articles, it isn't just a translation but an adaptation to the ecstatic Kabbalah. Not only that, but there is reason for thinking that it was done with the participation of Alemanno or Mithradites, two of the collaborators of Pico later, and others who, like Alemanno, had a probable relationship to French-descended Jews in Mantua.
The 1474 Hebrew manuscript version of Lull's "Ars Brevis" has been the subject of several articles by Harvey Hames, a professor at Ben Gurion University. The first, 1999, is: "Jewish Magic with a Christian Text: a Hebrew Translation of Ramon Llull's 'Ars Brevis'" Traditio, Vol. 54, 1999, pp. 283-300, available on JSTOR. There are also two later articles. One is in Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries, ed. Claire Fanger, 2012, starting on p. 294, at https://books.google.com/books?id=TlJU0 ... ia&f=false. The other is in Latin into Hebrew: Texts and Studies, Vol. 2, ed, Resianne Fontaine and Gad Freudenthal, 2013, starting on p. 136. Part of this article is online, at https://books.google.com/books?id=HQYSB ... is&f=false. Since the relevant parts of the last two are online for anyone, I will focus on his earlier article and supplement it as necessary.
According to Hames, the Latin manuscript used is of the same "stemma" (manuscript family) as that of numerous manuscripts in 15th century Padua (1999, p. 287), although the exact Latin manuscript used is no longer extant (2012, p. 298). That the Latin version of the manuscript was in Padua is also indicated by its flyleaf; it had been acquired by a "Matthew de Regusa" and then sold to a "Brother Johannes de Ulma in Germany". A "friar" by the first name was presented for his master's degree at Padua in 1430, and a Dominican by the second name received a doctorate there in 1444.
Then Alemanno enters the story, at least theoretically; I will let Hames tell his reconstruction of events (1999, p. 287f). I include his footnotes, except for some of the more generic citations (to whole articles rather than specific pages), to make the reading flow better; these can be found in JSTOR's online copy.
Hames' placing of Alemanno in Florence in 1455-56 is a shrewd move: those years are between the 3rd and 4th periods of 7 years each; so one does not have to decide in which 7 year period he was in Florence. This is the time period that I have hypothesized Alemanno would have gotten his introduction to Platonism. Since my earlier post, I have found some additional evidence for this hypothesis, in David Ruderman's The World of a Renaissance Jew, 1981, p. 51. He notes that in 1454-55 Judah Messer LeonIt would seem that this manuscript changed ownership a number of times in Padua and likely came into the hands of the celebrated Jewish Renaissance scholar, Johanan Alemanno (1435-1503/4), while he was in that town. 20 Alemanno was a nomadic scholar of a Neoplatonic bent who is best known as one [288] of Pico della Mirandola's teachers in Jewish matters (along with Elijah del Medigo and the convert Flavius Mithridates). 21 While there is very little biographical information about his early years, it is possible to place Alemanno in Florence in 1455-56, whence he returned again in 1488 and where he remained at least till 1494, the year of Pico's death, and perhaps even until 1497. 22 Alemanno also spent seven years in Padua studying medicine, among other things, and was awarded his doctoral degree there by Judah Messer Leon in 1470. 23 Alemanno, whose writings indicate his broad intellectual interests and syncretism, would have found much to interest him beyond the study of medicine in Padua. His notebook, which consists of materials he copied, translated, and commented on over a thirty-year period, deals with a variety of subjects, such as moral and political philosophy, Kabbalah, and magic.24 It is the conception of the potentiality of man to ascend to and descend from the divine via nature or creation that probably attracted Alemanno and other Jewish thinkers to Llull in general and to the Ars brevis in particular.25
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20. This supposition is supported by the fact that the Hebrew translation follows the Latin of the manuscripts in this stemma, and this manuscript is the only one of this group that has figures (like the Hebrew manuscript) and can be placed in Padua. The Aristotelian works would also have been of great interest for Alemanno, who in his study curriculum recommends broad study of Aristotle. Even if Alemanno did not see the manuscript in Padua, the colophon of the Hebrew translation demonstrates his importance for the group of scholars studying the Ars brevis. For an analysis of the manuscript tradition of the Ars brevis, see Raimundi Lull Opera Latina 12, 176-77. See also M. Idel, "The Study Curriculum of Johanan Alemanno" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 48 (1979): 304-12.
21. [generic bibliography, followed by:] Alemanno was proud of his connections with Pico and that their names were so similar. In the introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, Alemanno wrote: "my master Count Johanni della Mirandola, my name is like his, Yohanan . .. named Ashkenazi in Hebrew and Aleman in Latin." See J. Perles, "Les savants juifs a Florence a l'Epoque de Laurent de Medicis," Revue des etudes juives 12 (1886): 255-56.
22. [generic bibliography about Alemanno]
23. [generic bibliography and background on Judah Messer Leon and del Medigo, none of it I haven't already said, except for assertions that del Medigo actually taught at the University, although not on the faculty, and that JMD was "connected" with the university. He cites articles by Geffen, Ruderman, and Carpi]
24. See his Collectaneae, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library 2234 (Reggio 23).
25. Alemanno knew and studied the Hebrew version of Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi's Katab al Hada'iq (Book of the Imaginary Circles) in which the concept of a ladder (an allegory for the Universal Soul) for ascending from earth to the Agent Intellect appears. Alemanno's adaptation of this motif in his 'Einei ha- 'Edah, a commentary on Genesis, influenced Pico della Mirandola's formulation of the ladder used for ascent and descent in his Oratio. See M. Idel, "The Ladder of Ascension: The Reverberations of a Medieval Motif in the Renaissance," in I. Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1984) 2:83-88.
That Alemamno spent 7 years in Padua, ending in 1470, is also a good guess on Hames' part. Several scholars have said that his teacher, Judah Messer Leon, had come to Padua by the mid-1460s (Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds p. 29 and p. 251, n. 87, citing Carpi and Bonfil); also, it fits Alemanno's conception of life as divided into periods of 7 years, as well as what he puts in this fourth period for subject-matter: Jewish theology, specifically includng Kabbalist works such as Abulafia (Tirosh-Rothschild p. 37).accused the kabbalists of his generation, in a letter to the Jewish commuity of Florence, of myultiplying God's name and mixing their mystical inquiries with Platonic elements. 75 Scholem mentioned that the date of the letter was about 1490; yet Simbah Assaf had already dated this letter with others sent to Florence between 1454 and 1455, during the heat of the controversy of Messer Leon over the Torah commentary of Gersonides. Because of this early date, it seems unlikely that Messer Leon would have referred to Pico or any manifestation of Christian Kabbalah in Florence. 76
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75. Scholem, "Zur Geschichte [den Anfaenge der christlichen Kabbala," in Essays Presented to Leo Baeck," London, 1935], pp. 191-92. Scholem's source is a letter sent by Messer Leon to the Lewish community of Florence, published from a Jerusalem manuscript by S. Assaf, "From the Hidden Treasures of the Library in Jerusalem" (Hebrew), in Minhah le-David, Kovez Ma'amarim by Hokhmat Yesrael...R.David Yellin (Jerusalem, 1935), p. 227. The passage reads: {Hebrew text follows, omitted here].
76. Assaf, "From the Hidden Treasures," p. 224.
Regarding the idea in footnote 25 in the quote from Hames, that Alemanno's conception of the ladder influenced Pico's formulation in his Oratio, I would observe that the Oration was written in late 1486 or early 1487, a year before Pico says he exchanged ideas with Alemanno. If Alemanno was Pico's teacher on this point, they must have known each other, or some mutual acquaintance, before then. This is a problem that Hames addresses, as we shall see. I would also note that Alemanno, as quoted in footnote 21, calls Pico "my master"; does that mean only "employer", or also "teacher"? You will recall that Pico's nephew thought it was the other way around, that Alemanno was Pico's master. No doubt there was much interchange of ideas. Without getting into the arguments, however, let me just say that the consensus--that is, all the scholars who have written on this, including Idel--is that mainly Alemanno was the teacher, Pico the student. Pico touches the surface of which Alemanno explores more deeply and with reference to long Jewish tradition.
THE COLOPHON TO THE HEBREW TRANSLATION OF "ARS BREVIS"
The Colophon--the part added at the end of a manuscript to tell the circumstances of its production--has what appears to be four paragraphs; either that or Hames has made these divisions for readability. It is of considerable interest (pp. 289-290 of 1999 article), However Hanes has presented a slightly different translation in each article. What I am going to do is, paragraph by paragraph, present Hames' first version and then the later changes, I will highlight the parts changed and my additions indicating what they were changed to:
First, a certain "Raimundus [the] Christian", or just "Raimondus", gives thanks for having finished the work in the month of Ab, 5234, i.e. August 1474, in the town of Sanigalia. Second, he describes his labor in terms of biblical quotes, about an ascent to the highest of 13 peaks (the 13 chapters of and the difficulties encountered in doing so: brambles, bottomless holes, fortified rocks, etc. Third, with "ladder of ascent" language and a Hebrew date equivalent to November, 1474, in the same town, on the Adriatic Sea, the document is signed by the copyist, Pinhas Tzvi, son of Nethanel Macon or Vaison. And fourth, another copyist, at the right side of Maestro Pinhas, also in Senigallia, signs himself; the Hebrew date is equal to May 1476; this copyist is Joseph son of Nehemia Poah or Foah.To thank, praise, and honor the blessed and exalted Lord who has helped me to finish this famous wisdom. Raimundus [the] Christian completed (hishlim) this book in the town of Senigallia in the month of Ab, in the year 5234 [July-Aug. 1474].
[My note: Hames 2012, p. 299, and 2013, p. 138. omit "[the] Christian" in the above.]
This time as well, I will give thanks to God who held my right hand, and who aided me with his support, and in his benevolence made me successful, and who helped me with his aid and support to ascend Hor ha-Har (Num. 20:23-29, Deut. 32:50), mountain upon mountain, until attaining the peak of thirteen mountains. And in them I found very sharp brambles (Prov. 24:31), thorns (Song of Sol. 2:2), and briars (Judg. 8:7, 17), and holes, pits, and caves and deep wells down to the bottomless hell (Deut. 32:22). And fortified hewn rocks going above the vault (firmament) of heaven (rakia ha-shamayim - Gen. 1:14, 15, 17, 20, perhaps also [290] Ezek. 1:22, 23) and beyond to the tower until ezer. I will thank and bow down [to Him] who led me through all this and I arrived at the fruit of my labor, I took the trouble and I found [Him].
[My note: Hames 2012 and 2013 have "and beyond to the strong tower (migdal oz)" replacing the "until ezer" after "tower" with "strong" before.]
And I completed the copying of this work - short in quantity but great in quality - today, Friday, of the weekly portion "and behold a ladder positioned on the ground and its top reaches to the heavens" (Gen. 28:12), 8 of Kislev in the year 5235 [28 November 1474], a full hundred years after its composition. And I was on the shores of the Adriatic Sea in the town of Senigallia which is on the River Miola [Misa]. Signed by the youngest of the disciples of the French doctors, Pinhas Tzvi, son of Nethanel Macon called Abin Abinu ibn Tura Hafetz Hazak. 27
[My note: 2012 and 2013 have "Nethanel Vaison". 2013 has as a footnote: "probably Vaison-la-Romaine in the Comtat Venaissin. 2013 has "Abin Abat" instead of "Abin Abinu".]
I copied this book of Raimundus at the side of my teacher, the scholar, guide for the perplexed, Maestro Pinhas the doctor, may God protect and preserve him, here in Senigallia in the month of Iyar, in the year 5236 [7-12 May 1476], the weekly portion "for it is a day of atonement" (Lev. 23:28). May the Lord blessed be He in His mercy give me and my seed to the end of days the merit to study it. In strength, the copyist Joseph, the son of Nehemiah Poah of blessed memory. 28
[My note: Hames 2012 and 2013 have "Nehemiah Foah"; a note in Hames 2013 says "Foah probably indicates a southern French origin in the town of Foix.']
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27. These words seem to indicate another name for Pinhas or his father Nethanel.
28. MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mie 2312, fols. 41r-v.
So Joseph copied from Pinhas, who copied from somebody else, perhaps the translator himself.
First I want to discuss the significance of the descriptions the two copyists give to themselves. The second copyist's family seems to be from a French-speaking area. Foix is just north of the Pyrenees and formerly very much part of the troubadour culture that linked this region with Catalonia and Aragon to the south.
Pinhas is the son of Nethanel Macon or Vaison. If it is "Macon", that is a city in Bourgogne near Lyon. If "Vaison", that is in Provence about 50 km. north and east of Avignon, a place the family could reasonably have stayed for a generation. So we have another family originating in French speaking territory. This is also where Alemanno said he came from.
Pinhas seems to confirm his French connection by calling himself "the youngest of the disciples of the French doctors". The word "ha-Tzarfatim" means "French". But according to Hames the word also has more particular associations. Hames links the term with one family in particular, which was numerous in Mantua (p. 292):
I wish Hames had said more about the "use made of the Ars brevis by these scholars". Which scholars? And what use? The part about the connection between Trabot and Trevoux, however, is interesting. Trevoux is where the Jewish silk industry was relocated after Jews were expelled from Lyons (see an earlier post here). It is also close to Germany. In 1394 the Jews were expelled from Trevoux and elsewhere in France. They might have followed a kind of "silk road" toward where silk had been grown, to Provence (e.g., Savoy and then Northern Italy. Savoy or Provence could well be the country with a different language where Alemanno said he moved from to Florence. Once in Italy, silk would not be as important a factor in choosing where to live in comparison to where one could expect good treatment from the authorities. Mantua was hospitable. However we do know that Jews were involved in silk production in Mantua. Online, the Jewish Virtual Library says (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... 14921.html):Pinhas refers to himself as the "youngest of the disciples of the French [ha Tzarfatim] doctors." This appellation "ha-Tzarfatim" was one used by the Trabot family. There is some debate as to the origin of this family, but the consensus of opinion is that the name derives from the Latin Trevoltium or Trevoux, situated in the Bourgogne. When the family arrived in Italy, they referred to themselves as being "from Trabot" - de-Trabot - and that became Trabot, Traboto, or Trabotti. 37 The most famous member of the family during this century was without doubt Rabbi Joseph ben Solomon Colon (ca. 1420-1480), more commonly referred to as "Maharik." His father is often referred to as Solomon Trabot, even though Joseph and his descendants seemed to have used the surname Colon, perhaps the name of a place, or derived from colombe, meaning dove. He was a well-known Rabbi in Mantua who received requests for Halachic decisions from all over Italy and further afield. Based on Gedaliah ibn Yahya's Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah, earlier scholarship claimed that Joseph disputed with Judah Messer Leon in Mantua, which led to their being expelled from the town by the Duke. 38 However, Gedaliah was writing some hundred years after the event, and no trace of this dispute is to be found in other sources. Indeed, in Joseph Colon's Responsa, as collected by his disciples, the former is found to cite Judah Messer Leon and his rulings approvingly. 39 [293] Pinhas's father was Nathanel ben Levi, who was Joseph Colon's brother-in-law and disciple. It is likely that Pinhas also studied with his uncle. 40 Given the relations between Joseph Colon and Judah Messer Leon in Mantua, and Alemanno's presence there after 1470, it is reasonable to assume that they knew of one another. Indeed, in his Heshek Shlomo, Alemanno speaks highly of Joseph Colon. 41 Thus, it is likely that Pinhas made Alemanno's acquaintance in Mantua, and evidence of his great influence can be seen from the use made of the Ars brevis by these scholars.
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37. See Gross, Gallia Judaica (Amsterdam, 1969), 219-20 and J. Green, "The Trabot Family" (in Hebrew), Sinai 79 (1977): 147-63. It is likely that the family left France during the fourteenth century (along with many other Jews as the expulsions became more frequent), making their way to Savoy and from there into Italy.
38. Gedaliah ibn Yahya, Sefer Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Amsterdam, 1697), fol. 49.
39. Rabbi Joseph Colon, Responsa (Venice, 1579) and see also A. D. Pines, ed., New Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon (Jerusalem, 1970). On the supposed disagreements between Joseph and Messer Leon, see H. Rabinowicz, "Rabbi Colon and Messer Leon," Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955): 166-70. Joseph Colon was also in correspondence with Elijah del Medigo, see his Responsa, nos. 54, 77.
40. See MS Oxford Bodleian 2218, fol. 210v: "By Nethanel, the son of Levi, a disciple of Rabbi Colon."
41. See Johanan Alemanno, Sha'ar ha-Heshek (in fact Heshek Shelomo) (Livorno, 1790), fol. 7.
I read in some source recently that Judah Messer Leon himself was a member of a family involved in the silk trade, I think even silk production; but I cannot at the moment locate the reference.MANUELE DA NORCIA moved from Rimini to Mantua in 1428 and obtained permission to open a loan bank (condotta). LEONE DE NURSIA and others were authorized in 1482 to trade in wool and silk cloths.
In 2013 (p. 140) Hames has another connection between Pinhas and the Trabot family. This is through the odd Hebrew name that Pinhas says is another name for his father, Abin Abinu ibn Tura Hafetz Hazak. Hames observes that "when the order of the letters of 'ibn Tura' are changed, one gets "en Trabo" which might refer to the family surname Trabot".
Now I will turn to the translator, probably the person referred to as "Raimundus", who may or may not have "Christian" after that name. (If that word is actually there, I surmise it is to make clear that the translator, unlike the copyists, was not a Jew.) Hames points out that the beginning of the colophon corresponds in many ways to the colophon of Llull's Latin text. Here is an English translation of the Latin, from Selected Works of Ramon Llull, vol. 1, ed. and trans. by Anthony Bonner, p. 646, with the translator's notes:
If you compare this to the beginning of the Hebrew Colophon (repeated below), you will see what Hames is talking about:THE END OF THIS ART
To the honor and praise of God and for the public good Raymond finished this book in the monastery of Saint Dominic (1) of Pisa in the month of January of the year 1307 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Amen.
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1. The oldest MSS of works written by Llull at Pisa in 1307-8 refer to the Cisterian monastery of San Donnino, for which "Saint Dominic" might well be an error (a lectio facilior) introduced by a few later scribes and copied by the rest. Cf. Hillg. p. 99 and no. 204; for a contrary opinion see M. Batllori in OE i, 52, n. 153.
2. January 1308 by our reckoning.
"Famous wisdom" has been added, to indicate the recognition that the work has received, and the place is now Senigallia rther than Pisa, in 1474 rather than 1308, So probably the "Raimundus" in the Hebrew version is not Raymon Llull, but the current translator. Hames proposes (1999, p. 291):To thank, praise, and honor the blessed and exalted Lord who has helped me to finish this famous wisdom. Raimundus [Christian?] completed (hishlim) this book in the town of Senigallia in the month of Ab, in the year 5234 [July-Aug. 1474].
However in 2012 and 2013 Hames does not make this suggestion, preferring to say that "the identity of the translator remains a mystery" (213, p. 140). He still rejects the suggestion that Pinhas might have been the translator, even though Pinhas did do translations from Latin to Hebrew (2012, p. 309, note 24), because "had he been the translator, he would surely have stated it clearly" as he did elsewhere (213, p. 140).It is not inconceivable that the translator Raimundus, who adds "the Christian" to his name, was the famous Flavius Guillelmus Raimundus Mithridates who on Good Friday, 1481 preached before the pope and the cardinals in the Vatican. 30 Mithridates was the son of a rabbi, Nissim Abu I-Faraj of Girgenti (Agrigento in Sicily), and he probably converted as a young man in or around 1470. 31 He was ordained priest, studied in Naples, and received various benefices from popes and kings. 32
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30. See C. Wirszubski, ed., Flavius Mithridates, Sermo de Passione Domini (Jerusalem, 1963).
31. This dating is based on a diary entry from 1481 claiming that Mithridates had been baptized some fourteen years earlier. See S. Simonsohn, "Some Well-Known Jewish Converts during the Renaissance,"Revue des etudes juives 148 (1989): 21, 9.
32. He received a benefice from Pope Sixtus IV in 1474 and another from John II of Aragon in 1475, as well as being the beneficiary of a number of prebends from different churches. See S. Simonsohn, "Some Well-Known Jewish Converts during the Renaissance," 21-25.
To me the colophon is quite clear on one point: the Raymundus who "completed this book" is the one in Senigallia in 1474, not the original Latin writer. We just don't know who this "Raymundus" was. Mithridates is one idea. I don't know why Hames rejected it in 2012. Perhaps Mithridates' apostate status makes him an unlikely collaborator with practicing Jews and rabbis, I don't know. Also, neither the Colophon nor, as Hames says in 2013, the body of the work shows any sign of Christianizing. But it wouldn't, if he was working with Jews to produce a Jewish project.
If Alemanno had the Latin version, and Mithridates translated it into Hebrew, they might have known each other, and the mystery of why Pico's work, based on Mithridates' translations, and Allemano's are so similar would be closer to a solution: some of what came out later might have been worked out, along with the Jewish sources, between Mithridates and Alemmano before either of them knew Pico. There would be good reason later for both to keep this a secret; it would not look good for either of them if an apostate Jew had extensive contacts with a Platonistically inclined rabbi.
Regardless of Mithridates' role, it is possible that Pico met Alemanno around the same time he met del Medigo, i.e. 1480. I would expect Alemanno and del Medigo to have known each other. Del Medigo was interested in Averroes. Alemanno had studied Averroes with Judah Messer Leon ten years before; and Leon was probably recognized as a teacher of Averroist texts.
Another point in favor of Alemanno's involvement that Hames (1999) raises is that Alemanno said, in 1488, that he first thought of writing about the Song of Songs 20 years earlier, but then set it aside. Why 1468? That would have been about the time he probably first read the Ars Brevis.
Against Alemanno's involvement, however, is that he was for many years a student of Judah Messer Leon, and later probably a teacher in Leon's yeshiva. Leon had been a foe of Kabbalah for many years, at least since 1455, and according to his son forbade him from studying it, so that the son could not tell his father about his high regrd for those writings.
However I am not convinced that there was not a break between teacher (Judah Messer Leon) and student (Alemanno) at some point, perhaps even by 1474. First, there is the story of the quarrel between Judah Messer Leon and Joseph Colon, of the Trabot family. The story must have originated from something; it was not likely simply made up a century later. The support Judah Messer Leon gave Joseph Colon for his legal decisions does not prove that there was no quarrel. There are other reasons to quarrel besides legal matters. In 1455, it is documented that Joseph Colon and Judah Messer Leon were on opposite sides in a dispute about the extent of Leon's authority in trying to ban the reading of Gersonides (Tirosh-Rothschild p. 23); Colon among others thought that Leon had overstepped his authority; so probably he thought reading Gersonides was permissible. I think it likely that Colon supported reading Kabbalist writings. That is reason enough for a quarrel, and for Alemanno to perhaps seek other employment.
Second, in 1474 Leon accused a Spanish-born teacher in his Mantua yeshiva of using philosophy to spread heresy (Tirosh-Rothschild p. 30); Rabinowitz, p. xxxii ff of the introduction to his transltion of Judah Messer Leon's Book of the Honeycomb's Flow, prints letters that Leon wrote in 1474 to the Jewish communities of Bologna and Florence defending himself after the teacher made accusations against him.
The business with the Spaniard might have helped Alemanno decide to withdraw before he was accused of something himself. It seems fairly clear to me that Alemanno parted ways with Leon at some point before 1480, because if he hadn't, he would have gone with the yeshiva to Naples, where Leon took it after Mantua. If so, we would most likely have heard about him there, if not in his own writings then from Judah Messer Leon's son David, who grew up there and then went to visit the da Pisas in Florence during the time Alemanno was staying there. David, whose works written after 1497 are mostly preserved, said he started reading Kabbalah, against his father's orders, at the time he left home, i.e. after 1489. (The reason the works after 1497 are preserved is that he published them in the Ottoman Empire; in contrast, we only know his works published in Italy from allusions to them elsewhere.)
The long second paragraph of the Hebrew colophon is strongly suggestive of a Kabbalist orientation. It speaks of an ascent to 13 peaks, which are the 13 chapters of the Ars Brevis. But the one peak named Hor ha-Har is what is most suggestive, Hames 2012 says that this is the mountain "on whose peak,according to the Torah and the later interpretation by the Rabbis, Aaron died by the kiss of God" (2013, p. 141).This "kiss" was an important part of Alemanno's thought, Hames says. It was a kiss of unification with God, one of two "kisses" experienced by Aaron--and Moses and Miriam, too--one in life and another at death.
Then there is the language used in this part: it uses sefirotic language, of a type used by Alemanno as well,.to describe the yearning for unification with God. Hames says (1999, p. 294).
In 2012 and 2013 Hames says that the "tower" is not Yesod but Tiferet, and that the word he read as "ezer" is actually "oz", meaning "strong." How do we know which sefira is the "tower"? It seems to me that the tower might be the line from one to the other, perhaps even going further up. In his 2013 discussion of this point, Hames simply interprets this passage as being about the ascent through the sefirot. That seems uncontroversial enough.The use of sefirotic imagery to describe the ascent beyond the "vault of heaven" - rakia ha-shamayim - which is ascribed to the tenth sefirah, Malchut), via the "tower" - migdal (which is a common reference to the ninth sefirah, Yesod), to ezer (which possibly refers to the sixth sefirah, Tiferet), also points toward that desire.44
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44. Alemanno referred to the tenth sefirah, Malchut, as The Gate of Heaven (sha'ar ha-sha mayim), and it would stand to reason that ezer refers to the sixth sefirah, Tiferet, as the peak attained through death by divine kiss. On Yesod being referred to as a "tower," see M. Idel, "Jerusalem in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Thought" (in Hebrew), in The History of Jerusalem: Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099-1250), ed. J. Prawer and H. Ben Shammai (Jerusalem, 1991), 274-75. Idel, in the aforementioned article, shows how the connection between the temple and Jerusalem are used as sexual symbols to express the intimate relations among the three sefirot Tiferet, Yesod, and Malchut.
There remains the possibility that the word he now reads as "oz" might really have been "ezer". In that case, it seems to me there could have been an association with the sefira Binah. According to Lesley in "Jewish Adaptation of Humanist Concepts" (In Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, 1992, on p. 51) the Hebrew word "ezer" means "helpmate" and is a term applied to Eve in Genesis. If so, "ezer" would probably not be a reference to the masculine Tiferet, but rather to a feminine-imaged sefira such as Hochma (Wisdom, the helpmate of Yahweh in Proverbs and Wisdom of Solomon) or Binah. Since Moses was said to have ascended to Binah, and been the only one to ascend so high, probably that is the sefira meant. All this is generic Kabbalah, with no particular link to Alemanno.
"Ezer", or "azar", is also, in Eleazar's commentary, a word for the golem, the Kabbalist's helpmate (http://emol.org/kabbalah/seferyetzirah/ ... eazar.html). But I see no reason to think that the colophon is assigning any golems to the region "above the vault of heaven".
It is of interest that while the second paragraph of the colophon speaks of an ascent "above the vault of heaven", the third paragraph, which begins by saying he is the copyist and ends with the writer identifying himself as Pinhas, only says "I ... behold a ladder positioned on the ground and its top reaches to the heavens". It makes no claim to have ascended, not even to the heavens, much less above it. Hames assumes that both paragraphs, the one about the ascent above the vault and the one about beholding the ladder, were written by Pinhas. It seems to me that the first was probably written by the translator, since it speaks of the great struggles he was engaged in.
Finally, there is the location of the translation and the making of its copies, Senigallia, just north of Ancona but part of its March. Italy Jewish Travel Guide says of it (p. 166):
Judah Messer Leon, it will be recalled, had a yeshiva in Ancona in the 1450s. Perhaps he came again in the 1470s, or used his connections to get his student a job there. If Alemanno was there with Mithridates, that would explain the close match-up between Pico's views and Allemano's: Allemano instructs Mithridates; and then Alemanmo and Mithridates instruct Pico. (Pico, however, only speaks of one "kiss" in his ["Cabalist Conclusions Confirming the Christian Religion"; Alemanno's thought, at least by the 1490s, is more evolved.)Great fairs and markets were held in this city during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Jews were active as moneylenders.
An association to Mithridates as early as 1474 would account for the unusually large number of manuscripts that he completed for Pico. Farmer, p. 344f, says it amounts to 5500 folio pages of text, supposedly all in 6 months, May to December, 1486. Since Pico he only got the Recanati manuscript in May of 1486 (from del Medigo), his main source in the work published in December of that year, Mithradites must have been busy explaining Recanati to Pico. Even allowing for an extra year, 1487, there is not enough time for Mithradites to do all that. He, and maybe others, might have been working on it a while, on commission from somebody.
Why would either Alemanno or Mithradites be interested in translating the Ars Brevis? After all, both knew Latin. For Mithridates, if the work is indeed an adaptation to Christianity of a Jewish methodology for union with the divine, the work would be of interest in virtue of its potential for converting Jews to Christianity. It was well known that Llull had conversion as a major objective for all he did, especially but not only the Arabs at whose hands he allegedly died a martyr. Conversion was also a motive for Pico, who argues that Kabbalah implies not only Christianity, but the precise form it takes in the Catholic Church.
Allemano would not have had that motive. Allemano, who remained faithful to Judaism, did not believe that Kabbalah leads to Christianity, or much of anything Pico said in his "Cabalistic Conclusions Confirming the Christian Religion". He explicitly rejects the idea that God would become material. Here is a quote from Alemanno's Song of Solomon's Ascents (I find it in Lesley's "The Place of the Diologhi d'Amore in Contemporaneous Jewish Thought", on p. 183 in Ruderman Volume):
The good for man is not to become absolutely separated from matter, but this way to a degree, and the good for God is not--God forbid!--that He become material, but only that His overflow become attached to matter in an attachment that perfects the flaws in everything outside Him.
However there remains the goal stated in the colophon, to ascend the ladder to Malkut and beyond, helped by the divine energy that comes down to our world. That was Abulafia's goal and Allemano's as well. Llull's combining of letters may not have been much like Abulafia's (his were those of the Sefer Yetzirah, not of Llull's 54 word chart, with the goal of ecstatic union, not of a conclusion reached by rational argument), but at least one goal, knowledge about divine matters, was similar.
So what I get from the colophon is that the project of translating Llull was undertaken by Jews with an interest in the Kabbalah of ascent to the realm of the sefirot, an interest articulated by Alemanno and Pico later. The translator was probably named Raimundus, perhaps the same as Pico's translator Mithridates. The copyists are of Jewish families or masters of French descent, like Alemanno, and like him probably connected to the city of Mantua. The location, quite a distance from Mantua, is explained first as an area where Alemanno's teacher had worked in the 1450s, but also as a place away from where this same teacher was in 1474. It is a project of which the teacher probably would not have been in favor.
THE HEBREW "ARS BREVIS"
At the beginning of the work proper (as opposed to the colophon), in the Hebrew as in the Latin, Hames gives the Hebrew terms, their English equivalents, and Llull's Latin (Hames 2013, https://books.google.com/books?id=HQYSB ... is&f=false, pp. 146-147). There are minor differences only. Of most signficance, I think, is that it includes a transliteration into Hebrew characters of the Latin words and that these transcriptions are in a different handwriting than the rest. Hames says (2013 p. 149):
But at least they made a special effort to get the terms right. Also, the Latin is there in a form that Hebrew readers could vocalize.Looking closely at the Hebrew manuscript, it seems that the Latin terms transcribed in Hebrew letters were added by a different hand, possibly that of the copyist Pinhas Tzvi, indicating that this manuscript was read and studied and probably compared again with the original Latin. This did not do away with all the mistakes as this table shows.
Then the text presents the nine "subjects", the terms that correspond to the hierarchy of being in Llull, from instruments to God. Hames says that their presentations in the two works are significantly different. Here I can only summarize. Llull (1) speaks of the subjects as "clothing the intellect", but without the mystical-magical implications that the translator has added (p, 155f). Then in the next paragraph (2):
(3) When it comes to angels, the Latin talks about the goodness of angels and of God as separate from each other. The Hebrew, if read with Abulafia in mind, seems to talk about the experience of being at one with the angels, and in particular with the highest of them, Metatron (p. 156f). Then later, (4), where the Latin says that God can be "discussed" through the principles and the art, the Hebrew says that even though he is unknowable, he can be "known" through the principles (p. 157). And (5) the Hebrew describes God as "a being outside of which nothing exists", whereas the Latin has "the being who needs nothing outside himself"; in other words, the Hebrew "has an element of panentheism". In short, the Hebrew attempts to fit Llull's work into a mystical-magical Kabbalist framework.The Latin is more mechanical in dealing with how the intellect of the Artist is trained to do the Art, while the Hebrew text appears to lean more to the mystical talk about running and drawing the intellect to the essences (meaning the subjects), the first of which is God.
If we go back and put Llull's Latin words in such a context, we can see what happens to the "ars combinatoria". It becomes part of an ecstatic experience, not just a way of pursuing reasoning given certain basic concepts. As such, it is a form of prophecy. The line between "practical" and "theoretical" Kabbalah is continually crossed; the latter is a means to the former and vice versa (just as it will be later in the natural science of a Galileo or Newton).
As a result, what is a hierarchy of being is on the one hand a classification system of all that is and all that can be (and therefore of all that must be, that which cannot not be), and also a road to new knowledge, both of the heights and of what can be seen only from the heights (e.g. the future). This Hebrew document, Llull made Kabbalistic, is therefore the first step in a new direction, taken further by Pico and others.
LLULL AFTER PICO
By the early 16th century, as Umberto Eco tells us (From the Tree to the Labyrinth, 2014, p. 414f), there is a new Llullian work, explicitly Kabbalisic:
Garzoni mentions it in his Universal plaza of all the professions of the world, 1585, with some skepticism as to its author: "this is the way lies are composed beyond the alps", Eco quotes Garzoni as saying (p. 415). Mainardi seems to have been quite Italian. I do not know the content of the work.De auditu kabbalistico appears under his name. Thorndike (1929, [History of Magic and Experimental Science] V: 325) already pointed out that the De auditu first appeared in Venice in 1518 as a little work by Ramon Llull, “opusculum Raimundicum,” and that it was consequently a work composed in the late fifteenth century. He hypothesized that the work might be attributed to Pietro Mainardi, an attribution later confirmed by Zambelli (1965, ["Il De audito kabbalistico e la tradizione lullista nel Rinascamento"]).
Agrippa would also make his contribution, in a work purporting to be an explanation of Llull but in fact expanding on him, Eco says, although still within the domain of rhetoric (p. 419: "...for Agrippa too, the point is not to lay the foundations for a logic of discovery, but instead for a wide-ranging rhetoric..."). Eco has the view, which seems strange to me, that Llull intended his work to be only a convenient way of constructing and accessing arguments for a position one already holds as true, i.e. with a purely rhetorical purpose as opposed to a means to new knowledge. That is how it is different from Abulafia's Kabbalah, he says (p 411):
Consequently, though it may be only in a mystical sense (in which the combinations serve only as a motor of the imagination), the Kabbalah pretends to be a true ars inveniendi, in which what is to be found is a truth as yet unknown. The combinatory system of Llull, on the other hand, is (as we saw) a rhetorical tool, through which the already known may be demonstrated—what the ironclad system of the forest of the various trees has already fixed once and for all, and that no combination can ever subvert.
It seems to me that while Llull did intend his "ars" to be used rhetorically so as to persuade infidels of the truth of Christianity and reaffirm one's own faith, he also intended it as a means to knowledge of new truths. Llull's translator Anthony Bonner tells us in his introduction that Llull, in his Compendium artis demonstrativae listed five goals to the "ars"; of which there were "three of a more theological nature and two of a more scientific nature" (Bonner, Selected works of Ramon Llull, vol. 1, p. 68). For the latter two he says (p. 69f)
4. "To formulate and solve questions." 80. This is a constant of the Art, almost no work of which is without its final section giving questions (and answers) based on the subjects treated. Because of its generality, this aspect is closely connected with the next.
5. "To be able to acquire other sciences in a brief space of time and to bring them to their necessary conclusions according to the requirements of the material." As Paolo Rossi puts it, this made the Art a "science of sciences," offering "a key to the exact and rational ordering of all knowledge, whose various aspects are comprised in and verified by it." 81
_____________
80. Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem, MOG i, 433 = Int. vii.I,and Brevis practica Tabulae generalis, MOG v, 301 = Int. iii, 1 ("The subject of the Art is a general artificium for solving questions"). See Ars demonstrativea, Dist. III, mode 10 on "Solving" more more details.
81. Rossi, "Legacy," p. 185. See also Pring-Mill, "Trinitarian," p. 233, as well as text at nn. 12-13 above. In the Ars demonstrativea Llull places this application under the heading of "Teaching"; cf. Dist. m. mode 12 and n. 34.
Combinations of concepts result in thoughts not considered before by the artist. And surely "verification" is new knowledge, even of old thoughts. His combinations are the basis for the construction of hypotheses that, when not following from or inconsistent with the basic axioms of faith (to which Christians, Muslims, and Jews would all agree) result in consequences verifiable or not from experience. To be sure, his concept of "experience" is rather rudimentary; his examples are such truths as "evil exists in the world". It is not at Galileo's level, but it is not non-existent.
Giordano Bruno, Eco says, goes even further than Agrippa, with a vast number of associations based on a wide variety of principles, anything, in fact, that was memorable, now as a means for attaining truth and not just remembering something:
Bruno's types of associations are precisely the kinds the Etteilla school would later make (including homonyms) in its "synonyms and related meanings" for each of the 78 x 2 upright and reversed keywords of Etteilla's tarot, by which one could see into the future.A thing can represent another thing by phonetic similarity (the horse, in Latin equus, can represent the man who is aequus or just), by putting the concrete for the abstract (a Roman warrior for Rome), by the coincidence of their initial syllables (asinus for asyllum), by proceeding from the antecedent to the consequence, from the accident to the subject and vice versa,,,
Alemanno had theorized about Abulafian vocalization of letter combinations as a means to sudden insights. Idel writes (2011 p. 252):
Such "sudden vision"--in Alemanno's Hebrew, hashqqfah pit'omit (Idel p. 295)-- of an extra-sensory kind, upon performing the letter combinations, corresponds eerily to the reports of "second sight" in 16th century Scotland and England after the visits of first Cardano and then Bruno. In 1638 a Scottish poet boasted (Schuchard, Wisdom of the Temple, p. 103):Thus, when dealing with the moment of revelation, Alemanno combines elements found in ecstatic Kabbalah, especially the concept of a "science of prophecy" and the "sphere of letters," with an Avicennan and Ibn Tufayl's theory of "sudden vision," a form of intuition that is sometimes also called prophecy, and with a concept of nature.
According to Schuchard (p. 103),We have the Mason word, and second sight;
Things for to come we can foretell aright.
One source might have been Cardano, who visited Scotland in 1552 (p. 157). As Schuchard explains (p. 159)The masons' claim to "second sight" was probably rooted in Cabalistic visualization techniques that were transmitted from Eastern and Southern Europe.
Schuchard does not say what she is basing this account on.When Cardano practised the art of memory, he concentrated on the numerical-linguistic and architectural images advocated by the Cabalists and Lullists. By methodically intensifying these mental gymnastics and visualizations, he would achieve an "intuitive flash" that made the proper connections and analogies of all elements--natural as well as supernatural--vividly clear. From this insight, he could sometimes predict future events.
Another source might have been Bruno, who visited England in 1583 and acquired a Scottish disciple named Alexander Dickson (Schuchard p. 203). Dickson gave lessons on the basics, but apparently not enough to achieve "second sight". One student, Hugh Platt, writes (quoted by John Meador at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.ph ... hlight=ars):
In other words, it is one thing to use the Art of Memory to remember what cards one has played, but quite another to know what cards the others held. Using such means seems to Platt a form of cheating (cozenage)...two especial uses, I have often exercised this art for the better help of my own memory, and the same as yet has never failed me. Although I have heard some of Master Dickson, his schollers, that have prooved such cunning Cardplayers hereby, that they could tell the course of all the Cards and what every gamester had in his hand. So ready we are to turn an honest and commendable invention into craft and cousenage."
-Hugh Platt: The Jewell House of Art and Nature 1594
This sort of knowledge is not the sort Llull was after. What differentiates Llull from Kabbalah--and from cartomancy--is not rhetoric vs. new knowledge, but rather the means used (reasoning alone vs. the addition of ecstasy) and the knowledge gained (conclusions from reasoning and common experience vs. additional special knowledge gained in ecstasy).
I also see a relationship between Llull and the encyclopedic structurings of knowledge that were performed in the renaissance, e.g. Camillo's elaborate "memory theatre" in Milan of the 1540s, of which Garzoni's book represents one small part. Eco says of Llull's Ars Brevis that by this simple set of tools, he had constructed (p. 404)
Such applications are not merely exercises to confirm what one already believes. Llull may also have something to say to the computer experts now studying him, despite Eco's ridicule of their project, to seek clues on how to process large amounts of diverse data mechanically in the quest for new knowledge. Whether such means can duplicate the "intuition" of the cartomancer--his or her unconscious perceptions of a consultant's behavior, for example, and the unconscious deductions therefrom--remains to be seen.a device capable of resolving, not only theological and metaphysical problems, but also problems of cosmology, law, medicine, astronomy, geometry, and psychology. The Ars becomes more and more a tool to take on the entire encyclopedia of learning, picking up the suggestions found in the countless medieval encyclopedias and looking forward to the encyclopedic utopia of Renaissance and Baroque culture.
Pico's innovation of combining Llull with Kabbalah makes what I imagined in another thread (see my post at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&p=15683&hilit=seats#p15683) a logical next step: a "memory theatre" in which the first row is 10 seats, for the sefirot, with 1 more on stage for the En Sof, then back and out 2 rows for 22 letters and cards, then back again for 8 rows for the number cards and courts, each with its lists of associations, all on Pythagorean principles (as in the "Tarotica" document) indefinitely, With such array in one's mind, the combinations of cards yield, through a combination of reasoning and intuition, knowledge of a prophetic kind.
To sum up this post: Pico's suggestion in his 1486 900 Theses and 1487 Apologia for the inclusion of Llull's "ars" into Kabbalah is both anticipated in the Hebrew Ars Brevis and carried through by Christian writers after Pico. The Hebrew Ars Brevis is more than a translation from the Latin, according to Hames; it also occasionally puts Llull's into the tradition of ecstatic Kabbalah. And while there is no testimony so far of an application to cartomancy, two famous 16th century Italian visitors to the British Isles seem to have taught an "Art of Memory" with an ecstatic element thought by some as leading to extrasensory perception by players of ordinary card games. Both of these visitors, I should now add, were later imprisoned and put on trial by the Inquisition, the first barred from teaching or publishing (see e.g. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk ... ardan.html) and the second burned at the stake.
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