Aprendizaje Del Árabe en El Renacimeinto

Isaac ha-Kohen's Letter to Marco Lippomano: Jewish-Christian Exchange and Arabic
Learning in Renaissance Italy

Author(s): DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 104, No. 2 (SPRING 2014), pp. 192-233
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Spring 2014) 192-233
Isaac ha- Kohen 's Letter to Marco

Lippomano: Jewish- Christian Exchange
and Arabic Learning in Renaissance Italy
DANIEL STEIN KOKIN
I. BACKGROUND
The Venetian politician and scholar Marco Lippomano (ca.

1380/1390-1446 or 1447) was known to his illustrious humanist col-
leagues Flavio Biondo, Francesco Filelfo, and Giannozzo Manetti as a
Hebraist,1 an assessment which Giulio Busi and Saverio Campanini
The preparation of this essay has been coterminous with my teaching and
research at three different universities, and has benefited from the sage advice of
individuals too numerous to name here. I am grateful to the Program in Judaic
Studies at Yale University, the Department of Religious Studies at the University
of Oregon, and the Theology Faculty of the University of Greifswald, for provid-
ing stimulating and collégial atmospheres in which to work. In addition, I would
like especially to thank Malachi Beit-Arié, Phillipe Bobichon, Dario Burgaretta,
Giulio Busi, Saverio Campanini, Frank Griffel, Dimitri Gutas, Martin Jacobs,
Fabrizio Lelli, Aharon Maman, Yael Okun, Marina Rustow, Bernard Septimus,
Nadia Zeldes, Irene Zwiep, the staff of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew
Manuscripts (IMHM) at the National Libraiy of Israel, and the anonymous
reviewers for helpful comments. Finally, it is my pleasure to thank David Ruder-
man on the occasion of his retirement as Katz Center director, for encourage-
ment, helpful advice, and numerous stimulating conversations over the years.
1. Biondo, Italia Illiuitrata, 373v ( Marcus Lippomanus Jureconsultus Grae-
cas, Chaldeas, Hebraeas litteras atque Latinas egregie doctus erat"); Filelfo, Sat-
yrae 1.4, ed. S. Fiaschi (Rome, 2005), 26, 11. 57-59; Contra Iuàaeoj et Gented VI, in
Giannozzo Manetti, Biographical Writings, ed. and trans. S. U. Baldassarri and R.
Bagemihl (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 156-57; Christoph Dröge, Giannozzo
Manetti ab Denker und Heb raut (Frankfurt aM, 1987), 18-20. On Lippomano, see
Giovanni degli Agostini, Notizie btorico-criticbe intorno la vita, e le opere degli scrittori
viniziani (Venice, 1752- 54), 1:487- 94; Margaret King, Venetian Humanitní in an
Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 389-90; and Pierre A.
Mackay, "The Patrician from Negropont" (http://angiolello.net/Lippomano.html,
accessed February 12, 2013). King dates Lippomano's birth to approximately
1390; Mackay disputes this and prefers ca. 1380. Lippomano's death can be dated
The Jew üb Quarterly Review (Spring 2014)

Copyright © 2014 Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
All rights reserved.
HA-KOHEN'S LETTER TO LI PPOMANO- STEIN KOKIN 193
recently confirmed.2 Pursuing for the first time bibliograph

down by Adolf Neubauer back in 1886, they published a rem
series of Hebrew letters exchanged between Lippomano and
scholar from Southern Italy named Cresças Me 'ir.3 Busi is pr
rect to note that this correspondence reflects a level of Hebr
tence not again seen among native-born Christians until th
century.4
to between August 17, 1446, the date of his last political appointment (King,
Venetian HiunanLim, 389), and June 19, 1447. That he was dead by the latter date
is revealed in the will of his daughter-in-law (Mackay, "The Patrician"). On the
possible Jewish origins of the Lippomano family, see Mackay, who bases his claim
on the Arbori de'Patritä Veneti (269) of Marco Barbaro (1511-70), and Benjamin
Ravid, "The Jewish Mercantile Settlement of Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century
Venice: Reality or Conjecture?" AJS Review 2 (1977): 213-15. Giulio Busi abso-
lutely rejects claims as to the Lippomano family's Jewish extraction but refers only
to an eighteenth-century source alleging this. See Busi and Campanini, "Marco
Lippomano and Cresças Meir: A Humanistic Dispute in Hebrew," in Una Manna
Buona per Mantova: St uà i in onore ài Vittore Colorili per il duo 92 compleanno , ed. M.
Perani (Florence, 2004), 173, n. 12; Busi, "Marco Lippomano e Cresças Me 'ir: Una
disputa umanistica in ebraico," in ibid., L'enigma dell'ebraico nel Ruicucimento (Turin,
2007), 16, n. 13. The additional material brought forward here suggests that the
issue is not quite as clear-cut as Busi insists, though additions and modifications to
Barbara's compilation after his death somewhat undermine the reliability of this
source. While Jewish roots, were they to be confirmed, might render Lippomano s
turn to Hebrew less surprising, they would in no way detract from his achievement:
any such background would have been sufficiently remote such that Lippomano
would not have inherited any knowledge of Hebrew.
2. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 169-202; Busi, "Lippomano," 13-
23. The Italian is a slight revision of the original English article; the Hebrew text
of the letters, prepared by Campanini, is only included in the English version.
3. Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library
and in the College Libraries of Oxford (Oxford, 1886), cols. 751-52, no. 2174. See
also Malachi Beit- Arie, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library:
Supplement of Addenda and Corrigenda to vol. I (A. Neubauer's Catalogue) , ed. R. A.
May (Oxford, 1994), 406. Here it is stated that "Cresças Me 'ir is probably the
pupil of Profiat Duran to whom Duran addressed replies on philosophical mat-
ters," but Busi rejects this. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 177, n. 33;
Busi, "Lippomano," 21, n. 40. For more on the identity of this figure, see below.
4. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 172, and especially Busi, "Lippo-
mano," 16, n. 12, where he refers to the Hebrew letter written by Johannes
Reuchlin to Bonetto de Lattes, published in English translation by Jacob R. Mar-
cus, The Jew in the Medieval World (New York, 1974), 159- 64. For additional
Hebrew epistles crafted by Christian humanists, see Eric Zimmer, "Hebrew Let-
ters of Two 16th Century German Humanists," Revue des Etudes Juives 141.3/4
(1982): 379- 86. Later in the sixteenth century, Guillaume Postel also wrote in
Hebrew.
194 JQR 104.2 (2014)
Apart from this epistolary exchange, an a

ten for the Venetian humanist has come down to us.5 While this docu-
ment, the work of a certain Isaac ha- Kohen, has not - so far as I can
determine- previously been studied,6 it is worthy of the closest attention.
Recently erroneously described as presenting "the seven conjugations of
the Hebrew language/' it in fact constitutes an introduction to the Arabic
or Judeo- Arabic verbal system prepared by the Jewish scholar for his
Christian correspondent, at the latter's clear request.7 As such, this short
letter casts rare and valuable light on issues of great contemporaiy inter-
est: (1) the history of Arabic study in the West, particularly in the context
of Renaissance humanism; (2) Jewish attitudes toward Arabic; and (3)
scholarly contact - including the discourse surrounding such contact -
between Jews and Christians in Renaissance Italy. Furthermore, since
this Isaac clearly lived in Syracuse, his letter also reflects (4) the survival
of knowledge and use of Arabic and Judeo- Arabic among Jews in late
medieval Sicily, as well as (5) the cultural and intellectual activities of the
Jewish community there. In what follows, I will indicate how this docu-
ment contributes to our knowledge on each front. First, however, let us
investigate the identity of its Jewish author.
II. IN SEARCH OF ISAAC HA-KOHEN
To establish the identity of this figure is no simple m

clearly distinct Isaac Kohens grace the pages of Hebrew m
logs, and even among those who seem to have lived at t
variations in exact name, type of script employed, and subje
rise to uncertainty.8 Add to this the difficulty of dating m
the researcher finds himself confronted with quite a c
indeed. Will the real Isaac ha- Kohen please stand up! Nev
ficient data can be gleaned to yield a scholar known va
Kohen, Isaac ha- Kohen, Isaac ben Elijah ha- Kohen, Isaac
Aaron ha- Kohen, and Isaac ha- Kohen ben Aaron Elijah
5. This document is mentioned by Hermann Zotenberg, Manu

Catalogues des manuscrits hébreux et samaritaine de la Bibliothèqu
1866), 225, and in Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetz
alters und die Juden ab Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893), 320, n. 41 1.
6. Busi and Campanini also refer to this document but seem no
ined it. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 179, n. 40; Bus
22, n. 42.
7. Benjamin Richler, ed., Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca P
(Jerusalem, 2001), 419. But see Zotenberg, Catalogues , 225.
8. See Appendix, nos. 18-20, for examples of probably distin
HA-KOHEN'S LETTER TO LIPPOMANO- STEIN KOKIN 195
Aaron ha- Kohen,9 who flourished in early to mid-fifteenth-cent

cuse.
Two texts enable us partially to home in on the r

active scholarship. First is a short astronomical tre
jah ha- Kohen that provides astronomical charts ( lu
the year 1409 C.E., for the latitude of Syracuse.10
Judah ben Isaac Sagittuni reports completing a ma
of Isaac Kohen in Syracuse in 1452. 11 Aside from
manuscript which likely indicates it was inherited
Joseph,12 we have no information as to his famil
descendants.
In addition, though it is often difficult to distinguish between Syracuse

(Sicily) and Saragossa (Spain) in Hebrew sources from this period - the
two cities were typically spelled the same13 - a number of the manuscripts
associated with Isaac refer specifically to "the city of Syracuse on the
island of Sicily."14 Syracuse is in fact the only locale with which Isaac is
ever associated, indicating that he likely spent a good deal of time in this
city and wrote to Lippomano from there. Even his name, generic as it
sounds, is especially appropriate for Sicily.15 It is thus quite possible that
he was also born in Syracuse, though the deep links to Spanish and
Provençal culture to which his writing and reconstructed library attest
9. On this name, see Appendix, no. 6.

10. British Library, MS Or. 2806, ff. 40a- 47a, described in G. Margoliouth,
Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, Part III
(London, 1965), 336, III.
11. Bodleian Library, MS Laud. Or. 93. See Appendix, no. 11, on this text
and the circumstances of its preparation.
12. On this note, see Appendix, no. 15.
13. See Appendix, no. 1 1, for further discussion of this point.
14. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), MS hébreu 1069, f. 177v
("from the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily "; me 'ir Saragosa de i Tsikiliya);
also British Library, MS Or. 2806, f. 40a. Additional links between Isaac and
Syracuse include Bodleian, MS Poe. 368, which contains a perpetual calendar
(luhot) by Isaac ben Elijah ben Aaron ha- Kohen of Syracuse (Beit- Arie, 374). See
now also Benjamin Richler, ed., Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library Catalogue
(Vatican City, 2008), 121, where it is indicated that BAV, MS Vat. Heb. 171, ff.
515v-17r, contains calendars for the new moon ( molad ) by Isaac b. Aaron Elijah
ha-Kohen of Syracuse.
15. Isaac and Kohen are the most widely attested masculine and family names,
respectively, among Jews in fourteenth-century Sicily, the period in which he
was likely born. See Mariuccia Krasner, "L'onomastica degli ebrei di Palermo
nei secoli XIV e XV: Nuove prospettive di ricerca, " Materia Giudaica 11 (2006):
102, 104.
196 JQR 104.2 (2014)
indicate that a personal or familial origin i

out.16 Whatever his precise origin or ex
letter cast important new light on fifteent
sion point for science and culture betwe
sula.17
Seventeen manuscripts can with a high degree of confidence be associ-

ated in some way with Isaac, embracing astronomy (six astronomical
charts or calendars [ luhot'),x 8 mathematics,19 philosophy,20 and linguis-
tics21; see the appendix for a list and discussion of these texts. Taken
together, they suggest that Isaac may have been one of the more promi-
nent Jewish scientists of his age, helping to explain why Lippomano
would have been interested in corresponding with him. Certainly these
topics suit fifteenth-centuiy southern Italian Jewry's focus "for the most
part on aspects of philosophy, science, and medicine, rather than on
Halakhah."22 Finally, the wide range in scripts and dates among these
texts - Sephardic, Italian, Byzantine, and Ashkenazic, spanning the fif-
teenth through eighteenth centuries- -points to their diverse and endur-
ing audience.
While linguistics might initially appear to have been but a marginal
interest of Isaac's, an extensive note in an additional manuscript, para-
phrasing his system of word classification, indicates that it was a far
16. We know of Jews who found refuge in Sicily in the late fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries from the increasingly hostile atmosphere in Spain and
Provence. See Wettinger, The Jew¿ of Malta (Valletta, Malta, 1985), 2.
17. On links in this period between Spain and Sicily, see Giuseppe Mandala,
"Da Toledo a Palermo: Yitshaq ben Šelomoh ibn al-Ahdab in Sicilia (ca. 1395/
96- 1431)," in Flavio Mitridate mediatore fra culture nel contento dell'ebraismo siciliano
del XV ¿ecolo, ed. M. Perani and G. Corazzol (Palermo, 2012), 1-16.
18. British Library, MS 2806; BNF, MS hébreu 1069; BAV, MSS Vat. Heb.
379 and 171; Russian State Library, MS Günzberg 571; Bodleian Library, MS
Poe. 368. See the appendix below for further details on these texts.
19. Bodleian, MS Mich. 400.
20. BNF, MS hebreu 907.
2 1 . The manuscripts to be discussed here. Isaac may also be associated with a
"Book of the Astrolabe," London, Montefiore Library 423/4, ff. 131a-44b. On
this text, see Appendix, no. 18.
22. Abraham David, "I manoscritti ebraici come fonti storiche dell'ebraismo
salentino quattrocentesco," in Gli ebrei nel Salento : Secoli IX- XVI, ed. F. Lelli
(Galatina, 2013), 271. See also Giuliano Tamani, "Manoscritti ebraici copiati in
Sicilia nei secoli XIV- XIV," Henoch 15 (1993): 109, where it is noted that Hebrew
manuscripts from Sicily contain "soprattutto opere astronomiche e scientifiche."
On the philosophic culture of Sicilian Jews, see Mauro Zonta, "La filosofia
ebraica medievale in Sicilia," in Ebrei e Sicilia, ed. N. Bucaria, M. Luzzati, A.
Tarantino (Palermo, 2002), 163-68.
greater preoccupation than the letter to Lippomano suggests on i

Indeed, while we have evidence of linguistic interest and wri
the Jews of Sicily in this period,24 as of now we know virtua
about this branch of activity. The discovery and study of Isa
(and the marginal note presented in his name) thus represent
tant broadening of our knowledge concerning Sicilian Jewish
at this time.
III. ISAAC'S LETTER
Isaac's letter has survived in two nearly identical copies,

early) fifteenth-century north Italian manuscripts. The
two or three scribes, both texts are written in Italian semic
One is preserved in Parma (Biblioteca Palatina, MS Parm
2v- lv26), the other in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale
hébreu 1224, ff. 56v- 57v).
Though we cannot be certain that Lippomano received
scribal hands of both copies suggest that it at least rea
of Italy, while Flavio Biondo's reference to Lippomano
Chaldean offers intriguing additional, albeit indirect,
though the term "Chaldean" typically refers to Aramaic, th
century Palermitan Dominican humanist Pietro Ranz
associated it with Arabic,27 raising the possibility that Bion
as well. In addition, because Isaac's text is written entir
characters and never explicitly refers to "Arabic,'' it is not
Biondo or his source, having encountered or heard a des
text, assumed that it concerned Aramaic. Finally, as I wi
it is quite likely that Lippomano was specifically interes
23. British Library, MS Or. 1425, f. 1 14r. On this text, see

24. Tamani "Manoscritti ebraici," 109, has turned up evide
the Macuteb efod made in Sicily in 1492 for personal use (BNF
see Zonta, "La filosofia/' 165, where it is noted that the leadi
of fifteenth-century Sicily, the neo-Platonist Aharon ben Ger
Catania, wrote a now-lost "Sefer ha-meyasher" on Hebrew gra
25. I am grateful to Dr. Edna Engel of the Hebrew Palaeog
of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities for her ass
description.
26. The folios of this manuscript are enumerated in the op
from that which is customary.
27. Nadia Zeldes, "The Diffusion of Sefer Yosippon in Sicil
the Relations between Jews and Christians, " Materia Giudaica
the basis of this Biondo source, King ( Venetian Hunianutm, 3
Lippomano may have learned Arabic but did not furnish any bas
198 JQR 104.2 (2014)
Judeo- Arabic. Lacking this terminology

have opted for the term Chaldean to evo
neither Hebrew nor visibly Arabic. Cer
solid indication of Lippomano's interest in,
After presenting the introduction and
Hebrew and English, I will closely analyz
able document. The text and translation
manuscript, with the minor variants found
footnotes.
IV. THE TEXT
The Hebrew Text
Introduction
mn ia-1? ipm id ^noo-n1? mm ]na pmr ann 29nbm anan oa*ia

rrtoenon ratam ļps?n naân ma warn 32,naa m-^y ip-n -pna wan
ara aman nnan nanaa *rn mampn "pmerrr naiün ram rrnraKn âaiK tea
nan 351a-ra "aan pmpnn -pna nan ma'? nnernna rannü no îonaa
Taa nno bv -f? annax nam na*? D-a-aa nrac? ron nwn pefra *?man -a in noím
^9 ^ no*r irann :pa âa nœx a-aa^n naiano otisk nmci nmaan nnœ ]wh
nato nxaxü laa ļ-m rraana â starni âa nato "acam â nato
■rom fruan nato "conm iîna nata a "a œana *rsns 'ir aim ¡cnann ^ra
ansa nana nnin rârin nato yyn rnoana ^snn -jraom în nato
[The main body of the text here]
Conclusion
oa 'tooaü na to ama4? anaa ntor pt o ôído tob jrrm arrraa n ps m nan

-sa" 36V'î laaan max nói m nœaK ns bx na mana pn nxaa nnx iò
28. In his third letter to Cresças Me'ir, Lippomano does cite Daniel 7.13-4 in
Aramaic. But this on its own does not indicate any study or expertise in the
language, since he could have easily copied these verses from the Hebrew Bible,
to which he clearly had access. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 184, f.
15a, 11. 17-19.
29. Parma: nto 3PD
30. Parma: TIEDO-Q
31. Parma: X-XTTD
32. Parma: inCD0"Q
33. Parma: TIT2rai
34. Parma: OnQ
35. Parma: ļrīlK a-OQ
36. Parma: *?"n
"3 didìq D-aimpn D-aioVrano nap nmn p oa ní1?! :371 tanso -a

Ti?- i]QQ rfô1? no ixn man mann otto hcdd^ xm dìo uoœn enn
run dk "ļn" :ppi rrarn pn -dis ynx no -inxn -urca run Trta "odi
wbxn moaa mmcn arû -ibk 39,tann *po -nonn *6" 38,,rnmon nsan nox"
:mrn -par -pit -prrm mi?n ļaoo ļaoo -poxn -d 40rnira dtttí? Drrpiürm
D-mnan kod ļfron 41noon -ptra tt
English Translation
A copy of the document which Rabbi Isaac Kohen the Jew sent to Mae-
stro Marco Lippomano the gentile (lit. "uncircumcised") of Venice
Introduction
Your dear letter came to me via Messer Vinicio [or Venezio?] and from
it I came to appreciate how exceedingly great is your desire to attain
understanding in every possible manner. And behold my response to your
earlier requests is in another letter, written on the thirtieth day of March.
But as for what you sought from the outset regarding the study of the
language of Hagar [i.e., Arabic] in accordance with its grammar, behold
I respond to you here and say: know that the verb in this language is
arranged into seven "buildings" 'binyanim = , i.e., stem formations] alone
and behold I will arrange them for you in accordance with the "buildings"
of the language of the Mistress Sarah [i.e., Hebrew]. And afterwards I
will specify the mixture of bricks in each building.42 The first they call
fe'al like pa al; the second 'anfe'al, like nifal ; the third pa al, with a dagejh
(doubling) on the 'ayin, as I will clarify, like the dagejh in pi* el9, the fourth
fu 'il , it too with a dagejh, like pu ' al • the fifth 'afal like h if il ; the sixth J uf al,
37. Yehuda ha-Levi, Sefer ha-Kuzari (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1969), 2:72; 146.
38. Ps 51.8.
39. Dt 7.25.
40. Cf. Is 44:18 ('tam-tf mino ra o").
41. Parma: Dnoon. Shimon Sharvit has shown that both forms are desacral-
ized replacements for elohay or elohun (God) common in thirteenth- through
fifteenth-century Italian texts, in which the term el (God) was replaced with 1 1 herno
(his name), much as in the present-day ha-jhem (The Name). This substitution
appears, for example, in the first printed edition of the Mishnah (Naples, 1492).
Might this have been a form unique to specifically southern Italian communities?
The current case does, however, differ from the examples discussed by Sharvit
in the presence of the definite article ha-. See his "Traditions of the Writing and
Pronunciation of the Names of God across the Generations" (Hebrew), Leshonenu
70 (2008): 610.
42. A clever play on the Hebrew term for verb stems binyanim (buildings),
referring to individual conjugations as levanun (bricks).
200 JQR 104.2 (2014)
like bufal ; and the seventh tufa al with a

And now I will speak in detail . . .
o, n o
[The main body of the text now

paradigms of the (alleged) seven
kcuaba (30D) - meaning to acquir
(avar), present participle, imper
noun or gerund ( nomina actioniö o
vui), and future tense ('etan)¡]
o o o
Conclusion
Behold, this is the essence

wise man that one cannot w
thing in a hundred or a thou
munication ("mouth to mo
their memory be for a ble
from the mouth of books.
hinted at this when they s
than the sense of sight, nev
43. The argument of this sect

ten communication, is taken in
same quotation appears. See Y
(Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1972), 8
text for Isaac fits nicely with
for late medieval Sephardic a
Shear, The Kazari and the Shap
93. It is in fact quite likely
(Appendix, no. 12).
44. For example, Aristotle, De
as a supply for the primary w
but for developing thought he
Barnes, ed., The Complete Work
(Princeton, N.J., 1984), 694. I
might appear to be echoing th
soph'ui (ancient philosophy). B
the fifteenth century, well a
indication of philosophic pre
Platonism so central for this t
ment matches Aristotle (as h
Isaac's other scholarship was
Appendix, no. 17), an orientat
Italian Jewish culture at this t
possessors will be witness to this. And I already revealed to

other letter my opinion concerning the necessities of time, h
acquisition. "Behold," if you strive for knowledge, and "sure
truth, "45 then "you will not covet the gold and ¿ilver"46 in whic
of fools trust and with the longing for which their eyes are besm
Because by gathering up your ¿ilver, your longing will be uncove
in giving of your gold, the object of your desire will be discl
God be of help to you, and may He place you upon the seat of the
V. ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT
A. haue and Marco
This text raises a great many questions, only a few of which can be
answered with any certainty. Who is the "Messer" referred to in the very
first line as having brought Lippomano's letter to Isaac? The Paris manu-
script reads Parma Do these render the Italian proper name
"Vinicio"? Or should they perhaps be read as "Venezio," reflecting this
individual's association with the city of Venice? Might the Italian philoso-
pher and theologian Paulus Venetus (1368-1428) be the intended fig-
ure?48 As intriguing as this possibility is, in the absence of specific
evidence it must remain but a hypothesis.49
In addition, despite Isaac's reference to an earlier letter written on
March 30 of presumably the same year, the document cannot be precisely
dated.50 Lippomano's correspondence with Cresças Me 'ir probably took
conversant with Aristotelian thought. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano,"

177-78; Busi, "Lippomano," 20-21.
45. Ps 51.8.
46. Dt 7.25.
47. Cf. Is 44.18.
48. I am grateful to Stephen Bowd for suggesting this possibility to me.
49. For a brief overview of Paulus Venetus's life and work, see Alan R. Perre-
iah, Paul of Venice: A Bibliographical Guide (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1986), 7-33. As
Paulus taught both Marco Lippomano and his brother at the university in Padua
in 1410, and Marco again in 1416 (ibid., 15), it would not be surprising for him
later to serve as a conduit between Isaac and Marco. Yet in order to prove that
such a relationship existed, it would be helpful to show that Paulus was in Sicily
at some point in the 1420s or that Isaac was in Siena, Bologna, or Perugia, the
locales in which Paulus resided during this period (ibid., 17, 23-7).
50. Isaac refers to the Julian date as this was the calendar used by his corre-
spondent. Cresças Me 'ir similarly states that he is writing in the year 1422. Busi
and Campanini, "Lippomano," 172, n. 10; 193, f. 7v, 1. 19; Busi, "Lippomano,"
15, n. 10. It is bitterly ironic that we possess such an exact date for a letter we no
longer have, whereas that in our possession is completely undated.
202 JQR 104.2 (20 M)
place in the years 1420- 22, 51 and since h

letters that he is new to the Hebrew lang
receiving his doctorate in arts in 1-417. A
Hebrew, their association must date from
probably later in the 1420s or 1430s.62 L
1447) represents the ultimate terminuj ante
But how did they come into contact in the
the elusive middleman would surely be a key
and it is not impossible that subsequent r
Venetian environment will enable this. In
dence suggests the renowned southern Fr
Profiat Duran (ca. 1350-ca. 1415) and h
ultimate source of their association. To b
appears closely linked with that of Dura
letter to Lippomano is accompanied by
Macweh efod. In addition, there is stron
owned (and perhaps annotated) a copy
Hebrew linguistics.53 Finally, the above-m
Hebrew language referring to Isaac is fou
end of a complete fifteenth-century copy o
upon which it comments is written in the
These connections with Duran and his ci
cant in light of Busi's emphasis on Cresças M
pignan environment in which Duran was
this Cresças was the son of the philosop
himself a disciple of Duran.54 It thus ap
pomano initially came into contact with
Indeed, Lippomano's second letter explicit
51. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 172;

52. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 1
53. See Appendix, no. 15, below.
54. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 177,
40. This identification has aroused some cont
Lippomano's interlocutor may well be Me 'ir C
ing (though without clarifying why) that Bus
Abraham David, "I manoscritti ebraici," 269,
or care that Lippomano's interlocutor is alwa
Cresças, a difference that would appear to be
through his father, however, there appears no d
ciation with Duran.
HA-KOHEN'S LETTER TO LIPPOMANO -STEIN KOKIN 203
of the sort Isaac prepared,55 creating the perfect opportunity f

to have brought the two scholars into contact.
Furthermore, since both of Lippomano's known Jewish c
dents are linked to Duran, it would seem that Lippomano, t
close ties with his circle. In fact, the Venetian translated fr
to Latin the introduction and canons to the astronomical tables of the
fourteenth-century Catalonian astronomer Jacob ben David Yom-Tov,
best known as the Po'el.56 He was an important associate of Duran - it
was his son's baptism that provoked Duran's authorship of the famous
satirical polemic "Don't Be Like Your Fathers'' (al tehi ke-avotekha) ,57 And
while we can confirm no direct association between Isaac and the Po'el,
it is noteworthy that two copies of Isaac's astronomical works are imme-
diately preceded by the Orah jelulah of Isaac ben Solomon ben Saddik ibn
al-Ahdab Sefardi (Isaac ibn al-Ahdab, for short),58 a text which opens
with a stinging critique of the Po'el s tables.59
The heading on both manuscripts indicates that neither is an original:
"A copy (tofeS) of the document which Rabbi Isaac Kohen the Jew sent,''
while the subsequent contrast between Isaac "the Jew'' and Lippomano
"the uncircumcised" further highlights the letter's unusual character.60
55. Busi and Campanini, 182, f. 17b, 11. 6-8.

56. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 179; Busi, "Lippomano," 22. The text,
known alternatively as the "Tov Po'el" or "Luhot ha- Po'el," was widely dissemin-
ated, mostly in Hebrew, but also in Latin, Greek, and Catalan, throughout the
fifteenth century. On Jacob and his astronomical studies, see José Chabás, "The
Astronomical Tables of Jacob ben Davin Bonjorn," Archive for Hhtory of Exact
Science*! 42.4 (1991), 279-314.
57. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 177, n. 33, and 179, n. 41; Busi,
"Lippomano," 21, n. 40, 22, n. 43.
58. British Library, MS Or. 2806 and BNF, MS hebreu 1069. This similarity
was noted by Zonta, "La filosofia," 166. Additional research should attempt to
clarify further the relationship between these manuscripts. On ibn al-Ahdab, see
Mandala, "Da Toledo a Palermo."
59. Margoliouth, Catalogue, 3:336.
60. Though the term "uncircumcised" (' arel) might appear derogatory, it ap-
pears to have functioned as a neutral designation for Christians, at least in the
Mediterranean world reflected in the documents of the Cairo Geniza. See S. D.
Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewbh Communities of the Arab World a*i Por-
trayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley, Calif., 1971), 2:278. Here it
is noted that "in the same document a writer would use indiscriminately arel
and natdrani (the Arabic term) for Christians, and goy and miudun for Muslims."
Derogatory or not, the designation of non-Jews as the "uncircumcized" has a
long pedigree; see, for example, Eph 2.11 and mNed 3.11. It was certainly also
204 JQR 104.2 (2014)
There is certainly no reason to think th

hand. One would not expect him to have
as surviving texts likely in his hand bear o
Why were the copies produced in the f
them? Were they made for record keep
interest in the text? Do they accurately
document? And last, but no less unimpo
do not know. From their headings, howeve
use would probably have been internal
point reinforced by the accompanying H
copy appears next to Abraham ibn Ezra's
panies, as noted, Duran s Macueh efod and
mah of Mattathias b. Isaac, a work anal
mo'zne leshon ha-kodesh.6Z Alight some Ita
interested in Isaac's introduction to Arabic or Judeo-Arabic?
B. Arabic Study in Renaissance Italy
Whether and however it might have been used, Isaac's letter is significant
as a rare and particularly early indication of humanist interest in Arabic
in the Italian Renaissance. According to current scholarship, the four-
teenth and most of the fifteenth centuries were largely a black hole for
Arabic study in Latin Christendom.64 The Council of Vienne's 1312 call
common in the context of Italian Jewry . See II Pitigliani: Centro Ebraico Ital-
iano, Glossario Giudaico-Romanesco (Rome, 1996), 40.
61. Appendix, nos. 16 and 17 (as well as the ownership inscriptions, nos. 12-
15).
62. Following the conclusion of the Paris manuscript, however, there is what
appears to be a signature in Roman letters, in what looks to be a later hand.
Unfortunately, I have thus far been unable to decipher it. Might this indicate a
censor's perusal of the text?
63. Richler, Hebrew Afss. in the Biblioteca Palatina, 419.
64. On the study of Arabic in the Renaissance, see Karl H. Dannenfeldt, "The
Renaissance Humanists and the Study of Arabic," Studies in the Renaissance 2.1
(1955): 96-1 17; Debora Kuller Shuger, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice,
and Subjectivity (Berkeley, Calif., 1994), 13-16, 33-34; Hartmut Bobzin, "Gesch-
ichte der arabischen Philologie in Europa bis zum Ausgang des achtzehnten Jah-
rhunderts/' in Grundriss der Arabischen Philologie, ed. W. Fischer, Band 3:
Supplement (Wiesbaden, 1992), 155-87; Johann Fück, Die arabischen Studien in
Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 19 55), 25-53; and Benoît
Grévin, "Connaissance et enseignement de l'Arabe dans l'Italie du XVe siècle:
Quelques jalons," in Maghreb-Italie: Des passeurs médiévaux à l'orientalisme tnoderne
(XlIIe -mäieu XXe siècle), ed. ibid. (Rome, 2010), 103-38. With the exception of
Grévin, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are hardly discussed in these
for the establishment of university chairs in Arabic (among

guages) went unheeded.65 And the merchant, diplomat, and m
cian Beltramo di Leonardo Mignanelli (1370-1455), 66 wh
called "the first Italian Arabist"67 and the merchant and expl
dei Conti (1395-1469) from Chioggia near Venice are in fact
Italian students of the language known to me from this perio
an elite Sienese family, Beltramo mastered Arabic in the con
extensive travels in the Levant in the late fourteenth and early f
centuries (ca. 1390- 1405), 68 later writing, among other works, b
ies of the Mamluk sultan Barquq and Tamerlane, and, in 1443
de variant ib iu Pjalterii, a comparison of two Latin and one A
translations.69 Mignanelli's services as translator were furthermo
out at the church councils of both Constance (1414-18) an
Florence (1438-45). As for Niccolò, already as a young man he
way to Damascus where he studied Arabic, before continuing o
els throughout much of Asia. His exploits are recorded in boo
the humanist Poggio Bracciolini's De varietate fortiuiae. 70
Mignanelli and Niccolò notwithstanding, only in the late fifteen
tury, in the context of the Italian humanists Giorgio Valla (14
works. Of course, the study and use of Arabic continued throughout

among the non-Christians of Iberia and Sicily.
65. Dannenfeldt, "The Renaissance Humanists," 98-99; G. J. Toomer,
WLtedome and Learning: The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century Eng
1996), 10. On the general effects of this council's stipulation, see
Altaner, "Die Durchführung des Vienner Konzilsbeschlusses," Zeitschri
chengeschichte 52 (1933): 226-36.
66. On Mignanelli, see, most recently, Nelly Mahmoud Helmy, T
l'Oriente e la curia: Beltramo di Leonardo Mignanelli e le sue opere (Roma,
67. Angelo Michele Piemontese, "La lingua araba comparata d
Mignanelli," Acta Orientalin Acadeniiae Scientiaruni Hungaricae 48 (199
68. According to an obituary notice, he knew Arabic "as if he had
and raised among [the Arabs]," and "maintained a not less than mat
in reading, writing, and translating [it]." Mahmoud Helmy, "I Mign
catura, impegno pubblico e intellettuale di un casato senese tra XIII e
Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria 1 14 (2007): 64.
69. This work, preserved today at the Biblioteca Comunale degli I
Siena (BCIS MS X.VI.2, ff. l-32v), is discussed in Piemontese,
araba," 155-70 and in Mahmoud Helmy, Tra Siena, 266- 70.
70. On Niccolò and his travels, see Alessandro Grossato, L'India di
Conti (Padua, 1994). He may also have been involved as a translator a
cil of Ferrara- Florence (Mahmoud Helmy, Tra Siena, 214).
71. Giorgio Levi della Vida, Ricerche sulla formazione del più antic
manoscritti orientali della Biblioteca vaticana (Vatican City, 1939), 97, n
skepticism as to the full extent of this study. On Valla, see also G. G
206 JQR 104.2 (2014)
and Pico della Mirandola (1463- 94), 72 t

nusio (d. I486),73 the university profess
15 12), 74 and the scientist Andreas Alpagu
speak of significant interest in Arabic
West.76 In the early sixteenth century
was also an important student of the langu
Indeed, it has been asserted that the hum
ited interest in Arabic. According to th
study in late fourteenth- and early fifteen
access to ancient sources which had hit
via their Arabic translators and interpr
prejudice against scholastic thought o
titioners thereof, such as Ibn Rushd (
Landucci Ruffo, C. Vasoli, V. Branca, eds.,

(Florence, 1981) and, most recently, the docto
Valla e i libri matematici del De expetendis et fua
(Pisa, 2008).
72. On Pico's engagement with Arabie, see
di Sicilia," in Ebrei e Sicilia, 180. Concernin
sources, see Mauro Zonta, "Due nuove fonti
e impiegate da Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Zonta suggests that it may well have been
material available to Pico, a fitting indicatio
Jews in the wider dissemination of texts in th
73. George Saliba, "Whose Science is Ar
Europe," sec. 5, http://www.columbia.edu/~gas
(Accessed 02/17/13). Ramnusio went to Syria
74. More on this figure below.
75. On Alpagus, see Alastair Hamilton, Europe
34, and, most recently, George Saliba, Islamic Sci
Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), 210, 22
the Near East, spending thirty years in Damasc
sulate in that city. Later, he became a renowne
76. It should, however, be noted that the humanists Niccolò Niccoli and
Manetti were both in possesion of Arabic léxica: Biblioteca Riccardiana (Flor-
ence) MS 217 and BAV, Pal. Lat. MS 1136, ff. 75v- 78v, respectively. The latter
is a brief Latin- Arabic dictionary (with entries from A to K), written entirely in
Roman script. See Berthold L. Ullman and Philip A. Städter, The Public Library
of Renaissance Florence (Padua, 1972); Dröge, 33.
77. On Egidio 's interest in Arabic and the Koran, see Bobzin, "Geschichte,"
84-88, Natalie Zemon Davis, Trichter Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Mud lim between
Wo rid j (New York, 2006), 71 and passim; and Thomas E. Burman, Reading the
Qu 'ran in Latin Christendom (1140-1560) (Philadelphia, 2007), 149-77.
78. Toomer, Eastern Wisedome , 16; Hamilton, Europe, 12. See also, Felix Klein-
Franke, Die klassische Antike in der Tradition des Islam (Darmstadt, 1980), chap. 1,
and Nancy G. Siraisi, Avicenna in Renaissance Italy (Princeton, N.J., 1987), 65-66.
encounter with Arabic appears to have predated his form

humanist, and not until the composition of his comparative P
he comment at length on the relationship between Arabic and
guages. I have suggested that Isaac's letter probably dates from
or 1430s; given Lippomano's death in 1446 or 1447, it is a
unlikely that Mignanelli's text precedes it. In light of this pictur
mano's interest in Arabic from within Italy, at precisely the
the Greek revival was truly getting underway, is particularly str
the same time, the case of Lippomano raises the possibility of
stantial humanist interest in Arabic in this period than has hithe
appreciated, potentially challenging the notion that Greek st
fered with that of Arabic. Time will tell if humanism did in
away from engagement with Arabic or if this assessment is
product of insufficient research.79
As for Isaac ha- Kohen, his association with Syracuse accor
with his knowledge of at least some Arabic. For as an endur
quence of the medieval period of Muslim rule over Sicily, rei
subsequent Jewish immigration (especially from North Afri
Arabic language and culture persisted on the island, particula
its Jewish population.80 A far more famous Sicilian Jew from la
fifteenth century, Samuel ben Nissim Abulfaraj - the conver
tianity best known as Flavius Mithridates - is accordingly also
have known Arabic.81 Knowledge of the language enabled S
79. Further research on Arabic study in Renaissance Italy (and It

eral) is in any case needed.
80. On continued Arabic use among Sicilian Jews, see Benedetto
tre lingue usate dagli ebrei di Sicilia dal secolo XII al secolo XV," Ital
(1995): 355-69; Henri Bresc, Arabes de langue, juifs c)e religion: L'évolution
sicilien dans l'environnement latin, Xlle-X Ve siècles (Saint- Denis, 200
Dario Burgaretta, "Un Documento Giudeo- Arabo Siciliano Conserv
cusa," Italia 16 (2004): 7-39. On Arabophone Jewish immigration, se
Mandala, "La migrazione degli ebrei del Garbum in Sicilia (1239),"
Giudaica 11 (2006): 179-99. Concerning Jewish immigration to Sicily
see Angela Scandaliato and Maria Gerardi, "Lingua, istruzione e sc
braismo siciliano nel Medioevo," Sefer Yuhasin 10 (1994): 26.
81. Dannenfeldt, "The Renaissance Humanists," 101; Levi della V
che," 92-94) described Flavius as perhaps the only Arabist present
trocento Rome, noting at the same time that his competency in the l
limited. Subsequent studies appraised his Arabic knowledge more
See K. Lippincott and D. Pingree, "Ibn al-Hatim on the Talismans of
Mansions," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 50 (1987)
montese, "Il Corano latino di Ficino e i Corani arabi di Pico e Monch
cunento 36 (1996): 227- 73; Piemontese, "Guglielmo Raimondo M
corte di Urbino" in Guglielmo Raimondo Moneada ali/u Flavio Mitridate
ani (Palermo, 2008), 151-71; and Bobzin, "Guglielmo Raimondo Ma
208 JQR 104.2 (2014)
other Jews to serve as intermediaries be

as indeed it did for Isaac ha- Kohen as well. But here this function is
executed in a likely novel and most unexpected manner, through the pro-
duction of an introduction to Arabic in Hebrew for a Christian Hebraist.
Isaac thus functions here as a new kind of mediator, not of knowledge
per se but rather of linguistic expertise, a role with which Italian and
other Jews in the coming decades would become increasingly familiar.
Lippomano's recourse to a Jewish teacher of Arabic raises the possibil-
ity that he was specifically interested in learning Judeo- Arabic, that is,
the Arabic written in Hebrew letters widely used by Jews in Muslim
lands.82 Busi linked Lippomano's Hebraism to his recognition "that the
Jews guarded books unavailable in any other language" (as noted above,
he even translated a Hebrew scientific text into Latin), an attitude that
he correctly describes as extremely precocious.83 There is thus every rea-
son to think that he would have come to the same realization as Migna-
nelli in his Liber (and likely a generation or so earlier) that Jewish authors
sua traduzione della sura 21," in ibid., 173-83. Benoît Grévin places Flavius's
Arabic knowledge in between the "considerations méprisantes de Levi Della
Vida" and the "louanges hyperboliques de la recherche récente," arguing that it
was by and large restricted to the Sicilian Judeo- Arabic in which he would have
been raised. See Grévin, "Un témoin majeur du rôle des communautés juives de
Sicile dans la préservation et la diffusion en Italie d'un savoir sur l'arabe et l'Islam
au XVe siècle: Les notes interlinéaires et marginales du 'Coran de Mithridate'
(MS Vat. Heb. 357)," in Chrétiens, Juif ó et Musulmans dans la Méditterranée Médié-
vale: Etudes en hommage à Henri Bresc, ed. G. Benoît, A. Nef, and E. Tixier (Paris,
2008), 45-56, esp. 53. Most recently, on the question of Flavius's Arabie knowl-
edge, see Flavio Mitridate mediatore.
82. Joshua Blau 's The Emergence and Ling uh tic Background of Judeo-Arabic: A
Study of the Origins of Middle Arabic (Jerusalem, 1981) remains a classic introduc-
tion to Judeo-Arabic.
83. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 174; Busi, "Lippomano," 17. A some-
what similar notion can however be discerned in writings ascribed to the thir-
teenth-century philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon, which argue that
knowledge of Hebrew (alongside Greek and Arabic) is a prerequisite for the
study of philosophy. On this, see The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon and a Fragment
of Hb Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Nolan and S. A. Hirsch (Cambridge, 1902), xvi-
xvii. As to whether this Hebrew grammar can in fact be linked to Bacon, see
Judith Olszowy- Schlanger, "The Knowledge and Practice of Hebrew Grammar
among Christian Scholars in Pre-Expulsion England: The Evidence of 'Bilingual'
Hebrew- Latin Manuscripts," in Hebrew Scholarship and the Middle Aged, ed.
N. R. M. De Lange (Cambridge, 2001), 107- 27; Olszowy- Schlanger, "Robert
Wakefield and the Medieval Background of Hebrew Scholarship in Renaissance
England," in Hebrew to Latin - Latin to Hebrew: The Mirroring of Two Cultures in the
Age of Humanism, ed. G. Busi (Turin, 2006), 61-87.
"produced many books of philosophy and medicine in Arab

Judeo- Arabic. Seen in this context, Lippomano's choice of
teacher from Sicily, site of a particularly large collection of Jud
scientific texts,85 is not at all surprising. At the very least, the
any Arabic script in Isaac's letter indicates that it would h
little help for standard Arabic, though it is of course entirely p
Isaac was not Lippomano's sole Arabic tutor and/or that
hoped at a subsequent stage to learn Arabic as used by M
Christians.
C. The Language of Hagar and the Language of Sarah

Goitein noted that "it was a commonplace among both Jewish and Mus-
lim scholars that Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic were basically one and
the same language," adding that it was Jews who knew all three who did
"the actual work of comparison and mutual explanation, thus laying the
foundations for the field of comparative linguistics."86 While Isaac in this
84. Ibid., Piemontese, "La lingua araba," 161. Kees Versteegh, Landmarks in
Linguistic Thought III: The Arabic linguistic tradition (London, 1997), 174, notes that
"Judaeo- Arabic was used for almost everything by Jewish authors."
85. Piemontese, Ebrei e Sicilia , 179. Though Piemontese argues that Sienese
Jews of Mignanelli's time knew Arabic "and probably possessed Arabic or
Judeo-Arabic manuscripts" (Piemontese, "La lingua araba"), this seems rather
unlikely and Piemontese himself does not furnish any evidence for these claims.
We do, however, know of some Judeo-Arabic scientific texts on the Italian penin-
sula in the fifteenth century. Umberto Cassuto noted the longstanding presence
of at least seven such manuscripts in the Vatican library, three of which (MSS
Vat. Heb. 357, 369, 378) belonged to Antonio Biaxander, a Sicilian-born oriental-
ist professor at the University of Rome in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries most commonly known by the academic name Flaminio. Thanks to the
more recent catalogue prepared by Richler and his team from the IMHM, we
can note that two additional texts in Flaminio's possession (MSS Vat. Heb. 203,
420) also contained Judeo-Arabic texts. Flaminio's apparent knowledge of some
Arabic, as well as Hebrew, accounts for his interest in these materials. See
Umberto Cassutto, I Manoscritti Palatini Ebraici della Biblioteca Apotolica Vaticana e
la Loro Storia (Vatican City, 1935), 70-74. On Flaminio, who appears to have
written a now-lost astronomical treatise, see Marco Vattasso, Antonio Flaminio e le
principali poesie dell'autografo vaticano 2870 (Rome, 1900), esp. 21; and, more
recently, Flavio Mitridate mediatore, 216, 241, 247-48, 276. Though some scholars
assert Flaminio's Jewish origins, I am aware of no evidence for this claim.
86. S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (New York,
1955), 137. An early example of such an undertaking is the eleventh/twelfth-
centuiy Spanish Jew Isaac ibn Barun's Kitab al-muwazana bayn al-lugha al-
'ibraniyya wa-al-'arabiyya ( Book of Comparison between Hebrew and Arabic). I am
grateful to Alan Verskin for bringing this work to my attention. On this figure
and text, see Dan Becker, Arabic Sources of Isaac Ben Barun s Book of Comparison
210 JQR 104.2 (2014)
specific text does not engage in any sophis

he does frequently note cases in which A
or differ from, their Hebrew counterpart
the past-tense Arabic forms - what cont
fect" - for the first building, he observes
holy tongue."87
By contrast, the presentation of the A
modern parlance) as functionally equiva
occasions the comment "this matter is diff
our language."88 This remark, at least at fi
all, the Hebrew and Arabic verbal system
possessing only two aspects or tenses, pe
present/future. Isaac s reference to the
thought, like the medieval Hebrew (and
general, in terms of tense and not aspec
representing the future tense.89 Isaac th
similarities between the Hebrew and Ar
greater difficulties in the case of the impe
in order to express future action, Arabi
with the letter d een (O"), rendered by
equivalent jamekh (o). Not surprisingly,
Hebrew imperfect or future.
Presumably, with the Arabic past and
was logical for Isaac to conceive of the u
expressing present, ongoing action, mu
present participle. Isaac's linkage between
ple may also reflect some specific knowl
between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages (Heb

has written more reservedly, arguing that "
to wait until the elaboration of the historica
European languages in the nineteenth centur
proximity of Arabic to Hebrew also played a
ture of the early modern West. On this, see H
87. Parma MS, f. 259v.
88. Ibid.
89. Profiat Duran also conceived of the Hebrew verb in terms of tense and
not aspect. See Ma 'aseh efod , 3 1 . On this tendency in general, see Irene E. Zwiep,
"Hebrew or the Holy Tongue? Imitation and Authenticity in Medieval Hebrew
Writing," in Language and Cultural Change: Ajpectd of the Study and Use of Language
in the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. L. Nauta (Leuven, 2006), 85; also,
William Chomsky, David Kimhi's Hebrew Grammar (Mikhlol), part 1 (Philadelphia,
1933), 74.
tradition on his part. Arab linguists apparently regarded the e

the imperfect verb as "not merely similar to those of the noun
fact] identical with them/'90 some even arguing that the "pho
pattern of the imperfect verb ... is similar to that of the activ
ple. "91 In light of these views, one can all the better understand h
sion to place this tense under the general rubric of the inter
category, alongside the participle.
By far the most surprising aspect of Isaac's introduction to
his claim that the Arabic verbal root, like Hebrew, "is arranged in
'buildings' alone (lerne))," even though the Arabic verb system is t
assigned fifteen stem formations or derived forms (to be sure,
are frequently used, the last three extremely rare).92 Did he ha
formulated view of Arabic's linguistic core, his insistence on o
"buildings" reflecting opposition to alternative reckonings?93
simply assume that Arabic grammar could, at least for the mos
derived from its close relative? Though Judeo-Arabic speakers
applied uniquely Arabic rules of verb stem formation to Hebre
close alignment between the two languages' verbal systems is
far as I am aware. It is certainly ironic to encounter a Jewis
describing Arabic in such explicitly Hebraic terms given the tr
debt of Hebrew linguists in the Middle Ages to their Arabic count
Six of Isaac's seven Arabic binyanini do indeed correspond t
Hebrew counterparts. I have here represented these correspo
(Hebrew to Arabic) in terms of the standard Western numer
Arabic names of these stem forms.
1 Pa' al = I fa' ala (active)

2 Nif al = VII infa'ala (passive, reflexive; sometimes active meaning)
3 Pi'el = 11 fa'ala (causative, intensifying)
A Pu'al = ?
5 HiPil = IV 'af ala (causative)
90. Versteegh, Landmarks, 47.

91. Ibid., 69.
92. Carl Paul Caspar, A Grammar of the Arabic Language , vol. 1, trans. W.
Wright, rev. W. Robertson Smith and M. J. de Goeje (Cambridge, 1967), 29.
The numerical identification of the verbal stems, standard in contemporaiy ac
demic study of Arabic, is an invention of Western scholarship. Isaac refers t
them with their traditional names, albeit slightly modified (fe'al for fa'ala, etc.).
93. The number seven had a particular linguistic élan in the period. Se
Appendix, no. 10.
94. Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Ling uu tic Background, 138-39.
212 JQR 104.2 (2014)
6 Hop al = IV aF ala (causative)

7 Hitpa'el = V tafanala (reflexive)
Only the fourth stem formation presented by Isaac, what he calls fu il

CriÏÏS) and which is meant to correspond to the Hebrew binyan pu al
(*?EìS), is problematic. The past tense forms which he places first here are
merely the passive forms of the first stem formation, whereas the future
forms appear not to correspond to any known Arabic forms.95 According
to Isaac, there is no participle or gerund in this fourth Arabic building.
Also noteworthy is how Isaac in effect divides the fourth Arabic stem
form 'afala into two forms, one active and one passive; the first he calls
'afal (^tfipx), the second ' uf al (^tfĎW). This appears to be the curious result
of Isaac's effort to reconcile the Arabic verb stems, most of which typi-
cally "have two voices, the active and the passive/'96 with the Hebrew
binyanim , which are either one or the other. The Arabic counterpart to
Isaac's 'ufal (^jpèìX) is 'ufila and is merely the passive form of 'afala.
Interestingly, Isaac's difficulties with the fourth Arabic stem formation
anticipate errors committed by Flavius Mithridates in his Qu 'ran transla-
tions,97 further evidence for both figures' Sicilan Judeo-Arabic back-
ground.
The two frequently used stem forms that are missing are VI (taf a ala),
conveying the mutual relationship between two things, and X (id taf aid),
expressing intention, thought, or the seeking or demand for something.
Isaac's decision to commence his Arabic instruction with the verbal
system reflects deep rootedness in the Hebrew linguistic tradition: David
Kimhi's (1 160? - 1235?) renowned Hebrew grammar, the Mikhlol, also
opened with the verb, in recognition "of its significance and frequent
usage."98 And Isaac's order of presentation, of past tense, followed by the
participles, the verbal noun, the imperative, concluding with future tense,
accords with that employed by Profiat Duran and other distinguished
95. Blau observed that attempts to correct Middle Arabic into Classical Ara-
bic yielded forms that did not in fact exist. See Blau, The Emergence, 27.
96. Caspar, A Grammar, 49.
97. See Grévin, "Un témoin/' 53.
98. Chomsky, David Kimhi'á Hebrew Grammar, 10 ("Although the noun pre-
cedes the verb and is regarded in its relation to it as the substance to its accident,
yet I begin with the verb because of its significance and frequent usage"). It is
worth noting that in his second letter to Cresças Me 'ir, Lippomano indicates that
a codex containing Kimhi's Mikhlol and his Sefer ba-¿hora¿him represents the only
Hebrew book in his possession. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 181, f. 17b,
11. 1-2.
Hebrew grammarians." Isaac's terminology is also Hebraic, th

quently based on the older Arabic linguistic lexicon: for exam
for verbal noun is the equivalent of the Arabic term mcudar.
absent refer to second and third person, respectively, as is
well in both languages. The participle is denoted bey noni (int
reflecting its status as somewhere between verb and adjectiv
Isaac employs the common Hebrew designation for the imp
future tense, etan (strong), an acronym for the individual let
prefixes in this tense.100
That Arabic is an inferior language to Hebrew appears
given and is reflected in his biblically inflected contrast be
language of Hagar" ( Icuthon Hagar) and that of the Mistress Sara
Sarah ha-gevirah) . While it was not uncommon in the mediev
modern period for Arabic to be described in this way,101 Isaa
fication of both tongues via these two biblical characters indi
familiarity with Spanish Jewish culture - a point not surpris
of his Syracusan biography.102 The great eleventh-century Se
and philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-58) described
the mistress and Arabic as the concubine in one of his songs,
picked up in turn by Moses ibn Ezra (ca. 1055- after 11 35) 10
Judah Alharizi (1165-1225) in the introduction to his Tahkemoni.
the poet mourns how his coreligionists "have spurned the Heb
and desired the Hagarite tongue," for "their hearts were te
seeing how precious is the poetry to which Hagar the Egypti
99. Duran, Ma 'ase h efod , 181 -84.

100. A near-precedent for this abbreviation appears in ibid., 92.
101. See Dannenfeldt, "The Renaissance Humanists," 106-7.
102. Robert Bonfil notes "the many features of a Spanish or Moslem nature
that characterized" the Jews of Sicily in this period. Bonfil, Jewbh Life in Rena 'u-
dance Italy, trans. A. Oldcorn (Berkeley, Calif., 1994), 79. In particular, Sicilian
Jews routinely traveled to Spain to pursue religious studies, while Jewish teach-
ers frequently came from Spain to teach in Sicily (Scandaliato and Gerardi, "Lin-
gua," 35). Of course, if Isaac himself was of Spanish extraction, then there is no
need to explain his use of these motifs.
103. Solomon ibn Gabirol, Shire ha-hol, ed. H. Brody and J. Schirmann (Jeru-
salem, 1974), no. 250, 11. 53, 171.
104. On Moses ibn Ezra's use of this motif, see Nehemya Allony, "The Reac-
tion of Moses Ibn Ezra to 'Arabiyya," Bulletin of the Institute of Jewbh Studied 3
(1975): 33, where this practice is understood as a response to the aristocratic
pretensions of the Arabs bound up with their doctrine of " 'Arabiyya" or "Ara-
bism."
105. Judah Alharizi, Tahkemoni , ed. Y. Toporovki (Tel Aviv, 1952), 9-10.
214 JQR 104.2 (2014)
servant has given birth. 'And Sarah was

he speaks of a maiden who describes he
mistress" (ani leu bon ha- kódech geviratkh
Spanish Jews specifically described A
Hebrew,108 a notion that may well lie b
binyanim as the standard against which t
analyzed. Thus, while recent scholarship
by Judeo- Arabic as an identity marke
Jews,109 Isaac's rhetoric suggests this
ascription of superiority to Hebrew.
Finally, Isaac's characterization of Arab
also indicate defensiveness in response
language. Might the latter have come to
greater scientific importance, a sentiment
to Isaac? Though Lippomano occasionally
language" ( ladhon ha-kodejfc) in his cor
his interest in it appears practical in natur
itly asserts its superiority to other lang
asserts that Hebrew is to be analyzed on
Arabic (propter confo rmitatem linguae
Isaac himself have had some exposure t
eagerness on his part to emphasize Hebr
D. Sicilian Judeo-Arabic
The Arabic of Isaac's verb paradigms co

both Judeo-Arabic and, especially, the S
106. Gn 11.30.
107. For additional bibliography on this trope, see Irene E. Zwiep, Mother of
Recuion and Revelation: A Short History of Medieval Jewish Ling nu tic Thought (Amster-
dam, 1997), 209, n. 131.
108. On the basis of the Hebrew language's priority to Arabic, as well as "its
status of having been created first of all the languages," Profiat Duran stridently
rejected the notion that Hebrew is corrupted Arabic, implying instead that the
opposite must be the case. Duran, Ma'aöeh efod, chap. 4, 33. Maimonides also was
party to this view, at least to a certain degree. See, for example, Isaiah Sonne,
"Maimonides' Letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon according to an Unknown Text in
the Archives of the Jewish Community of Verona" (Hebrew), Tarbiz 10 (1939):
135-54, 309-32.
109. See Annliese Nef, "La langue écrite des juifs de Sicile au XVe siècle," in
Mutations à 'Identités en Méditerranée , ed. H. Bresc and C. Veauvy (Paris, 2000),
85-94.
110. Piemontese, "La lingua araba," 161.
the Hebrew letter yod to represent a short Arabic vowel (un

both Hebrew and Arabic script) was a commonplace of Jud
throughout the entire northwestern domain of Arabic, includin
And a series of vowel substitutions are known to characterize Sicilian
Arabic. Thus, i vowels (/I/) - as in English bit, or Arabic inkeoaba ("he/it
was acquired") - are typically represented as a vowels with the Hebrew
vowel patah: 303DĶ ( ankeoab ); a similar exchange occurs between a and
i (Isaac writes mikoub 3Ì0DP instead of the classical Arabic makoub 3Ì03Q),
and u (as in you) and i vowels (Isaac writes ik- instead of uk-).xn In
addition, Isaac's placement of the patah vowel under the third letter of
the root for the second masculine singular imperative form in each and
every stem formation, while erroneous for both Classical Arabic ( Fiu ha )
and Hebrew, appears to reflect Sicilian Arabic's tendency to add vowel
sounds at the end of words.113
On occasion, Isaac leaves out vowels as they would be found in Arabic,

but not as they would be in Hebrew, leaving it unclear what exactly
he regarded as the correct pronunciation.114 Nevertheless, his letter is
extremely valuable in furnishing one of the only indications from this
period concerning the pronunciation of Sicilian Judeo- Arabic. Writing
back in 1985, and referring to the fifteenth century in particular, Wet-
tinger noted that "even now, after the publication of some sixty other
Judaeo- Arabic documents from Sicily it is still impossible to obtain a
clear idea of many aspects of the Arabic spoken there in the absence of a
111. Wettinger, The Jews of Malta, 157: "Unlike Classical Arabic or Hebrew,
Judaeo- Arabic frequently resorted to the use of scriptio plena or the writing
down in full of the whole of a word, including the short vowels which the first
two languages left completely unrecorded in unpointed texts." In a personal com-
munication with the author, Dario Burgaretta stressed, in particular, the fre-
quency with which one encounters such orthography in fifteenth-century Judeo-
Arabic documents. According to Giuseppe Brincat, Malta: Una storia linguistica
(Recco, Genoa, 2003), 72, Sicilian bureaucratic documents sometimes render
Sicilian Arabic in Greek characters, thereby indicating the pronunciation more
clearly than would be the case in Arabic letters, "especially with regard to the
vowels." Brincat refers here to the Middle Ages; I submit that Isaac's letter
evinces the same phenomenon in a later period, in the Hebrew alphabet.
112. See the chart of comparative orthography in Brincat, Malta, 71; see also
Dionisius Albertus Agius, Siculo Arabic (London, 1996), 355-57. On Sicilian Ara-
bic in general, see Brincat, Malta, 64-78; Agius; and Bresc, Arabes de langue, 48.
113. Brincat, Malta, 70.
1 14. For example, the second-person feminine plural past form "you
acquired" is pronounced "kasavtuna" but is rendered in Hebrew as ļrĢO?. See
BNF MS hébreu 1224, f. 56v.
216 JQR 104.2 (2014)
pointed text/'115 Isaac's letter is the only p

emerged since.116 Admittedly, it is shor
Nevertheless, its conformity with what
and Sicilian Judeo- Arabic from other pe
evidence for the continued spoken use o
century, a subject concerning which
debate.117
At least one important characteristic of t

entirely lacking in the letter, namely, the u
person singular and plural in the imperfec
plural case). In addition, the noted use of t
imperfect into future throughout the le
crepancy, as this usage is more charact
Judeo- Arabic.
While these two discrepancies might at first glance appear problematic,

they in fact accord rather nicely with what we know about typical Jewish
and Sicilian Arabic writing from other contexts. Benjamin Hary has pro-
posed that Judeo- Arabic be understood as a linguistic continuum, with
some writers more closely approximating Classical Arabic than others.118
115. Wettinger, The Jew of Malta, 197. Nonetheless, on the basis (so far as I
can tell) of this same exact corpus, Henri Bresc does draw some conclusions as to
the character of fifteenth-centuiy Sicilian Judeo-Arabic. See Bresc, "Le judaïsme
sicilien: Caractères généraux et particularités," in Guglielmo Raimondo Moneada
al'uu Flavio Mitridate , 8.
116. In her 2002 analysis of Judeo-Sicilian notarial documents, for example,
Annliese Nef makes no reference to vocalized texts; see Nef, "Les Juifs de Sicile:
des juifs de langue arabe du Xllème au XVeme siècles," in Ebrei e Sicilia, 169- 78.
117. In his Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean (Surrey, 1996), 94-95, John E.
Wansbrough, writing of Sicilian Judeo-Arabic chancery documents, argues as
follows: "There, Hebrew script, standard format and bureaucratic nomenclature
generated a linguistic register that could only with obstinancy be construed as
reflecting speech." Likewise, Shlomo Simonsohn, Between Scylla and Charybdis: The
Jem in Sicily (Leiden, 2011), 377-78, argues that "the spoken language was the
[Latinate] vernacular ... to what extent and for how long immigrants from the
Iberian peninsula, the Italian mainland and North Africa retained their language
in the home we do not know." Thereafter, noting evidence from the late thir-
teenth century indicating that the Jews of Sicily still spoke Arabic, he comments
that "it is doubtful whether the memories of Arab domination still persisted that
strongly in the following centuries."
1 18. See www.jewish-languages.org/judeo-arabic.html (accessed on June 23,
2010). In addition, Blau stressed that Jews "generally attained only a limited
mastery of Classical Arabic" ( The Emergence , 22-23), while Wettinger observed
that when Jews' knowledge of Classical Arabic "faltered, they fell back- with
And documents left behind by non-Jewish, including Musli

similarly reveal that while "their authors intended to write Clas
bic ... in fact, the language constitutes a style with varied
Classical and Middle Arabic elements."119
Isaac's verb tables can thus be said to reflect intimate familiarity with
Sicilian Judeo-Arabic alongside a partial and imperfect knowledge of
Flu ha , likely a product of his own scholarly activity.120 Though quite pos-
sibly unaware or unsure how exactly Classical Arabic would be pro-
nounced, he knew enough Fiuha to remove one of the most distinctive
and unusual orthographic features of his particular dialect (i.e., the N
prefix), and to introduce an orthographic feature common in more liter-
ary Arabic (i.e., the oeen future). These decisions may well have been
prompted by Isaac's recognition of his potential student's interest in
Judeo-Arabic and/or Arabic scientific texts. Isaac thus presented Lippo-
mano with an introduction to a partially classicized Sicilian Judeo-
Arabic.
E. The Rhetoric of Jew uh- Christian Exchange
Isaac twice refers to an additional letter of his, raising the possibility of

an extended period of correspondence with Lippomano, not unlike that
which prevailed between the Venetian humanist and Cresças Me'ir. He
certainly seems to understand full well to whom he is writing: Isaac's
parting blessing, "may [God] place you upon the seat of the exalted,"
reflects clear awareness of Lippomano's political career and ambitions.121
reluctance, if not completely unconsciously - on the kind of Arabic spoken

around them" (Wettinger, The Jem of Malta, 155).
1 19. Agius, Siculo Arabic, 239-40, 1 10. See also Brincat, Malta, 72. Both Agius
and Brincat relate to an earlier period, yet there is no reason to assume that the
literary quality of Sicilian Arabic improved by or during the fifteenth century.
120. We do know of a number of fifteenth-century Sicilian Jews who were
familiar with Fili ha (Marina Rustow, personal communication with the author).
121. In Venice proper, Lippomano served as ¿avio di terrafirma (sage of the
mainland), ¿avio grande ("chief sage"; twice), and as a member of the Council of
Ten (thrice; 1429, 1431, 1445-46). In addition he was podestà of Belluno
(appointed 1422) and Padua (1439), captain of Zara - today's Zadar, Croatia
(1427), the Venetian ambassador to the Vatican (1430), the Duke of Candia
(Crete; 1435-37), and the Luogotenente della Patria del Friuli (1443). See Busi and
Campanini, "Lippomano," 172- 73; Busi, "Lippomano," 16; Benjamin G. Kohl,
Andrea Mozzato, and Monique O'Connell, eds., "The Rulers of Venice, 1332-
1524: Interpretations, Methods, Database" (Internet Database, Version 4.02;
9.09.09); King, Venetian Human 'um, 389. Isaac's reference to the "seat of the
exalted" may simply be a general reference to political success. But as this is not,
so far as I am aware, a common Hebrew expression, one wonders if it might have
some specifically Venetian resonance, revealing Isaac's familiarity with Lippo-
218 JQR 104.2 (20 M)
And his explicit reference to Lippomano's

in every possible manner" ( hcuhkekha be-hc
ba-efjharut), his deployment in this cont
term for "understanding" ( miukalot ), an
tific activity, all point strongly toward a
their relationship,122 the major basis of Lip
Me 'ir.
This represents a striking contrast to th

(completed a generation earlier, ca. 14
other critiques, bewails his coreligionist
language of science.123 In addition, the d
played by the humanist Lippomano, tho
also worthy of comment.124 At the same
preference for oral over written dissemin
the limits of the latter, raises the question
mano's specific political aspirations at the tim

to be the direct translation of any Italian phras
refer to the prestigious Venetian Maggior Con
the benches which prominently filled its hall i
ine Lippomano would have been quite eager t
and normally closed, body, especially in light
achieved induction into it due to his special s
membership was subsequently inherited by M
then seems to have died rather young and wi
presumably marking the end of the family's
(Mackay, "The Patrician"). Admission into the
a significant personal achievement for Marco
naled the rehabilitation of his family line.
122. One hopes that further research on Is
yield further clues.
123. Zwiep, Mother of Reason, 232.
124. Lippomano's scientific interests were ha
sibly Arabic) texts: while serving as Duke of C
of th e Mechanics of pseudo- Aristotle (King, Ve
though a number of humanists were deeply i
mano is striking for the degree to which he
divide. On one hand, he received a traditional
natural science, and law at the University of
close to leading humanists such as Francesco
and was invited to deliver an oration on beh
(preserved in BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 5220). On th
and humanism, see Pamela O. Long, "Human
Humanuni: Foundation Fonruf, and Legacy, vo
1988), 486- 512, esp. the bibliography provide
other data he was willing to furnish his Christian correspond

is known to every wise man that one cannot write down all that
not even one thing in a hundred or a thousand - this is only
through oral communication/' Isaac writes. This is certainly t
the fact that, in the section of the Kuzari to which Isaac implicit
at this juncture, Judah Halevi presents a serious philosophica
for the superiority of speech over writing. But when brought fo
what is in any case such a short epistle (not even two folios lo
appeal to this principle should raise some eyebrows. In parti
reference in this context to Jewish sages (in addition to the early
phers) evokes the traditional role played in Jewish culture by the
tion between oral and written communication - what was written was
in principle rendered available to anyone, whereas what was exclusively

available orally could be more easily restricted to Jewish, or even within
Jewish, circles.126 Early in the course of his correspondence with Cresças
Me 'ir, Lippomano requests a copy of a magical text attributed to Abra-
ham ibn Ezra, to which Cresças demurs.127 Might Isaac's recourse here
to the rabbinic dictum "from the mouth of tellers and not from the mouth
of books" justify his avoidance of some of Lippomano's more sensitive

requests? Additionally (or alternatively), Isaac's reluctance to share more
in writing, as well as his arguments on behalf of oral communication, may
reflect a conscious strategy designed to lure Lippomano into offering him
a more formal teaching position in Venice or wherever he was stationed
at the time:128 Lippomano had in fact expressed similar sentiments regard-
ing the superiority of oral interaction in his correspondence with Cresças
125. On the fascinating question of what texts and information Jewish schol-
ars in this period may furnish Christian associates, see, for example, David Kauf-
mann, "Elia Menachem Chalfan on Jews Teaching Hebrew to Non- Jews," JQR
o.s. 9 (1896/97): 500-8, and Saverio Campanini, "Reuchlins Jüdische Lehrer aus
Italien," in ReuchUn und Italien, ed. G. Dörner (Stuttgart, 1999), 69-85.
126. Midrash Tanhuma, Ki tuuta 34 presents the Mishnah as the "mystery"
(p/U(JTT|QlOV) of the Holy One. For more substantial discussion of how anxiety
over Christian usurpation of Jewish "mystery" led some scholars to insist on the
preservation of sources solely in oral form, see Alyssa M. Gray, "A Contribution
to the Study of Martyrdom and Identity in the Palestinian Talmud," Journal of
Jewbh Studies 54.2 (2003): 264-66.
127. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 174-5; Busi, "Lippomano," 17-18.
It is worth noting in this regard that Lippomano owned a copy of (Pseudo-)
Psellus, De operatane daemoniun (King, Venetian HumanLun , 390).
128. It is tempting to see in Isaac's "job application" a reflection of the move
among fifteenth-century Sicilian Jews to establish closer cultural ties with the
Italian peninsula and elsewhere in Europe, in contrast to the hitherto dominant
Spanish and North African orbits. See Scandaliato and Gerardi, "Lingua," 36.
220 JQR 104.2 (2014)
Me 'ir. 129 On this reading, the verb tables

Such a motive would help explain Isaac's
necessities of time, home, and acquisition
the entrapments of wealth:
"Behold," if you strive for knowledge,

"you will not covet the gold and dilver " i
and with the longing for which their e
gathering up (be-aspekha) your ¿Liver (
pekha) will be uncovered, and in giving
(zehavkha), the object of your desire (y
In other words, Lippomano should not

instead of spending it to consummate his d
emphasized through puns on the Hebrew te
longing, and giving, gold, and desire. T
extends to Isaac's verb paradigms, where
(to acquire/gain/earn) hint further that
(longing), Isaac will get his kejef (money).1
guage of this final section suggests one fur
Lippomano 's Hebrew to the test, Isaac m
his potential student could still use a priva
"Mistress Sarah."
By no means restricted to Isaac's letter, the association between com-

mercial exchange and Hebrew learning also features prominently in
a satire directed at Lippomano by his friend, the humanist Francesco
Filelfo. Written no later than Februaiy 1432, 132 this text opens with praise
for Lippomano's scholarly accomplishments:
These authors present this as an internal Jewish shift, but the cases and careers
of Flavius Mithridates (postconversion) and Flaminio point perhaps to a broader
Sicilian phenomenon at the time.
129. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 181, f. 17a, 1. 20.
130. Isaac clearly also regards Lippomano as a wealthy man. But according
to King ( Venetian Humanuni, 389), the eponymous bank was founded after Mar-
co's time.
131. One wonders if Isaac had gotten word of Lippomano's declaration in his
first letter to Cresças Me 'ir, "I am ready to pay whatever you ask." Busi and
Campanini, "Lippomano," 180, f. 16a, 1. 24. He would, however, have been less
pleased by Lippomano's declaration that he has "weighed out [Cresças 's words]
on [the] scales [of the Jews]." Ibid., 182, f. 13b, 1. 15).
132. Filelfo, Satyrae, p. 23.
You are learned and excel all, according to my judgment, in the

edge of history; You have mastery of the Latins (lit. "ours"
you have mastery of the Greeks, and you thoroughly enjo
learned your Hebrew prophets.133
Filelfo then proceeds to criticize his friend's recent behavior:
But why, O friend, are you silent, how many times have ou
(nostra154) sought you out most dutifully (per officium)! What
presses down upon you on all sides? I confess that I have ne
to know the Jews, nor is there any commerce between me
Nor will there be any, unless, thanks to the grudging pove
often tends to force me into things, I should by chan
exempted from all interest Ļtoluto foenore) - to borrow som
Does wretched poverty render you deaf to me? But it is not
to respond to me in the Jewish way!135
In short, while acknowledging Lippomano's Hebrew competen

clearly disdains his friend's investment in this field, repudiating
self any form of involvement (namely, commerce) with the
truly striking how thoroughly economic considerations hav
Filelfo's discourse here. He can hardly conceive of intellectua
with Jews without their supposed usurious tendencies rearing
head, and he indeed fears that these are now exerting undue
over Lippomano. His rhetorical query ("Does wretched pover
you deaf to me?") is clearly ironic: Filelfo's tenuous depe
patronage often forces him into things he would rather avoid
133. Might Filelfo's reference to "your Hebrew prophets" intentio

Lippomano's possible Jewish ancestry? Or is it rather meant as iron
of his perceived preference for Hebrew studies over Latin and Gree
134. The repetition of nostra nicely encapsulates Lippomano's p
behavior: though learned in traditional Latin and Greek letters, he
turning a cold shoulder to one of their more prominent practitione
Filelfo himself).
135. Filelfo, Satyrae, 26, 11. 57-59 (Doctus es et cunctos superas,
rerum/notitia: tu nostra tenes, tu graeca tuosque hebraeos penitus
cisse prophetas.); 65-72 (Nam quid, amice, siles, quotiens te nostra
scripta per officium? Qui te premit undique fastus? Iudaeos nunquam
cisse, nec ulla esse illis mecum commercia, nulla futura, ni, cum forte
mos pensare, soluto foenore, paupertas quod me solet aemula s
Pauperies mihi te facit improba surdum? At neque iudaice mihi resp
esse est!).
222 JQR 104.2 (2014)
has of yet kept his distance from the J

Lippomano's excuse?136 Furthermore, b
Hebraism with his lament over Lippom
("why are you silent?"), Filelfo implies th
responsible for the latter- that in study
the stinginess ("the Jewish way") associat
Filelfo 's awareness of his colleague's su
ment in "commerce" with the Jews ma
letter to the period just prior to 1432. A
enables us to place Isaac's economic rheto
tive, revealing a discourse shared by Chr
whether they were in fact willing to le
another.
VI. CONCLUSION
Close analysis of Isaac ha-Kohen's letter to Marco Lippo

context has yielded important new insights. First and
intriguing possibility that our earliest evidence for hum
Arabic comes from a Hebrew letter, likely reflecting a s
study Judeo- Arabic out of scientific motives. Of clear sign
is the contribution of this document to our appreciation
Venetian/Sicilian and Jewish/Christian intellectual exc
period, as well as of the legacy of medieval Spanish Je
fifteenth-century Sicily. Thanks to this document, a signif
late medieval Jewish science, Isaac ha- Kohen, has begu
focus (not to mention a new side to Marco Lippomano), a
ation of the endurance of Arabic knowledge among the
136. Appropriately enough, Filelfo s satire appears to have bee

midst of the humanist's stormy five-year residence in Florenc
the hatred of the Medici and ended in 1434 with his flight fr
Robin, "Francesco Filelfo," in The Encyclopedia of the RenaLhi
Grendler (New York, 1999), 362-63.
137. Filelfo s resistence to Hebrew may be linked to his own
finding patronage for Greek learning in Venice upon return fro
in the late 1420s (see King, Venetian Humanuni, 52). Perhaps
Lippomano had ample resources to promote Hebrew study b
Filelfo 's accusation of stinginess might thus be not only fi
received no letter from Lippomano) but also literal (he has r
either). Whatever the case, it appears that Filelfo s appeals wer
there is no indication of further contact between the two, ra
possibility that tension over Hebrew study and engagement with
may have played a significant role in the demise of their rela
rupture, see degli Agostini, Notizie , 491.
this period has been considerably enhanced. Finally, when ju

with Filelfo's satire, this text illuminates the economic discourse
often accompanied Jewish- Christian intellectual exchange in
sance.
Admittedly, a host of questions must remain fo

swered. We do not know how Isaac and Lippom
the full range of their interaction, whether Lipp
letter, and what use he, or anyone else, for th
addition, it is too soon to say whether this let
isolated, albeit fascinating, case or an initial i
more and earlier interest in the Arabic languag
has hitherto been realized. Only time will tell wh
or even new texts emerge, enabling us to find an
Already, however, the scholarship of recent
light on the hitherto-neglected Hebraic and Ar
early quattrocento Venetian politician and s
rethink our standard conception of the rise of
Arabism) in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
tigation into the likes of Lippomano and Isaac h
to our understanding of the transmission rout
scientific, especially astronomical, texts in this p
that is already apparent is the pioneering role p
emergence of Arabic study in Italy: Marco
Conti, Giorgio Valla, Hieronimo Ramnusio, an
all associated with La Serenissima. More gener
importantly, this recent scholarship reminds
endedness of the historical enterprise (like the
dictable!), of how the emergence of a single do
think (often all too complacently) we know abo
APPENDIX
A Preliminary Annotated List of Scientific/Scholarly Manu

ated with Isaac ben Elijah ha- Kohen
Note: Entries are organized as follows: location , library, ma

cation and number: name of author, text or texts, relevant folio
location produced (if known), kind of script
138. On this desideratum, see Saliba, Islamic Science , 213, 217

Saliba, such research holds out the promise of at last explaini
became aware of the Arabic science that so clearly lies at th
scientific accomplishments.
224 JQR 104.2 (2014)
/. Textö authored by Isaac ha- Ko hen:
1. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS Parme

Isaac ha- Kohen, "A copy of the docume
Jew sent to Maestro Marco Lippomano t
of Venice," ff. 2v- lv; 1420s- 30s?, Italian
2. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de Fra

23088): ff. 56v- 57v (otherwise identical)
3. London, British Libraiy, Or. 2806 (

ha- Kohen, Short Astronomical Treatise wi
and oppositions ( ha-kibutóim veha-nigudim
moon, ff. 40r- 48v; fifteenth-/sixteenth-ce
This text opens (40r): "The composition
Isaac, the son of our rabbi, the honorab
his Soul be Bound up in the Bond of Lif
and oppositions in their times and place
eclipses and more." Later on the same pa
prepared "according to the city of Syrac
The text appears to be identical with th
manuscripts. The hand in which this ma
dissemination of Isaac's work into the ea
may also stem from a Levantine Jew res
The text prior to that of Isaac's in this
work, Orah selulah, by Isaac ben Solomo
4. Paris, BNF, MS hébreu 1069 (IMHM

of Syracuse, "Astronomical tables (luho
tions" ( ha-kibutsim veha-nigudim), ff. 177
dic semicursive/cursive. Copied by Avrah
This collection of multiple documents co
panying charts of Isaac's (ff. 178r- 181r)
At the top of the page following the co
proper we read: "A clarification of the wor
on eclipses by the wise and great Rabbi
Isaac's work in this manuscript is again
139. Margoliouth, Catalogue, 3:336.

140. Zotenberg, Catalogues, 197. Collete Sir
crits médiévaux en caractères hébraïques (Par
critti ebraici," 111, for additional bibliography
5. Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. Heb. 379/2 (IMHM F 458): I

Elijah ha- Kohen, Astronomical tables ( luhot ) of conjunctions and
tions ( ha-kibuLnm ve ha- nig uà ini) and eclipses, ff. 19v- 24r; all 14
except for two texts: one from 1499 (û"n), one from 1512 (n"i
cuse, Sephardic semicursive script.141
This manuscript overall contains astronomical treatises and
including a treatise on the astrolabe (ff. 25r- 41v) also found in
hebreu 1069, and another treatise on the astrolabe (ff. 42r- 50
jah ha- Kohen of Montai to (might this be the father of our
Elijah?).142
6. Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. Heb. 171/56 (IMHM F 8630):

Kohen ben Aaron Elijah ha- Kohen ben Aaron ha- Kohen of S
Calendars {luhot) for the new moon (molad), ff. 515v- 517r; 149
Candia (Crete), Sephardic semicursive.143 This manuscript co
wide variety of poetic, philosophic, ethical, halakhic, kabbalist
matical, and astronomical materials.
Aaron Elijah ha- Kohen as the name of Isaac's father is atte
here. As this text was produced in 1493 and can therefore no
autograph, it is probably a copyist error for Isaac ha- Kohen b
ha- Kohen ben Aaron ha- Kohen, as we find, for example, in the n
Given the work's subject matter - calendars for the new moon ( m
is highly unlikely that we are dealing here with a different i
altogether.
7. Oxford, Bodleian Libraiy, MS Mich. 400 (IMHM F 19291

ben R. Elijah ben R. Aharon ha- Kohen, Mathematical text clari
character of two non-parallel lines ( be'ur tekhunat ¿ bene kavim c
me-hem ycuhar ve-ehad nie-hem 'akuni), ff. 39-44; fifteenth cent
vençal cursive.144
This specific mathematical treatise aims to furnish the pro
Euclid's postulate concerning two lines that must, under certa
tions, intersect.145 The manuscript as a whole contains astrono
141. Richler, ed., Hebrew Mm. in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, 2
142. A number of locales in Italy bear the name Montalto; one of th
talto Uffugo, is located near Cosenza, in Calabria. On this figure, Z
("La filosofia," 168, n. 35) that "although he was not Sicilian, he was
to the Jewish astronomical and astrological circles on the island."
143. Richler, ed., Hebrew Mm. in the Vatican Library , 1 15.
144. Neubauer, Catalogne , 688-89 (No. 2006/4); Beit-Arié; R. A. May
ment of Addenda y 365-66.
145. Moritz Steinschneider, Mathematik beiden Juden (Hildesheim,
Steinschneider further notes that this treatise provides a proof that bo
226 JQR 104.2 (2014)
mathematical texts, including a list of

ments. One of the owners of this text was Astruc ben Abraham ben
Moses de Balmes, quite possibly the son of the well-known Abraham
de Balmes. Of Spanish origin, this important doctor, philosopher, and
astronomer lived in Lecce and Taranto in the second half of the fifteenth
century. He is known to have commissioned and owned several manu-
scripts.146 The potential presence of a text of Isaac's in the hands of one
of Abraham's sons represents an additional indication of his southern
Italian connections. And the fact that one of Isaac's texts was copied in a
Provençal hand testifies further to intellectual links between Provence
and southern Italy (regardless of whether the text was in fact copied in
Provence or in southern Italy by someone from Provence).147
8. Moscow, Russian State Library, MS Günzberg 571 (IMHM F

43061): Isaac ben Elijah ha- Kohen, Astronomical tables ( luhot ); 1771
(X,u7p), Italian script.
9. Oxford, Bodleian, MS Poe. 368 (IMHM F 19329): Isaac ben Elijah

ben Aaron ha- Kohen of Syracuse, Astronomical Tables ( luhot ), ff. 219v-
22 lv; Byzantium, late fifteenth century, Byzantine semicursive script148
Ff. 194v-98v and 200r- 202v contain extracts on astronomy and math-
ematics. Malachi Beit- Arie suggests that some of the extracts may be by
Isaac ben Elijah Kohen, noting that the author of these same extracts also
refers to his commentary on Euclid, which Beit-Arié implies might be
Isaac's text on intersecting lines reported above (#7: Oxford, Bodleian
MS Mich. 400, ff. 39-44).
IL TextJ Adcribed to , Ajjociated with, or Owned by Idaac ha-Koben:
10. London, British Library MS Or. 1425 (IMHM F 5971): Anony-

mous, marginal note on Hebrew linguistics referring to Isaac ha- Kohen
ben Elijah ha- Kohen, f. 1 14r; fifteenth- sixteenth centuries, Italian script.
This seven-line note occurs in the margins of a page-long text advanc-
ing a seven-fold system of linguistic analysis: "Seven Categories of
(i.e., the ninth-centuiy Islamic astronomer Al-Sābic Thābit ibn Qurra al-Harrānī)
and Levi ben Gerson (Gersonides) had sought.
146. On Abraham de Balmes and his prominence in contemporary southern
Italian intellectual life, see David, "I manoscritti ebraici," 267-69.
147. We can, however, be certain that the text is not in Isaac's hand, since it
begins: "so said the great, perfect rabbi" Isaac ha- Kohen.
148. Neubauer, Catalogue, 700-1 (No. 2044); in Beit-Arié; R. A. May, Supple-
ment of Addenda, 374.
Words" (i ba-jbemot ' al ¿ hiv'ah c)e rak bim), but presents fi

instead ( ha-jhem 'al hameöh panini). The manuscript as a wh
Profiat Duran's linguistic treatise Ma'ajeh efod, as well as a serie
linguistic texts (ff. 114-15) with titles such as "These are th
guistic categories, and from them our whole language is der
Categories of Words"; "These are the Words Which Change
der"; and Hebrew verb tables (f. 11 6a). 149
11. Oxford, Bodleian MS Laud. Or. 93 (IMHM F 19292): Isaac ben

Judah Sagittuni (or Shuwaykat in Hebrew), Archimedes' two books on
the Sphere and the Cylinder (Sefer Aröhmidaeh be-khadur uve-'etdtevan'a),
translated from Qosta ben Luqa's Arabic into Hebrew by Kalonymos ben
Kalonymos, ff. 2-28; 1452 (3IN"l), Syracuse, Sephardic script.150
In his colophon (f. 28v) to this Archimedes translation, the copyist
indicates to us that he prepared this work in the library (lit. midrcuth) of
R. Isaac Kohen at Syracuse. While it was earlier believed that this
referred to Saragossa in Spain151 (Saragossa and Syracuse were written
identically in Hebrew in this period152), it is now certain that the Sicilian
city was intended.153 In particular, the Sagittuni were a well-known fam-
ily in the fifteenth century, based in Sciacca, Sicily, and so it is not sur-
prising to find one of their number at work in Isaac ha-Kohen's home.154
In any case, we know of no Isaac ha- Kohen associated with Saragossa in
this period and would need a compelling reason for Judah ben Isaac
Sagittuni to have gone there. The Spanish script of this text poses no
obstacle to this conclusion, since it was commonly used in Sicily at this
time.
In a recent article, Joseph Hacker has shown that the Hebrew term
midrajh , typically associated with the rabbinic study hall, was in fact used
more commonly in this period in the Muslim cultural orbit to denote a
149. Margoliouth, Catalogue , Part III, 297-98.

150. Neubauer, Catalogue , 2007/1; Beit- Arie; R. A. May, Supplement of Addenda,
366.
151. Ibid.
152. On the potential for confusion between Saragossa and Syracuse, see
David Simonsen, Le Pourim de Saragojje e¿t un Pouritn de Syracuse (Versailles, 1910)
and Dario Burgaretta, "Il Purim di Siracusa alla luce dei testimoni manoscritti,"
Materia Giudaica 11 (2006): 51-53.
153. See Mauro Perani, "Un medico e copista siciliano del sec. XV," Schede
Medievali 47 (2009): 63-81. Malachi Beit- Arie also agrees that this text must have
been copied in Syracuse (personal communication with the author, August 201 1).
154. On the Sagittuni (or Sagictuni) family, see Simonsohn, Between Scylla and
CharybdL), 384, 474, 491 and Perani, ibid.
228 JQR 104.2 (2014)
library. Such libraries were often located

typically used, as were their Muslim cou
distribution of writings." The midrcuh
much less a formal learning institution
were produced and collected.155
Having learned of Isaac's library, we can

housed. Four manuscripts known to me
inscriptions ( tsiyonei be'alini) of an Isaa
identified as the figure of interest to us. T
12. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS 225

of philosophical works by Netan'el ben N
tury, Provence or Spain, Sephardic sem
semi-cursive.156
On ff. 2r and 8r we encounter the fol

semicursive Sephardic script, that this t
"God has graciously endowed his serv
(text)."157 While some writing in the fi
date from the early sixteenth century,
filled with various short notes - it is th
writing which postdates Isaac could have
he had owned. In light of Isaac's interes
to note that ff. 16r- 171 v contain Netan
This Netan'el, also known as Bonsenio
pupil of the early fifteenth-century ph
Prat Maimon, responsible for the reviv
century Provence. His commentary o
1424, one of three similar commentarie
time and place by Prat Maimon 's pupils
in Isaac ha- Kohen 's library further
between Sicily and Provence.
155. Joseph Hacker, "The Sephardi 'Mid

(Hebrew), in Ris honím ve-aharonim: Mehkar
Avraham Grossman, ed. Hacker, B. Z. Kedar
263, 266; see also 277, n. 54.
156. Richler, Hebrew Mm. in the Biblioteca Pa
157. The pious language suits that of the co
87v, in which Isaac seeks atonement from God.
158. Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philo
13. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS 2268 (IMHM F 13432): Sefer

U iedek' Hebrew translation by Abraham ben Samuel ha- Levi
of Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali's now lost Arabic orig
fourteenth century (completed in the early sixteenth century in F
Sephardic semicursive.159
This text was also owned by an Isaac ha- Kohen, as indica
nearly identical inscription in the same hand on folio lr: "Also
[book] has God graciously endowed his servant Isaac ha- Kohe
been suggested that the writing of ff. lv- 30v of this manusc
have been added only in the early sixteenth century. But since
inscription is found on f. lr this does not disqualify an associa
Isaac.
14. London, Montefiore Library 305 (IMHM F 52 55): Collection

(kovetS)-, fifteenth century, Sephardic script.
At very top of f. lr we again encounter, in the same hand, the exact
inscription as in the previous text. The text which immediately follows
the inscription is the Eputle on the Renewal of the World ( igeret 'al hid lu h ha-
' olam ) of Shemariah the Cretan, "a philosopher from Negroponte active
in Italy in the first half of the [fourteenth] century."160
15. New York City, JTS 2876 (IMHM F 31714): Profiat Duran, Maajek
efod ; fifteenth century, Ashkenazic Italian script.
The same inscription in the same hand graces the opening of the
Ma 'ajeh efod. This hand may also be responsible for the frequent marginal
notes found through f. 58r. An additional ownership inscription in Italian
semicursive begins just to the left of this one and continues beneath it:
"The Lord caused his servants Aaron and Joseph to inherit [this book]
from the legacy of our revered father, our teacher, the rabbi, Rabbi Isaac
Kohen, mentioned above, may the memory of this righteous and pious
one be for a blessing." It thus seems that two inscriptions on this manu-
script associate it with our Isaac, including one from his two sons who
inherited it from him. Their inscription not only begins where his (or
whoever wrote on his behalf) left off- a compelling indication that it
postdates it - but also matches very nicely its formulations. Whereas the
first inscription refers to God's endowment, theirs refers to the inheri-
tance which God has bestowed upon them; both parties refer to them-
selves as God's servants. While I have come upon no other information
159. Richler, Hebrew Mjj. in the Biblioteca Palatina, 387.

160. Mauro Zonta, Hebrew Schola<ftœum ui the Fifteenth Century (Dordrecht,
2006), 9.
230 JQR 104.2 (2014)
regarding Isaac's descendants, it is not u

had a son named Aaron, given that he w
father seems to have borne this name (se
not surprising to find his sons writing
Sephardic, hand, for this shift would seem
fifteenth-century reorientation of Jew
toward a primarily peninsular Italian, inste
For example, Flavius Mithridates' move
nied by a documented shift of some of his
direction of the "fluent" script which em
fifteenth century.161
III. Texts Probably to Be Associated with Lia

16. Paris, BNF, MS hébreu 907 (IMHM F 26882): Isaac ha-Kohen,
fragment of a commentary on logic or the first part of Al-Ghazzali's
Maqasid al-falasifah (Intentions of the Philosophers), ff. 83r- 87v; fifteenth
century, Sephardic cursive script.162
The text concludes (f. 87v, 1. 15) by indicating the reasons for its com-
position: "I saw [it as fitting] to write this in order to awaken the interest
of the reader in this matter" (ye-ra'iti likhtov zeh U-hit'orer ha-me'ayen be-zeh
ba-'inyan ), asks for atonement from God, and is signed by its author at its
very end: "Isaac ha-Kohen" (yeba-el yekhaper ' amen Yitshak ha-Kohen ). But
is this figure our Isaac? See the following entry for a treatment of this
question. No date for this manuscript is offered in any existing catalogue,
but as the hand of this text is identical with that of the next entry, it can
be dated to the fifteenth century.
17. Paris, BNF, MS hébreu 967 (IMHM F 30339): Isaac ha-Kohen,

copyist (author?); Explanation on the Middle Commentary of Averroes
on the Physics of Aristotle, ff. 1-1 08r; fifteenth century, Sephardic cursive
script.163
The colophon of this text identifies its copyist as Isaac ha-Kohen164 and
the hand is identical with that of the preceding item (BNF, MS hébreu
907). In addition, both colophons are followed by the same stylized signa-
ture. But, once again, is this Isaac our Isaac? Originally believed to have
161. Edna Engel, "A Paleographical Analysis of Mithridates' Hebrew Auto-

graphs" in Guglielmo Raimondo Moneada aliad Flavio Mitridate, 210, 211, 223.
162. Zotenberg, Catalogues, 157; Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen,
320.
163. Zotenberg, Catalogues, 171.
164. The colophon (f. 108r) reads: tam ve- nu h lam te h ¿lab le- 'el boneb 'olam.
been the work of Moses of Narbonne (late thirteenth c.), it h

been argued that the commentaiy found here was in fact written
to-late fifteenth-century Spain.165 It is thus quite possible th
ha- Kohen who wrote out this text is also its author. We know from a
colophon that at least a portion of the rest of the manuscript was com-
pleted in Almasan, Spain, in 1480 and, according to Mauro Zonta, all
three of the other textö (i.e., not the text copied by Isaac ha- Kohen) in this
manuscript were composed between 1478 and 1480. 166 On one hand,
these factors might suggest a Spanish Isaac ha- Kohen who lived mostly
in the second half of the fifteenth century and focused primarily on the
Greco- Arabic philosophical tradition, in contrast to our Isaac, who while
clearly also interested in philosophy would then seem to have been
engaged primarily with astronomy and secondarily with linguistic mat-
ters.
But it is certainly possible that we are in fact dealing with one and the
same Isaac ha- Kohen, a figure therefore as invested in philosophy as in
astronomy and linguistics. As the hand of this one text differs from the
common hand of the rest of the texts in this manuscript, its provenance
may well be quite different from theirs: perhaps earlier; and perhaps Sic-
ily instead of Spain. However, one potential problem for this theory is the
relationship of the hand of MSS 907 and 967 with that of the ownership
inscriptions discussed above. Though the brevity of these inscriptions
prevents a comprehensive comparison with the much more extensive
writing of the philosophic works, the two hands do appear to be quite
different; at the very least, the hand of the ownership inscriptions is less
"cursive" than that of the texts. Perhaps the contrast can explained in
light of the very different context of the two forms of writing: might Isaac
have written in a less cursive form when indicating in one short phrase
that a text belonged to him as compared with when writing out an entire
multi-folio work?167 Or might the hand of the ownership inscriptions in
165. Ruth Glasner, "Two Notes on the Identification of Two Anonymous

Hebrew Commentaries on the 'Physics,'" Aleph 9.2 (2009): 336-39.
166. F. 343r; Zonta, Hebrew Scholcuiticbm, 18. The basis for this determination
is not, however, very clear.
167. That the same individual might have had two or more different "hands,"
is not as surprising as it might appear. It has long been known, for example, that
Abraham Farissol could write in both Sephardic and Italian style (Engel, "A
Paleographical Analysis," 212), as could Flavius Mithridates. In addition, Edna
Engel has documented the case of an ownership indication written by Flavius in
a form of script (Sefardic semicursive) nowhere else documented in his surviving
manuscripts (ibid., 206). So perhaps there is even precedent for ownership notes
being written in different forms than longer texts.
232 JQR 104.2 (2014)
the above manuscripts not be Isaac's in t

an assistant or of someone who inherited or obtained books from his
libraiy upon his death? In such a case, the script of the two philosophical
texts would alone represent Isaac's true hand.
In the end, my best guess is that the Isaac of the letter to Lippomano
and the astronomical charts, the Isaac who owned the above texts, and
this philosopher Isaac are all one and the same. There are enough similar-
ities and correspondences in each direction to render this highly probable.
But, admittedly, an air-tight case cannot as of yet be made. Closer analy-
sis of MS hébreu 967, including inspection of the paper of the text copied
by Isaac ha- Kohen, would seem to be the next logical step. Were this to
confirm a Spanish provenance, then an identification with our Isaac is
quite unlikely. An indication of non- Spanish, specifically Sicilian prove-
nance, however, would render such an identification nearly certain.
HI Text J Probably Not to Be Associated with Isaac ha- Ko hen of Syracuse:
18. London, Montefiore Libraiy 423/4 (IMHM F 8748): Book of the

Astrolabe ( Sefer ha-'atstrolab); sixteenth centuiy, Ashkenazic script ff.
131r-144v.
According to the catalogue of the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew

Manuscripts, Isaac ben Elijah ha- Kohen is the presumed author of this
text. The manuscript itself is signed (f. 144r) merely Yitshak Kohen . Could
this be our Isaac? This is unlikely, albeit not impossible. It should first of
all be made clear that we are probably not dealing here with an original
composition but rather a copy of the Book of the Astrolabe ascribed to Ptol-
emy. The full colophon reads as follows: "The Book of the Astrolabe of
Ptolemy the Wise is finished and complete; blessed is the Merciful One
who has helped me, spoke Isaac Kohen."
Additionally, we have no good evidence suggesting that our Isaac could
write in an Ashkenazi hand. Finally, the description of the hand as being
of sixteenth-century vintage would seem to clinch matters, suggesting
that this is simply a different individual with a very similar name and field
of study. However, as colophons are sometimes themselves copied by
subsequent copyists, the notion that our Isaac had earlier copied this Book
of the Astrolabe can by no means be ruled out.168
168. Beit- Arie has noted cases in which model colophons are copied by
scribes, date included, such that the date indicated in the now-copied colophon
is unreliable. Beit-Arié, Hebrew Manuscripts East and West: Toward a Comparative
Codicology (London, 1993), XXX.
19. Paris, BNF, MS hébreu 950 (IMHM F 30891): Isaac Kohen,

Middle Commentary of Averroes on Aristotle's Meteorology (
from Arabic to Hebrew by Kalonymus ben Kalonymus); Mid
mentary of Averroes on Aristotle's De Anima (translation from
Hebrew by Moshe Ibn-Tibbon); 1486, Byzantine script.169
It appears almost certain that this text was produced by a
Isaac Kohen. The date is very late for our figure, the hand is
from that in the two philosophic texts considered above (nos.
the stylized signature present in their two colophons is missing
there is no good reason to consider the colophon that is prese
as having been subsequently recopied by a different figure. It re
copy was completed ... by me, Isaac Kohen." The encircleme
name Isaac Kohen in what appears to be the same ink in
written may represent further confirmation that the individual
the colophon was in fact responsible for it. Finally, as some
pious language accompanies the conclusion of almost every
we can with reasonable probability ascribe to our Isaac (and is
in the ownership notes), its absence here further points to a
individual.
20. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina MS 2818 (IMHM F 13640): Isaac

ha- Kohen, copyist; Pentateuch, Five Scrolls and Haftarot (along with
Targum and Rashi's commentary); 1411, probably from Northern Italy,
Ashkenazic square script.170
The date and name match our figure, but the type of script, likely
location, and the subject matter all point to a different individual. Given
the information currently at our disposal, it seems highly unlikely that
this text was prepared by our Isaac.
169. Zotenberg, Catalogues, 167.

170. Richler, Hebrew Mm. in the Biblioteca Palatina 32, No. 189.

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Isaac ha-Kohen's Letter to Marco Lippomano: Jewish-Christian Exchange and Arabic

Learning in Renaissance Italy

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

Isaac ha- Kohen 's Letter to Marco

The Venetian politician and scholar Marco Lippomano (ca.

The Jew üb Quarterly Review (Spring 2014)

recently confirmed.2 Pursuing for the first time bibliograph

Apart from this epistolary exchange, an a

II. IN SEARCH OF ISAAC HA-KOHEN

To establish the identity of this figure is no simple m

5. This document is mentioned by Hermann Zotenberg, Manu

Aaron ha- Kohen,9 who flourished in early to mid-fifteenth-cent

Two texts enable us partially to home in on the r

In addition, though it is often difficult to distinguish between Syracuse

9. On this name, see Appendix, no. 6.

indicate that a personal or familial origin i

Seventeen manuscripts can with a high degree of confidence be associ-

greater preoccupation than the letter to Lippomano suggests on i

III. ISAAC'S LETTER

Isaac's letter has survived in two nearly identical copies,

23. British Library, MS Or. 1425, f. 1 14r. On this text, see

Judeo- Arabic. Lacking this terminology

IV. THE TEXT

The Hebrew Text

mn ia-1? ipm id ^noo-n1? mm ]na pmr ann 29nbm anan oa*ia

[The main body of the text here]

oa 'tooaü na to ama4? anaa ntor pt o ^oído tob jrrm arrraa n ps m nan

"3 didìq D-aimpn D-aioVrano nap nmn p oa ní1?! :371 tanso -a

like bufal ; and the seventh tufa al with a

[The main body of the text now

Behold, this is the essence

43. The argument of this sect

possessors will be witness to this. And I already revealed to

V. ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT

A. haue and Marco

conversant with Aristotelian thought. See Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano,"

place in the years 1420- 22, 51 and since h

51. Busi and Campanini, "Lippomano," 172;

of the sort Isaac prepared,55 creating the perfect opportunity f

55. Busi and Campanini, 182, f. 17b, 11. 6-8.

There is certainly no reason to think th

B. Arabic Study in Renaissance Italy

for the establishment of university chairs in Arabic (among

works. Of course, the study and use of Arabic continued throughout

and Pico della Mirandola (1463- 94), 72 t

Landucci Ruffo, C. Vasoli, V. Branca, eds.,

encounter with Arabic appears to have predated his form

79. Further research on Arabic study in Renaissance Italy (and It

other Jews to serve as intermediaries be

"produced many books of philosophy and medicine in Arab

C. The Language of Hagar and the Language of Sarah

specific text does not engage in any sophis

between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages (Heb

tradition on his part. Arab linguists apparently regarded the e

1 Pa' al = I fa' ala (active)

90. Versteegh, Landmarks, 47.

6 Hop al = IV aF ala (causative)

Only the fourth stem formation presented by Isaac, what he calls fu il

Hebrew grammarians." Isaac's terminology is also Hebraic, th

99. Duran, Ma 'ase h efod , 181 -84.

servant has given birth. 'And Sarah was

The Arabic of Isaac's verb paradigms co

110. Piemontese, "La lingua araba," 161.