Christian Kabbalah Before It Was Cool
From sunburst emblems to marginal notes to speculative mathematics, Christian thinkers began engaging with Jewish mysticism long before Pico. This episode explores their early, surprising moves.
This episode traces the scattered beginnings of the Christian engagement with Kabbalah before it became a broader intellectual movement. From Bernardine of Siena’s radiant emblem of the name of Jesus to Pierleone da Spoleto’s annotated kabbalistic manuscripts and Nicholas of Cusa’s speculative reading of the divine name through number, it shows how names, letters, and symbols prepared the ground for Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s famous theses.
Credits
- Academic Research Article: Flavia Buzzetta (Pierleone da Spoleto) & Níels Páll Eggerz
- Podcast Adaptation & Narration: Níels Páll Eggerz & Elke Morlok
- Audio Editing & Post-Production: Gregor Meinecke & Mario Adam
- Music: Luigi Boccherini, Minuet, G.275 (arr. for harpsichord by Gregor Quendel)
- Source: Pixabay (Pixabay License)
Funding & Support
The History of Christian Kabbalah Podcast is a project of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, project no. 497340432).
Further Reading
- Bacchelli, Franco. Giovanni Pico e Pier Leone da Spoleto: Tra filosofia dell’amore e tradizione cabalistica. Firenze: Olschki, 2001.
- Buzzetta, Flavia. “Pierleone da Spoleto: médecin, philosophe et cabbaliste.” Accademia: Revue de la Société Marsile Ficin 11 (2018): 77–92.
- Buzzetta, Flavia. “Transmission and Transformation of Kabbalistic Knowledge in Italy at the End of the Fifteenth Century.” European Journal of Jewish Studies 16, no. 1 (2021): 54–70.
- Izbicki, Thomas. “Nicholas of Cusa and the Jews.” In Conflict and Reconciliation: Perspectives on Nicholas of Cusa, edited by Inigo Bocken, 119–30. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 126. Brill, 2004.
- Michelson, Emily. “Bernardino of Siena Visualizes the Name of God.” In Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Medieval Sermon, edited by Georgiana Donavin, Cary Nederman, and Richard Utz, 157–79. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2004.
- Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm. “Grundlegungen: Der Name Gottes und der Name Jesu – Maimonides, Bernhardin von Siena, Nikolaus von Kues.” In Geschichte der christlichen Kabbala, 1:38–69. Clavis Pansophiae, 10:1. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2012.
