Table of Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Kabbalah: Introductory Remarks 19
2 Abraham Abulafia and Ecstatic Kabbalah 30
3 Abraham Abulafia's Activity in Italy 40
4 Ecstatic Kabbalah as an Experiential Lore 52
5 Abraham Abulafia's Hermeneutics 64
6 Eschatological Themes and Divine Names in Abulafia's Kabbalah 77
7 Abraham Abulafia and R. Menahem ben Benjamin: Thirteenth-Century Kabbalistic and Ashkenazi Manuscripts in Italy 89
8 R. Menahem ben Benjamin Recanati 106
9 Menahem Recanati as a Theosophical-Theurgical Kabbalist 117
10 Menahem Recanati's Hermeneutics 128
11 Ecstatic Kabbalah from the Fourteenth through Mid-Fifteenth Centuries 139
12 The Kabbalistic-Philosophical-Magical Exchanges in Italy 154
13 Prisca Theologia: R. Isaac Abravanel, Leone Ebreo, and R. Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano 164
14 R. Yohanan ben Yitzhaq Alemanno 177
15 Jewish Mystical Thought in Lorenzo il Magnifico's Florence 192
16 Other Mystical and Magical Literatures in Renaissance Florence 202
17 Spanish Kabbalists in Italy after the Expulsion 212
18 Two Diverging Types of Kabbalah in Late-Fifteenth-Century Italy 219
19 Jewish Kabbalah in Christian Garb 227
20 Anthropoids from the Middle Ages to Renaissance Italy 236
21 Astromagical Pneumatic Anthropoids from Medieval Spain to Renaissance Italy 269
22 The Trajectory of Eastern Kabbalah and Its Reverberations in Italy 287
Concluding Remarks 293
Appendix 1 The Angel Named Righteous: From R. 'Amittai of Oria to Erfurt and Rome 315
Appendix 2 The Infant Experiment: On the Search for the First Language in Italy 324
Appendix 3 R. Yohanan Alemanno's Study Program 340
Appendix 4 Magic Temples and Cities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Mas'udi, Ibn Zarza, Alemanno 344
Notes 349
Bibliography 467
Index of Manuscripts 477
Index of Titles 480
Index of Names 486
