¹ MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fols. 41r-v. I would like to thank Charles Lohr, Elena Lourie, Jocelyn Hillgarth, and Anthony Bonner for reading drafts of this study and for their criticisms and suggestions. My thanks also to Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem, for the scholarship that allowed me the time needed for writing this article.Google Scholar

² On the prisca theologia, see among others Schmitt, C. B., “Prisca Theologia e Philosophia Perennis: due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna,” in Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento e il tempo nostro. Atti del V Convegno internazionale del Centro di studi umanistici, Montepulciano, 1968 (Florence, 1970), 211–36 and his “Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 505–32. See his important comments on the assimilation of Hermeticism into Neoplatonism in Schmitt, C. B., “Reappraisals in Renaissance Science,” History of Science 16 (1978): 200–214. (The latter three studies have been reprinted in Schmitt, C. B., Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science, Variorum Reprints [London 1981].) See also Copenhaver, B. P., Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992), xlv–lix; B. P. Copenhaver and Schmitt, C. B., Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford, 1992), 1–18, 143–63. See also the study in n. 3 below.Google Scholar

³ See Kristeller, P. O., Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (New York, 1979), 15–81.Google Scholar

⁴ See Yates, F. A., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago and London, 1964), 5–7, 20–83; Walker, D. P., The Ancient Theology (London, 1972), 1–41. See also Grafton, A., Commerce with the Classics: Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers (Ann Arbor, 1997), 93–134.Google Scholar

⁵ See, for example, the large number of Pico della Mirandola's theses that are based on a prisca theologia. See della Mirandola, Pico, Conclusiones , in Opera omnia, 2 vols. (Basel, 1557; facsimile ed., Hildesheim, 1969) 1:79–80, 103–7. See also Cassirer, E., The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (New York and Evanston, 1963), 85–98, 110–20.Google Scholar

⁶ Llull dictated a sort of autobiography entitled Vita coaetanea in 1311. For a Latin edition see Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina , vol. 8, ed. Harada, H., CCM 34 (Turnhout, 1980), 271–309. For a medieval Catalan translation with embellishments, see Llull, Ramon, Obres essencials, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1957–60) 1:31–54. See also Bonner, A. and Badia, L., Ramon Llull: Vida, pensament i obra literària (Barcelona, 1988) and Bonner, A., Selected Works of Ramon Llull, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1985) 1:3–52.Google Scholar

⁷ For an edition of the Ars brevis, see Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina, vol. 12, ed. Madre, A., CCM 38 (Turnholt, 1984), 192–255.Google Scholar

⁸ Much has been written on Llull's Art and the development of his thinking over the forty-odd years he was active as a writer. For good surveys see Hillgarth, J. N., Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1971) and Bonner, A., Selected Works, 1:53–70.Google Scholar

⁹ See Gaya, J., La teoría luliana de las correlativos (Palma de Mallorca, 1979). See also Hames, H., The Art of Conversion: Christianity and Kabbalah in the Thirteenth Century (forthcoming). Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Lohr, C., “Metaphysics,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Schmitt, C.B. et al. (Cambridge, 1988), 541.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Lohr, C., “Christianus arabicus cuius nomen Raimundus Lullus,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 31 (1984): 57–88 and his “Metaphysics,” 538–45.Google Scholar

¹² See Colomer, E., Nikolaus von Kues und Ramon Llull (Berlin, 1961); Euler, W. A., Unitas et Pax: Religionsvergleich bei Raimundus Lullus und Nikolaus von Kues (Würzburg, 1995), 151–246. On the university in Padua, see Schmitt, C. B., “Aristotelianism in the Veneto and the Origins of Modern Science: Some Considerations on the Problem of Continuity,” in Atti del convegno internazionale su Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna (Padua, 1983), 104–23 (repr. in The Aristotelian Tradition and Renaissance Universities, Variorum Reprints [London, 1984], I).Google Scholar

¹³ Batllori, M., “El lul·lisme a Itàlia. Esbós de síntesi,” in Ramon Llull i el Lul·lisme, Obra Completa (Valencia, 1993), 282–83.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Batllori, M., “Giovanni Pico e il Lullismo Italiano del Quattrocento,” in L'Opera e il Pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola nella storia dell umanesimo, 2 vols. (Florence, 1965) 2:7–16, and his “El lul·lisme a Itàlia,” 251–85, where the different collections of Lullian manuscripts are surveyed. Pol and his library have been studied by Fisch, M. H., Nicolaus Pol Doctor, 1494 (New York, 1947).Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Batllori, M., “El lu·lisme a Itàlia. Esbós de síntesi,” 256–60, 274–76.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The manuscript (for details of which see the following note) also contains the following works: an anonymous Tractatus de incarnatione, fide, spe, prophetia et charitate; Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia, De somno et somniis (both De somno et vigilia and De somniis), De longitudine et brevitate vitae, all from the Parva naturalia, and a spurious work attributed to Aristotle, , De mundo. Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Pérez Martínez, L., Los fondos lulianos existentes en las Bibliotecas de Roma (Rome, 1961), no. 88, p. 94.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The dating of 1420 is based on a relatively modern index of the contents in the front flyleaf. See Pérez Martínez, L., Los fondos lulianos, 94. There seems to have been a market for Lullian manuscripts in Padua, and a number of the sellers and buyers were Jews. For example, a Jew named Isaac ben Abraham Baruch Stradarzelo (probably a misreading of the Italian “strazzarolo” meaning peddler) of Padua sold a manuscript containing Llull's De ascensu et descensu intellectus to Franciscus Polentus in 1465. See García de la Concha, F., “Manuscritos lulianos de la Biblioteca Colombina de Sevilla,” Bolletí de la societati arqueològica lul·liana 48 (1992): 333 and the comments on this article by A. Bonner in Studia Lulliana 33 (1993): 64–65.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See Zonta, C. and Brotto, I., eds., Acta graduum academicorum gymnasii Patavini ab anno MCCCCVI ad annum MCCCCL (Padua, 1922), no. 753, p. 1824.Google Scholar

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 Lulli Opera Latina 12, 176–77. See also Idel, M., “The Study Curriculum of Johanan Alemanno” (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 48 (1979): 304–12.Google Scholar

²¹ On these two scholars and their connections with Pico, see Wirszubski, C., Between the Lines: Kabbalah, Christian Kabbalah and Sabbatianism (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1990), 13–48 and his Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1989), 69–118; Lelli, F., “Un collaboratore ebreo di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Yohanan Alemanno,” Vivens Homo 5 (1994): 401–30. See also Ruderman, D., The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati, 1981); and his “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy , ed. Rabil, A. Jr., 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1988) 1:385–87, 397–404. Alemanno was proud of his connections with Pico and that their names were so similiar. In the introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, Alemanno wrote: “my master Count Jhoanni della Mirandola, my name is like his, Yohanan … named Ashkenazi in Hebrew and Aleman in Latin.” See Perles, J., “Les savants juifs a Florence a l’époque de Laurent de Médicis,” Revue des études juives 12 (1886): 255–56.Google Scholar

²² Much has been written on Alemanno's life, but the most informed studies are: Lesley, A. M. Jr., “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno: Love and Human Perfection According to a Jewish Colleague of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1978), 4–50; Novak, B. C., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 125–47; Alemanno, Yohanan, Hay Ha-‘Olamim (L'Immortale): Parte I: la Retorica, ed., trans., and intro. Lelli, F. (Florence, 1995), 3–11.Google Scholar

²³ See Carpi, D., “Rabbi Judah Messer Leon and His Activities as a Doctor” (in Hebrew), Korot 6 (1974): appendix 1, p. 295 for the document awarding Alemanno his doctorate in philosophy and medicine. On the Jews of Padua, see Carpi, D., “The Jews of Padua during the Renaissance 1369–1509,” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1967). See also Cesare Ioly Zorattori, P., “Note per la storia degli ebrei sefaraditi a Padova,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 58 (1992): 97–110. The university in Padua attracted many foreign students, and Jews studying medicine were able to attend the university. The aforementioned Elijah del Medigo actually taught at the university. He was not a member of the faculty, but it was there that Pico della Mirandola first made his acquaintance. Other Jewish doctors such as Judah Messer Leon were also connected with the university. See Cassuto, U., Gli Ebrei a Firenze nell'età del Rinascimento (Florence, 1918), 282–99, esp. 284; Geffen, M. D., “Insights into the Life and Thought of Elijah del Medigo based on His Published and Unpublished Works,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 41–42 (1973–74): 69–86; Ruderman, D., “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought,” 385–95; Carpi, D., “Rabbi Judah Messer Leon and His Activities as a Doctor,” 287–90.Google Scholar

²⁴ See his Collectaneae, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library 2234 (Reggio 23).Google Scholar

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 Idel, M., “The Ladder of Ascension — The Reverberations of a Medieval Motif in the Renaissance,” in Twersky, I., ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1984) 2:83–88.Google Scholar

²⁶ See Mari, Abba, Sefer Minhat Kena'ot (Offering of the Zealous), ed. Demitrovski, C., 2 (Jerusalem, 1990), 818.Google Scholar

²⁷ These words seem to indicate another name for Pinhas or his father Nethanel.Google Scholar

²⁸ MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fols. 41r-v.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Bonner, A., Selected Works, 1:646, n. 1 for the probability of a lectio facilior by later manuscript copyists preferring to read “St. Dominic” instead of the Cistercian monastery of San Domnino in Pisa.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Wirszubski, C., ed., Flavius Mithridates, Sermo de Passione Domini (Jerusalem, 1963).Google Scholar

³¹ This dating is based on a diary entry from 1481 claiming that Mithridates had been baptized some fourteen years earlier. See Simonsohn, S., “Some Well-Known Jewish Converts during the Renaissance,” Revue des études juives 148 (1989): 21, n. 9.Google Scholar

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 Simonsohn, S., “Some Well-Known Jewish Converts during the Renaissance,” 21–25.Google Scholar

³³ For a select bibliography of works on Mithridates, see Wirszubski, , Flavius, 12, n. 2. In addition, see Secret, F., “Nouvelles précisions sur Flavius Mithridates maître de Pic de la Mirandole et traducteur de commentaires de Kabbale,” in L'Opera e il Pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 2, 169–87 and Ijsewijn, J., “Flavius Guillelmus Raymundus Mithridates,” Humanistica Lovaniensia 26 (1977): 236–38.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Wirszubski, C., Pico della Mirandola, 100–113 and see also his “Giovanni Pico's Companion to Kabbalistic Symbolism,” in Between the Lines, 108–17 (first published in Studies in Kabbalah and Religion Presented to G. Scholem [Jerusalem, 1968], 353–62).Google Scholar

³⁵ See Novak, B. C., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno,” 127, n. 19. See also Simonsohn, S., History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (Tel Aviv, 1977), 583.Google Scholar

³⁶ On the Jewish community of Senigallia, an important commercial center with a market, see Saffiotti Bernardi, S., “Aspetti e problemi della presenza ebraica nell’ Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli XIV e XV),” Quaderni dell’ Instituto de scienze storiche dell'università di Roma 2 (1983): 227–72; Sierra, S., “Il sacco del ghetto di Senigaglia nel 1799 in un documento dell’ epoca,” in Volume speciale in memoria de Attilio Milano, La Rassegna Mensile di Israel , ed. Colombo, Y. et al., 36 (1970): 7–9, 381–88; and Sacerdoti, A. and Fiorentino, L., Guida all’ Italia Ebraica (Genoa, 1988²), 255–57. On his return to Florence in 1488, Alemanno was employed as a tutor by Yehiel of Pisa for his two children Isaac and Samuel. See Novak, B. C., “Pico della Mirandola and Alemanno,” 127.Google Scholar

³⁷ See Gross, H., Gallia Judaica (Amsterdam, 1969), 219–20 and Green, J., “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.Google Scholar

³⁸ ibn Yahya, Gedaliah, Sefer Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Amsterdam, 1697), fol. 49.Google Scholar

³⁹ Colon, Rabbi Joseph, Responsa (Venice, 1579) and see also Pines, A. D., ed., New Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon (Jerusalem, 1970). On the supposed disagreements between Joseph and Messer Leon, see Rabinowicz, H., “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.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See MS Oxford Bodleian 2218, fol. 210v: “By Nethanel, the son of Levi, a disciple of Rabbi Colon.” Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Alemanno, Johanan, Sha'ar ha-Heshek (in fact Heshek Shelomo) (Livorno, 1790), fol. 7.Google Scholar

⁴² On the motif of the divine kiss (mitat neshikah) in Jewish literature see Fishbane, M., The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (Seattle and London, 1992), 3–50.Google Scholar

⁴³ In his Oratio de hominis dignitate, in Opera omnia, 1:317, Pico della Mirandola uses the image of Jacob's ladder to describe the ascent of the pure soul to God. See Idel, M., “The Ladder of Ascension — The Reverberations of a Medieval Motif in the Renaissance,” 83–88. In a footnote (n. 31) in this article, Idel suggests that Llull's ladder is a scala intellectus rather than a scala naturae. The ladder of being or scala naturae plays an important role in many of Llull's works such as the Ars brevis — the ninth part which treats the novem subiecta, which are the ladder of being; Felix — where it provides the framework of the whole book; the Arbre de ciència, and the Liber de ascensu et descensu intellectus. Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Alemanno referred to the tenth sefirah, Malchut, as The Gate of Heaven (sha'ar ha-shamayim), 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 Idel, M., “Jerusalem in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Thought” (in Hebrew), in The History of Jerusalem: Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099–1250), ed. Prawer, J. and Ben Shammai, H. (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.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See Alemanno, Johanan, Heshek Shlomo, MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 120v. See also Novak, B. C., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,” 145. See also Perles, , “Les savants juifs a Florence,” 253: “For the past twenty years I have considered elucidating the words of this Solomonic song”; and 255: “new and old solutions are from God, and He granted me [Johanan] a little [of these solutions] for the past twenty years….” Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See Alemanno, , Song of Solomon's Ascent, in Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 76.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ As M. Idel has shown, there are grounds for Jewish influence on the Hermetic corpus and for the identification of Hermes with Enoch. See his “Hermeticism and Judaism,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, ed. Merkel, I. and Debus, A. G. (Washington, D.C., 1988), 59–62.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 129r–v.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 175–80. See also MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 124v: “and in the allegorical sense it indicates that the spirit will not wish to ascend the mountain of the Lord (har adonai) until it it has entered the courtyard of the king….” The latter refers to the tenth sefirah, Malchut, and the ascent of the mountain is to the sixth sefirah, Tiferet. See the similarity between this and the imagery of the colophon quoted above. It is interesting to note that according to Llull in the section of the Ars brevis (212) dealing with definitions: “Gloria est ipsa delectatio, in qua bonitas, etc. quiescunt.” Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Alemanno also considered Moses to be a magician who manipulated the emanations from the sefirot in order to perform the miracles reported in the Bible. See Idel, M., “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. Ruderman, B. (New York and London, 1992), 123–24.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 149. On the centrality of the temple see Pedaya, H., “The Divinity as Place and Time and the Holy Place in Jewish Mysticism,” in Kedar, B. Z. and Zwi-Werblowsky, R. J., eds., Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land (London and Jerusalem 1988), 84–111. It is worth comparing Alemanno's ideas on the mors osculi with those of Pico as expressed in his Commento sopra una canzone d'amore, in Pico della Mirandola, G., De Hominis Dignitate, Heptaplus, De Ente et Uno , ed. Garin, E. (Florence, 1942), 557–58 and in his Conclusiones Cabalisticae secundum opinionem propriam, Opera omnia, vol. 1, nos. 11, 13, p. 107.Google Scholar

⁵² Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 132.Google Scholar

⁵³ This implied polemic against the Christocentric view is perhaps further emphasized by Alemanno's terminology. In the Heshek Shlomo he talks about the “new spirit,” ruah hadashah, in the man trying to cleave to the divine. This “new spirit” exemplified by Solomon can be seen in opposition to the Christian “Holy Spirit,” which helps man achieve grace through the mediation of Christ. See MS Berlin, Or. 832, fols. 121r, 125r, 126v.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ This is indeed what Alemanno does in a study curriculum which he sets out in his Collectaneae. The highest levels of achievement are based on the study of non-Jewish magical sources because they have recorded Solomon's ancient wisdom. See Idel, M., “The Study Curriculum of Johanan Alemanno,” 310–12, 321–28.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Llull, Ramon, Ars brevis, 253–54. It is important to note that the Hebrew follows the Latin faithfully to this point. The Hebrew translation, like the original Latin, also divides the thirteenth section into four parts: “Thirteenth part, which treats of the method for teaching this Art, and is divided into four parts (De tertia decima parte Quae est de modo docendi hanc Artem. Pars ista dividitur in quattuor partes).” Google Scholar

⁵⁶ MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fol. 41r.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ This is magia naturalis, which, while it changes the course of nature, works according to preconceived laws that are known and understood by the practitioner. There is no arbitrary change of nature. See Idel, M., Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (New York, 1995), 81 and idem, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid (New York, 1990), 173–75.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ On these typologies of Kabbalah, see Scholem, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1974 ³), 119–55, 205–43 and Idel, M., Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), xi–xx, 112–55. See also Idel, M., Hasidism, 45–102. The supposed dichotomy between these typologies has lately begun to be questioned by some scholars, for example, Pedaya, H., “ ‘Ahuzim be-Dibbur’: An Investigation of the Ecstatic-Prophetic Trend among the Early Kabbalists” (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 65 (1996): 565–636. For a discussion of Abraham Abulafia's understanding of the different types of Kabbalah, see Wolfson, E. R., “The Doctrine of Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia,” Jewish Quarterly Review 2 (1995): 336–71; 3 (1996): 47–84.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See Idel, , “The Study Curriculum,” 317.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Alemanno informs the reader in his Hay Olamim (The Immortal) that in 1470 he was thirty-five years old, meaning that if he followed his own study curriculum, he would have been in the last of the seven year cycles while in Padua. See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 261 and Novak, , “Pico della Mirandola,” 126.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See Idel, M., “The Study Curriculum,” 313–24.Google Scholar

⁶² In his Song of Solomon's Ascent, Alemanno talks about the “spiritual force of the letters,” in other words the letters as talismanic objects, by permutation of which the divine influx can be harnessed. See Idel, M., Hasidism, 158. See also Alemanno's Collectaneae, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2234 (Reggio 23) fol. 95v where the magical potential of drawing down the divine influx by combination of letters is further attested.Google Scholar

⁶³ Although Pico immediately qualifies this similarity, writing “licet forte diverso modo procedant.” See his Apologia, in Opera omnia, 1:180. See also Pico's Conclusiones (completed in November, 1486) and especially the Conclusiones Cabalisticae secundum opinionem propriam, 107–11. See also Wirszubski, C., Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, 133–52, 258–60 and McGinn, B., “Cabalists and Christians: Reflections on Cabala in Medieval and Renaissance Thought,” in Popkin, R. H. and Weiner, G. M., eds., Jewish Christians and Christian Jews: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Dordrecht, Boston, and London, 1994), 16–21.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ See his Commento sopra una canzone d'amore, in Pico della Mirandola, G., De Hominis Dignitate, Heptaplus, De Ente et Uno, ed. Garin, E. (Florence, 1942), 535. In the Commento, printed in the Basel 1573 edition of Pico's Opera omnia, 1:912, the relevant passage is missing.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Pico's categorization of the different types of Kabbalah is quite complicated, but is important for understanding what type of Kabbalah he equates with magic. Chaim Wirszubski suggested that for Pico, practical Kabbalah was a mixture of both sefirotic and Abulafian ecstatic Kabbalah. This could also be a result of Pico's meeting with Alemanno. See Wirszubski, , Pico della Mirandola, 133–52. See also Idel, , “Hermeticism and Judaism,” 66–70 and Yates, F., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 84–116. Pico had a printed edition of the Ars brevis in his library. The first printed edition comes from Barcelona in 1481, and the first edition printed in Italy dates from 1485 (Rome?). See Kibre, P., The Library of Pico della Mirandola (New York, 1966), 261, no. 1071 and Rogent, E. and Duràn, E., Bibliografia de les impressions Lul·lianes, 1 (Palma, 1989), nos. 3, 6.Google Scholar