Abstract
In the course of the fifteenth century various end of the world predictions were being circulated, some from Joachimite and pseudo-Joachimite sources, often leading to movements of believers to prepare for the Apocalypse. The radical changes going on politically and economically fed into this. The fall of Constantinople, the rapid incursions of the Moslem Turks into the heart of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean, the political upheavals all over Europe, seemed to portend monumental providential developments. One of the most dramatic of these was that led by Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, Italy.
I should like to thank Anna Suranyi for her important assistance in helping me prepare this paper for publication.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
W. Cavini, “Appunti sulla prima diffusione in occidente delle opere di Sesto Empirico,” Medeoevo 3 (1977), 15–18.
As much as is known about this appears in Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 243, n. 46; and, Cavini, op. cit.: 16–18.
The text from Gianfrancesco Pico, Vita R.P. Hieronymi Savonarolae, ed., J. Quétif, (Paris, 1674 ), Two Vols., Cap. ii: 8, is given in Cavini, op. cit.: 17, as well as texts from a much earlier manuscript of the work.
This translation is given in D.P. Walker, The Ancient Theology, ( London: Duckworth, 1972 ), 59.
Cf. Walker, op. cit.: 59, based on Gianfrancesco’s account.
Charles B. Schmitt, “Rediscovery of Ancient Skepticism in Modern Times,” in M. Burnyeat, ed., The Skeptical Traditon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 225–251. Schmitt discussed another attempt, c. 1485, to make a Latin translation, in “An Unstudied Fifteenth-Century Latin Translation of Sextus Empiricus by Giovanni Lorenzi (Vat. Lat. 2990),” in Carl H. Clough, Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), 244–261. Schmitt said, “There is no evidence that Lorenzi’s translation was read by any contemporaries, and is not mentioned in print before 1920.” A young Italian scholar, Luciano Floridi, has found a copy of part of Lorenzi’s translation miscataloged in the National Library of Turin. See his important study “The Diffusion of Sextus Empiricus’ Works in the Renaissance,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 56 (1995), 63–85. The Lorenzi translation is discussed on pages 71–74. Dr. Floridi had given me a typescript of his paper before it was published which has been most helpful to me in developing some of the themes discussed here.
Walker, op. cit.: 60. As I shall try to show, the Savonarolean launching of modern scepticism did not lead to what I have described as modern scepticism elsewhere, but rather launched a special kind of scepticism in support of prophetic knowledge which has reappeared intermittently over the next five centuries.
On Gianfrancesco Pico’s life and writings, see Charles B. Schmitt, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469–1533) and His Critique of Aristotle, (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1967 ). Appendix A, Section I, gives an extended bibliographical review of all of Pico’s writings, published and unpublished.
Or so his disciple, Giovanni Nesi, said.
Supposedly he said that he would rather study Hebrew than Greek, and seems to have learned some Hebrew from the Jewish teacher at San Marco, Blemmert, and from some of the Bible scholars there. There are notes about the Hebrew text of the Bible in Savonarola’s manuscripts of his sermons. His disciple, Giovanni Nesi, said that Savonarola required his students to learn the three biblical languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
Cf. R.H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979 ), Chapter 2.
Schmitt, “An Unstudied Fifteenth-Century Latin Translation,”: 258, n. 26. Unfortunately, he did not seem to come back to this matter before his unforeseen early demise.
This appellation was given to him by Nesi.
Cf. Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche sopra Ezechiele, ed., Robert Ridolfi, (Rome: Edizione Nazionale, 1955 ), Predica V, Vol. I: 61–62.
Piero Crinito, De Honesta Disciplina, originally published in Basel in 1532 and then reprinted in Eugenio Garin’s edition of Pico’s De Hominis Dignitate (Florence: 1942 ). Walker, op. cit.: 48–49, gives the text and the translation I have used.
Walker, op. cit.: 51–58, described Nesi’s Oraculum. See also Weinstein, op. cit.: 192–202. Nesi seems to have been the one who first called Savonarola “the Socrates of Ferrara.”
From his Prediche sopra Ezechiele of February, 1497, as quoted in Walker, op. cit.: 43.
Cited in Walker, op. cit.: 46. This is actually from the last sermon Savonarola preached.
Cf. Floridi, op. cit.: 56–69.
Schmitt, Gianfrancesco Pico: 43ff.
Brian P. Copenhaver and Charles B. Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy, ( Oxford: Oxford University press, 1992 ), 246.
On Ximines’ career, see Alvor Gomez de Castro, De la hazanas de Francisco Jiminez de Cisneros, ed. and trans. by Jose Droz Reta, (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Espanola, 1984), Libro Primero; and Carl J. von Hefele, The Life of Cardinal Ximinez, (London: 1860), Chaps. 1–5.
The logistics and expense of making the Polyglot Bible are discussed and analyzed in James P.R. Lyell, Cardinal Ximines: Statesman, Ecclesiastic, Soldier and Man of Letters, with an Account of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, (London: Grafton & Co., 1917), Chap. 4. See also M. Revilla Rico, La poliglota de Alcala, (Madrid, 1917), and Helefe, op. cit., Chap. 11.
On Cardinal Ximines, the beginnings of the University of Alcalá and the Polyglot Bible project, see Revilla Rico, op. cit., and A. de la Torre, “La Universidad de Alcala...” in Homenaje a Menendez Pidal, ( Madrid: Hernando, 1925 ) III: 377.
On the little known abut these Hebrew scholars, see the introduction by Federico Perez Castro to El manuscrito apologetico de Alfonso de Zamora, (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investiaciones Cientificas, Institute “Arias Montano,” 1950), the articles “Alfonso de Alcala,” “Alfonso de Zamora, ” and “Pablo Coronel” in the Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, Vol. 4: 612 and 614 and Vol. 5: 820. There are articles “Paul Nuñez Coronel” and “Alfonso de Zamora” in the Jewish Encyclopedia. The Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada reports that Alfonso de Alcala and Pablo Coronel were converted in 1492, and Alfonso de Zamora in 1506. The Jewish Encyclopedia article on Alfonso de Zamora also reports his baptism in 1506. In the Spanish article on Zamora, he is identified as a learned Spanish rabbi, even though he was only 18 in 1492, and Coronel as “Docto israelita” though he was just 12 in 1492. The most recent review of Zamora’s biography is Luis Diaz Merino, Targum de Salmos, Edición Principe del Ms. VilaAmil n. 5 de Alfonso de Zamora, (Madrid: Biblioteca Hispana Biblica, 1982), Vol. VIII: 5–8. This states that Alfonso de Zamora and his father, a rabbi, left Spain in 1492, and returned later and converted in 1506. Zamora, which is on the Spanish—Portuguese border, was apparently a place from which Jews departed in 1492, and a place through which some returned to Spain and converted.
Cardinal Ximines, preface to the Polyglot Bible. I have used the translation offered by Lyell, op. cit.: 26–27, and have checked it against the original Latin.
He edited many ancient and medieval texts, and he cited from the whole range of Jewish materials in his Sefer Hokmat Elohim.
Apparently German printers from Lyon, an early center of printing. Cf. Lyell, op. cit.: 45–49.
R.H. Popkin, “Christian Jews and Jewish Christians in Spain, 1492 and After,” Judaism, (1992), Vol. 41: 248–267.
See the list in the introduction to Perez Castro, op. cit., in the recent publications of Alfonso’s Targum of Solomon edition, by Diaz Merino.
See Tarscio Herrero del Collado, “El proceso inquisitorial por delito de hereija contra Hernando de Talavera,” Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espanol, ( Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Juridicos, 1959 ), 67–706.
The purity of blood statutes, first promulgated at Toledo in 1449, before Ximines’ time, were obviously not being applied. It was common knowledge that Alfonso de Zamora, Pablo Coronel and Hernando de Talavera were of Jewish blood.
Cf. Helefe, op. cit.: 397.
Ibid.: 440–441.
See J.L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World, 2nd edition, revised, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), Chaps. 1 and 2.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Popkin, R.H. (2001). Savonarola and Cardinal Ximines: Millenarian Thinkers and Actors at the Eve of the Reformation. In: Kottman, K.A. (eds) Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 174. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2280-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2280-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5665-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2280-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive