Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah, Vol. 24 »

Brian Ogren, Ph.D. (2008) in Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, teaches Jewish Thought and mysticism at the Hebrew University and at other institutions in Israel. He has published several articles on philosophy and Jewish Thought.

Metempsychosis was a prominent element in Renaissance conceptualizations of the human being, the universe, and the place of the human person in the universe. A variety of concepts emerged in debates about metempsychosis: human to human reincarnation, human to vegetal, human to animal, and human to angelic transmigration. As a complex and changing doctrine, metempsychosis gives us a well-placed window for viewing the complex and dynamic contours of Jewish thought in late fifteenth century Italy; as such, it enables us to evaluate Jewish thought in relation to non-Jewish Italian developments. This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish and its Christian dimensions.

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Metempsychosis, Philosophy and Kabbalah: The Debate in Candia 41

Chapter 2 The Extra-Debatal Literature of Candia and Questions of Identity 71

Chapter 3 Philosophical and Mystical Possibilities of Metempsychosis Isaac Abarbanel 102

Chapter 4 Spanish and Italian Conceptions of Metempsychosis in Judah Hayyat 139

Chapter 5 Elia Hayyim ben Binyamin of Genazzano, Prisca Theologia, and the Two Ancient Paths to Metempsychosis 163

Chapter 6 Unity and Diversity in Gilgul Yohanan Alemanno 185

Chapter 7 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and the Allegorical Veridicality of Transmigration 212

Chapter 8 Marsilio Ficino, Circularity and Rebirth 238

Concluding Remarks 264

Bibliography 299

Index 315