Buzzetta, Flavia

Senior Fellow: April–August 2022

Research Project: Vera sine dubio: The Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia in Translation

This project aims to investigate the transmission of Abraham Abulafia’s qabbalat ha-shemot in the Christian world, taking into particular consideration the vernacular translations made for Pierleone da Spoleto (1455–1492) at the end of the fifteenth century and his interpretations of them, taking into account both texts and scholia. In opposition to talmudists, philosophers, and Sefirotic Kabbalists, all of whom pursued an incomplete and partial knowledge of God that was often exposed to doubt, Abulafian Kabbalah attempts to offer a completely “certain” understanding of the Divine. By comparing the Sicilian versions of Hajje ha-ʾOlam ha-Ba (BnF, ms. it. 443) and Imrei Shefer (Arsenal Library, ms. 8526) with the original Hebrew texts, the project aims to investigate the gnoseological foundations of prophetic Kabbalah, which lead to a sine dubio knowledge, and to establish a link with certain “sceptical” ideas that characterised the nascent Christian Kabbalah. The main focus of this research is to bring to light an unexplored segment of the history of Renaissance thought through a number of vernacularisations of Kabbalistic works that constitute a relevant example of intercultural exchange in modern times.

Flavia Buzzetta is a research associate at the Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris, France.