Simone Luzzatto

Grazie all’opera di artisti e intellettuali, nel Rinascimento emerge una consapevolezza inedita del divenire storico che favorisce il culto del nuovo nelle arti, in letteratura, in filologia e nelle scienze. Il nuovo prendeva il posto del culto, una liturgia umana subentrava a quella divina. Questa rivoluzione tocca anche la cultura ebraica, motore e agente di un rinnovamento senza precedenti. Lo studio di Giuseppe Veltri ricostruisce la vita intellettuale ebraica nel Rinascimento italiano ed europeo, mettendo in luce momenti salienti del dibattito del tempo: la coscienza storica del divenire e la secolarizzazione, la funzione della poesia dantesca come ponte fra mondo ebraico e mondo cristiano, l’uso del volgare come simbolo del connubio delle diverse tradizioni, la nascita del criticismo, l’atteggiamento scettico come strategia e sintomo della crisi politica e intellettuale, il dibattito sull’immortalità dell’anima.

La figura di Simone Luzzatto (ca1583-1663) rappresenta sicuramente un caso di grande rilevanza nella scena culturale non soltanto veneziana o italiana, ma europea, e non solo relativamente all'ebraismo. Nel corso del Seicento, Venezia costituiva il fulcro di una rinnovata e vivace presenza culturale ebraica nella penisola e il cuore del tentativo di aprire la società dotta del ghetto alle influenze esterne e al dialogo con la cultura cristiana. La città si configura come centro culturale di produzione e di scambi di idee e anche di frequentazioni costanti tra ebrei e cristiani. Rilevante in questa prospettiva fu il ruolo del famoso rabbino Leon Modena (1571-1648) nella cui opera e nella cui vita è possibile riscontrare il dialogo serrato con la cultura gentile coeva, l'uso del volgare e il pieno inserimento nella vita sociale e culturale di Venezia e di altre città italiane. Predicatore osannato, straordinario studioso di cultura ebraica e non, autore di numerose opere in diverse lingue-ebraico, latino e italiano-, di traduzioni dall'ebraico e di libri di poesie, 1 Modena fu tra l'altro poeta in tutti gli idiomi da lui padroneggiati e scrisse versi polisemantici, nei quali cioè ogni parola aveva significato sia in ebraico che in italiano. Apprezzato e noto in Italia e all'estero, dove intratteneva diverse e prestigiose relazioni nel mondo dei gentili, era stato maestro del famoso convertito veneziano,

Socrates, Or On Human Knowledge, published in Venice in 1651, is the only work written by a Jew that contains so far the promise of a genuinely sceptical investigation into the validity of human certainties. Simone Luzzatto masterly developed this book as a pièce of theatre where Socrates, as main actor, has the task to demonstrate the limits and weaknesses of the human capacity to acquire knowledge without being guided by revelation. He achieved this goal by offering an overview of the various and contradictory gnosiological opinions disseminated since ancient times: the divergence of views, to which he addressed the most attention, prevented him from giving a fixed definition of the nature of the cognitive process. This obliged him to come to the audacious conclusion of neither affirming nor denying anything concerning human knowledge, and finally of suspending his judgement altogether.This work unfortunately had little success in Luzzatto’s lifetime, and was subsequently almost forgotten. The absence of substantial evidence from his contemporaries and that of his epistolary have thus increased the difficulty of tracing not only its legacy in the history of philosophical though, but also of understanding the circumstances surrounding the writing of his Socrates.The present edition will be a preliminary study aiming to shed some light on the philosophical and historical value of this work’s translation, indeed it will provide a broader readership with the opportunity to access this immensely complicated work and also to grasp some aspects of the composite intellectual framework and admirable modernity of Venetian Jewish culture in the ghetto.

In 1629 Joseph Solomon Delmedigo published in Amsterdam a somewhat incoherent book enti-tled Elim. The book was printed by Menasseh Ben-Israel (Spinoza’s teacher) and was a collection of articles about natural philosophy and mathematics. Before his arrival in Amsterdam, Delmedi-go had traveled between 1616-1619 in the Near East where he participated in a public contest in mathematics, collected ancient manuscripts, studied Cabala, conducted observations of the 1619 comet and was associated with the Karaites, a Jewish sect that rejected rabbinical literature in favor of the purity of Scripture. In Elim he promoted the Copernican cosmology to which he was exposed by Galileo, his teacher in Padua University during the years 1606-1613. The book gives only vague clues for connecting his Copernican conviction with his travels. However, a close reading of Delmedigo’s published works, set alongside his culture of learning and associations, helps us to understand why and how he arrived at Copernican cosmology through the collecting of ancient manuscripts in the Near East.

The Yearbook mirrors the annual activities of staff and visiting fellows of the Maimonides Centre and reports on symposia, workshops, and lectures taking place at the Centre. Although aimed at a wider audience, the yearbook also contains academic articles and book reviews on scepticism in Judaism and scepticism in general. Staff, visiting fellows, and other international scholars are invited to contribute.  Only frontmatter and content are uploaded. The entire volume is available as open access, follow the link:
https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/497751

The Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies mirrors the annual activities of staff and visiting fellows of the Centre and reports on symposia, workshops, and lectures. Although aimed at a wider audience, the yearbook also contains academic articles and lectures on scepticism in Judaism and scepticism in general. Only frontmatter and content are uploaded. The entire volume is available as open access, follow the link:
https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/482246

The present study addresses problems of an epistemological nature which hinge on the question of how to define Jewish thought. It will take its start in an ancient question, that of the relationship between Jewish culture, Greek philosophy, and then Greco-Roman (and Christian) thought in connection with the query into the history and genealogy of wisdom and knowledge.

Our journey into the history of the denomination ‘Jewish philosophy’ will include a leg that will lead us to certain declarations of political, moral, and scientific principles, and then on to the birth of what is called philosophia perennis or, in Christian circles, prisca theologia. Our subject of inquiry will thus be the birth of the concept of Jewish philosophy, Jewish theology and Jewish philosophy of religion.
A special emphasis will fall on the topic treated in the last part of this study: Jewish scepticism, a theme that involves a philosophical attitude founded on dialectical "enquiry", as the etymology of the Greek word skepsis properly means