“Fénix De Sus Tiempos”: Pico Della Mirandola in Abraham Cohen De Herrera´S Puerta Del Cielo

Abraham Cohen de Herrera, reader of Giovanni Pico

It’s must ask why Herrera might have been interested in reading Pico, whom he calls “Fénix de sus tiempos”. And here it’s must bear in mind that, although the Mirandolan’s esteem for the kabbalah and the hebrew language does not openly contrast with the attitude of his contemporaries, his behavior does:12looked for, in effect, the most suitable His will”, etc. The root of the terms “Ensof” and “sefiráh” is composed, as can be seen in its original spelling, by the letters samaj ( )סand fei ( .)פ / ף The expressions mentioned, when read together, should be understood as infinite and finite respectively.

11 The numerological procedures are typical of the kabbalistic systems previous to exile, in 1492. The ones Herrera uses are those of Abraham Abulafia. The Kabbalah of Abulafia comprises three basic techniques: notaricon, gematrya and temurah. Notaricon, whose name comes from the Latin word “notarius”, is based on the acrostic’s technique, that is, it analyzes how with the initial or final letters of a group of words, others can be formed. The second, gematrya, is supported by the fact that each letter of the Hebrew alphabet (or best, alefbeth) has a numerical value and consists of substituting the corresponding letters for the Hebrew letters. In this way each word or phrase will have a specific numerical value as a result of the relationship between the numbers with which each of the letters that compose it corresponds. Once the Kabbalist knows the numerical value of a word or phrase, he will be able to establish connections with words or phrases that have the same value and even know the secret meanings of them. The temurah, finally, is the art of the anagram, that is, of combining or exchanging letters. The latter implies that a word can be divided into its minimum components, and then form other words with them that reveal the full meaning of the first.

12 Among the Church Fathers, neither the knowledge of Hebrew thought nor the learning of the language in which the Old Testament had been written were considered priorities (except in the exceptional cases of Origen and Jerome, both admired and highly cited by Pico). It will take many years for a gradual interest in the Hebrew language to mediate between kabbalistic speculation and philosophy produced in Christian lands. The search for the mother tongue will become an imperative only during the Reformation when some of its leaders, including Luther himself, advocate the need for a more literal interpretation of the Bible. Meanwhile, among the most outstanding intellectuals, the interest in the language in which Adam would have spoken joined with the humanistic desire to read all the texts in their original language. Thus, at first there was no genuine interest in the Hebrew language, but rather in the language of the Old Testament; only in the middle of the XVIIth century Spinoza would write a grammar of the Hebrew language and not of the Scriptures: his Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae is not only the first grammar of the Hebrew language written in Latin by a Jew but also the first Hebrew grammar strictly speaking. Cf. Compenium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae, 24 and 72. Also cf. D’Olivet, F., teachers to reach that knowledge that from the outset he figured “divine”. There’ll be, thus, three intellectuals who will take the young prince of Mirandola down these little traveled roads: Elia Del Medigo, Guillermo Raimundo de Moncada (also known as Flavius Mithridates) and Jochanan Alemanno13.

Del Medigo directed the italian talmudic school, was hostile to kabbalistic thought and decidedly aristotelian and “averroist”. He made contact with Pico in 1480 during his stay in Padova and not only carried him to the study of Maimonide’s Guide for the Perplexed and arab philosophy, especially through the comments of Averroes, but wrote two texts on the unity of the active intellect dedicated to him. His distance from kabbalah, it is convenient to insist on this point, was based more on his peripatetism, which was opposed -at least in appearance-14 to the platonic orientation of that discipline, rather than in opposition to its techniques or procedures. Nevertheless, Pico’s first approach to kabbalah came undoubtedly through the averroist master, as it follows from a letter that Elia himself sent to his disciple, probably in late 1484 or early 148515.

The second, also known as Guilelmus Siculus and Willelmus Ramundus Monchates,16 although his real name seems to have been Samuel ben Nissim Abu’l-Faradi (from Agrigento),17 was a jewish convert with a rough personality, difficult treatment and suspicious intellectual solvency. Mithridates would have entered to the service of Pico around 1486 and translated for him some relevant kabbalistic works, among them the famous Séfer ha-Bahir. The set of translations, to put it briefly, constitutes an heterogeneous corpus that significantly omits some of the most important texts of the medieval kabbalistic tradition, e.g., the Séfer Yetsiráh and the Zohar. The Mithridates’s versions, moreover, contain some elements absent from the original texts and The Restored Hebrew Language, I, 1-2 and Gesenius, F. W., Gesenius´s Hebrew Grammar, I § 2.2.

13 Cf. Fummagalli Beonio Brocchieri; 2011, pp: 33-38.

14 Abraham Abulafia declares to have founded his kabbalistic system basing on the philosophy of Maimonides - mainly on the Guide for the Perplexed- and that of Yehudá ha Levy. (Cf. Scholem; 19962, pp: 106-133)

15 There is no definitive study about the knowledge of kabbalah that Pico may have obtained from Elia, the subject has not yet aroused the interest of any specialist. I´m inclined to believe that Del Medigo addresses the subject of the kabbalah at a time when the relationship with Pico is in frank decline and has sought other hebrew teachers more related to this discipline. Thus, in my interpretation, Elia refers to kabbalah only to avoid losing contact with a patron who had treated him with extreme length. Leaving aside my own opinion, the truth is that, according is deduced from the text, Pico’s first knowledge of the kabbalah came to him through Elia’s letter. It is published by Garin (Pico della Mirandola; 2004, pp: 67-71)

16 Cf Mithridates; 1963, pp: 48-49. Also cf. Campanini; 2005, intr.

17 Cf Houfek; 2012, pp. 41ss.

present in most translations of hebrew works carried out by converts, in which is glimpsed a sort of christianization of kabbalah. The association between Pico and Mithridates would have been broken around 1489, by unclear reasons18.

It will be, finally, through the contact with Jochanan Alemanno, whom he met personally in 1488, that Pico will take his kabbalistic philosophy to the highest point. Alemanno was a courtly intellectual, more close to Ficino’s circle and Lorenzo the Magnificent19. The encounter could not have been more timely: both authors were working on a new exegesis of the Genesis. Pico, indeed, was writing the Heptaplus. De septiforme sex dierum Geneseos enarratione and Alemanno, the Eineiha-edah (The eyes of the Community), a text of little importance but, in Crofton Black’s opinion, of surprising similarity to Pico’s Heptaplus20. In short, although Alemanno did not make translations for Pico, there were many affinities between his works, his thought, and a greater cultural closeness between them than with the previous hebrew teachers21.

Thanks to Del Medigo, Mithridates and Alemanno, the prince of Concord would not only have acquired a certain, though not exhaustive, use of the hebrew language,22 but he also provide himself with a unique material in his time and of the better quality23. Indeed, towards the beginning of the XVIth century will be three pillars of the kabbalah in Italy: Abraham Abulafia, Menahem Recanati, some of whose works were already known to Pico, and the anonymous Séfer Maaréjet ha-Elohut, which, in a Latin version, the first, was also in the mirandolan library24.

18 Cf Wirszubski; 1969, p: 173.

19 The study program proposed by Alemanno, realizes the importance that this philosopher gave to Pico’s discoveries, mainly regarding the relationship between Kabbalah and natural magic, as he exposes in his Theses. Moshé Idel has translated into English Alemanno’s short booklet on the Order of Studies in his work Kaballah in Italy, 1280-1510, a survey (Idel; 2011, pp: 340-343).

20 Cf Black; 2006, p. 19.

21 Cf Ibíd., pp. 18-19.

22 According to Crofton Black, it is clear that until 1487, at least, Pico was unable to read hebrew texts without help. Even more, it would be necessary, continues Black, to wait until 1491 to find Pico reading Hebrew texts by himself. Indeed, in his comments to the psalms that began that same year, the Count is much more skillful, enough to notice the passages where the Greek and Latin translations depart from the original text. (Cf. Black; 2006, p. 22)

23 In the first inventory of the library of Pico, dating in1498 (that year it was acquired by Cardinal Domenico Grimani), were identified fifty-eight manuscripts in hebrew and chaldean languages, without Latin translation. There are no doubts regarding Pico´s interest in hebrew literature, although it has not been determined if he kept those books in his library thinking about future translations or if he intended to read them himself in their original language.

24 Cf Garin; 1937, pp: 115-116.

Pico’s effort to access hebrew thought was based on his conception of truth as an historical unfolding of the content of the λόγος and on the assurance that the hebrew language and the entire wisdom tradition of the jews was the oldest; to these language and knowledge, then, mother language and wisdom, one had to refer if want to prove the truth of christianity. In light of this perspective, he inaugurated a new intellectual category, that of “christian kabbalah”, as reflected in works such as Oratio de hominis dignitate25 and, the already mentioned, Heptaplus26.

With what has been said, then, I have enough reasons to think why a Jewish author, a kabbalist, of eclectic training and of renaissance taste like Abraham Cohen could be interested in pician thought.

Pico in Puerta del Cielo

In Puerta del Cielo there are two explicit mentions of Giovanni Pico. One in chapter 2 of book IV and the other in chapter 7 of book VI. The latter is a blind reference, so to speak: Herrera lists Pico in the middle of a series of authors who support his same point of view on the active power and free will of Ensof and its causality27. The first reference is, therefore, the only one that has interest for the goal of this research. It is not, in effect, a simple mention or a vague reference, but it is possible to identify practically a whole folio of Puerta del Cielo (Ms. 131c10, from the Koninkslijke Bibliothek (Royal Dutch Library) of The Hague (37r-37v)) as a mixture of translation and paraphrasing of some passages of a youthful Pico’s work, namely, the “Commento”, as Herrera calls it, whose full title is Commento sopra una canzona d´amore composta da Hieronimo Benivieni,28 the only one of Pico’s works written in his vulgar tongue. The passages Herrera uses here correspond to chapters 4 and 5 of Commento’s book I. The text, which was not published until 1519,29 consists of a series of notes that Pico possibly

25 Cf Oratio, § 39, 255, § 41, 267, § 43, 277-278 y § 44, 280.

26 Cf Heptaplus. Expositio Beresit et passim.

27 Puerta del cielo, p. 179.

28 Girolamo Benivieni had written a love poem in platonic key with the title of Canzona dell’amor celeste e divino in which he took up some passages from the comment to Plato´s Symposium Ficino´s De amore, written in 1469. Benivieni´s poem was also modeled on the famous Guido Cavalcanti´s Donna me prega mentioned by Ficino precisely in De Amore, in order to celebrate Giovanni Cavalcanti, a descendant of that poet friend of Dante. (Cf. Allen; 2008, p: 83)

29 Gianfrancesco, nephew of Pico, did not publish the Commeno in his editio princeps of 1496, but in the index wrote “in platonis convivium lib. III”, a title that could well be a reference to the Commento. Benivieni, who survived Pico 40 years, grappled with the marginal version, expunged from it all the allusions to Ficino´s De Amore as wrong, and polished the work a bit, stylistically. Benivieni´s works were published for the first time in France, in the 1500s, together with some parts of Pico´s Commento, which he himself grouped under the title “Commento di Hieronymo Benivieni compiled during his travels between Perugia and Rome, between 1485 and 1486. ​The Commento is divided into three Books of unequal length followed by a particular commentary of each one of the stanze from Benivieni’s poem, eight in total. In a broad sense and in my opinion, the central theme of the Commento is applied poetic theology. Also, the text is displayed as a comment to Benivieni’s Canzona, although it addresses, as in passing, Plato’s Simposium and Ficino’s De Amore, which is a comment to that Plato’s work. Likewise, the first book of the Commento, which is the one that Herrera cites, is dedicated to exposing the metaphysics of the “Platonici” and the chapters that Herrera paraphrases and / or translates are grouped under the common title “Que Dios produjo ab aeterno una sola criatura incorpórea e intelectual tan perfecta como podía ser”30. [“That God produced ab aeterno a single disembodied, intellectual creature as perfect as it could be.”]

In this sense, the place where Herrera quotes Pico is remarkable: book IV of Puerta del Cielo is dedicated to demonstrate that from the first cause, Ensof, comes a single effect, about which he says, in the light of his project to reunite kabbalah of all times, that the Zohar’s author calls it “Adam Kadmon”, that is, according to his own translation, “hombre precedente” [preceding man] and the other kabbalists calls it “keter hellion”,31 that is, “sublime y primera corona” [sublime and first crown]. On the other hand, chapter 1 of that same book is entitled “Prueva con treze razones que de la causa primera procedió inmediatamente uno solo perfectísimo efecto” [Prove with thirteen reasons that only one very perfect effect immediately came from the first cause] and 2, “Confirma con autoridad de excelentes filósofos q(ue) de la causa primera inmediatamente procedió uno solo perfectísimo efecto y por medio del como de instrumento todos los demás.” [Confirms with authority of excellent philosophers that from the first cause immediately came only one very perfect effect and by means of the instrument of all others]. Although I cannot make an exhaustive analysis of sopra sue canzone et sonetti”; an undisguised plagiarism. After reading the purged version of Benivieni in 1518, the humanist Biagio Buonaccorsi published it in its full version in 1519 along with a version of the poems of the Florentine poet. In this edition the Commento received the pompous title with which is known: “Commento dello illustrissimo signore conte Iohanni Pico Mirandolano sopra una canzona de Amore composta da Hyeronimo Benivieni ciptadino florentino secondo la mente e opinione de’ platonici”. The text 1519 was reprinted in Venice in 1522, again in the edition of Benivieni´s works and in three subsequent editions in Basel (1557, 1572, and 1601). In the index of the Basilian editions, the title given by Gianfrancesco remains, but the text itself bears the title given by Buonaccorsi. This, then, is the story of the Commento´s standard version, the critical edition was published by Garin in 1942.

30 Che Dio produsse ab aeterno una sola creatura incorporea ed intellettuale, tanto perfetta quanto essere poteva. (Commento, I.4)

31 Puerta del Cielo, p. 155.

these chapters, it must be said that Herrera proceeds here earlier as a philosopher than as a mystic, such as kabbalists do. Only at the end of chapter 1 some authorities appear. Chapter 2, the one that contains Pico’s quote, is just like a confirmation of his point of view. At this time, a question arises: Why does Herrera cite the Commento and not other works of the Mirandolan philosopher, e.g, Oratio, in which he makes the official presentation of kabbalah to christians, or in the Heptaplus, text where is perceived a major kabbalistic influence? I believe only one answer could be proposed: the Commento is the first work in which the Count of Concordia explicitly mentions kabbalah and its relationship with platonic philosophy. Towards the end of the work, after explaining his friend Benivieni´s canzona in platonic terms, Pico writes: “Questo ordine appresso gli antiqui ebrei fu santissimamente osservato e per questo la loro scienzia, nella quale la esposizione delli astrusi e asconditi misterii della legge si contiene, Cabala si chiama […] scienzia per certo divina e degna di non participare se non con pochi, grandissimo fundamento della fede nostra, el desiderio solo del quale mi mosse all’assiduo studio della ebraica e caldaica lingua, sanza le quali alla cognizione di quella pervenire è al tutto impossibile”32.

[This order <the poem´s order> was most sacredly observed among the ancient Hebrews and for that reason, their <predilected> science, in whose exposition the abstruse and hidden mysteries of the Law are contained, is called “kabbalah” [...] science, certainly divine and worthy of not being taught but to a few, great foundation of our <christian> faith, whose sole desire has led me to the assiduous study of the Hebrew and Chaldean languages, without which it is completely impossible to achieve the knowledge of kabbalah.]