Egidio da Viterbo’s Book on Hebrew Letters
Christian Kabbalah in Papal Rome
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10414710 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian Copenhaver, Brian P Copenhaver (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author), Daniel Stein Kokin (0000-0002-8540-1676, University of California, Los Angeles) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-42 |
| Publication date | 2014-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Renaissance Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-4338 • E-ISSN: 1935-0236 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/676151 |
| OpenAlex | W2332638471 |
| Language | NL |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 18 |
Egidio da Viterbo (1469–1532) wrote his Book on Hebrew Letters (Libellus de litteris hebraicis) in 1517 to persuade Pope Leo X to reform the Roman alphabet. Behind this concrete, if farfetched, proposal was a millenarian theology that Egidio revealed by introducing his Christian readers to Kabbalah, whose first Christian advocate, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, had done his pioneering work only a few decades before. Inspired by Pico and by Johann Reuchlin, Egidio also absorbed the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, applying it in the Libellus to a Kabbalist analysis of the Aeneid, which he reads as a prophecy of papal victory over the Jews at the end of time, while also seeing Pope Leo as a modern-day Etruscan. But the main source of Egidio’s apocalyptic theology is a medieval Hebrew book, the Sefer ha-Temunah, which in Italy was new to Jews at the time Egidio read it
Art · Hebrew · Judaism · Kabbalah · Literature · Politics · Theology · Victory · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,56 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2026 (10) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |