Flavius Mithridates was an Italian Jewish humanist scholar, who flourished at Rome in the second half of the 15th century. He is said to be from

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, and was a Christian convert, known for preaching impressively if tendentiously. He also had a knowledge of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Biography

About 1486 he lived at Fratta, near

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...

, in the house of

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, ...

, whom he instructed in

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

. He is now best known as the translator for Pico della Mirandola of the ''Bibliotheca Cabalistica'', a large compilation of cabbalistic literature. Modern scholarly reconsideration of this work have found it somewhat erratic and containing interpolations. He also translated into Latin

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...

' epistle on resurrection,

Levi ben Gershon Levi ben Gershon (1288 – 20 April 1344), better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides, or by his Latinized name Magister Leo Hebraeus, or in Hebrew by the abbreviation of first letters as ''RaLBaG'', was a medieval French Jewish philosoph ...

's commentary on the Song of Solomon, and Judah's "Ma'amar ha-Hawayah ha-Heḳḳeshiyyah," or "Sermo de Generatione Syllogismorum Simplicium et Compositorum in Omni Figura." Flavius was the author of "De Tropis Hebraicis," an original work in Latin on Hebrew accents, which was praised by

Sebastian Münster Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552) was a German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, '' ...

and Imbonatus.

Identity

Some scholars have thought, but without sufficient reason, that Flavius is identical with the cabalist

Johanan Aleman ben Isaac Yohanan Alemanno (born in Constantinople or in Mantua, c. 1435 – died after 1504) was an Italian Jewish rabbi, noted Kabbalist, humanist philosopher, and exegete, and teacher of the Hebrew language to Italian humanists including Pico della Mi ...

a contemporary and associate of Pico della Mirandola, who taught him from the late 1480s. Seidman notes Mithridates's "proliferation of identitites", listing the following: * Gugielmo Raimondo MoncadaRicherche storiche su Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada ebreo convertito Siciliano
by Raffaele Starrabba; 1878. * Flavius Mithridates *

Siculus Siculus (from Greek) was a legendary king and son of Italus. Thucydides and other Greek historians have suggested that he was the legendary progenitor of the Sicels (or Siculi), an Italic people who colonised Sicily three hundred years before the ...

Romanus Romanus (Latin for "Roman"), hellenized as Romanos (Ῥωμανός) was a Roman cognomen and may refer to: People * Adrianus Romanus, Flemish mathematician (1561–1615) * Aquila Romanus, Latin grammarian *Giles of Rome, Aegidius Romanus, mediev ...

* Chaldeus * Samuel ben Nissim ibn Faraj *

YHWH The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', ''waw'', and '' ...

(which Mithridates claimed based on kabbalistic

gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

)

References

Doukas The House of Doukas, Latinized as Ducas ( el, Δούκας; feminine: Doukaina/Ducaena, Δούκαινα; plural: Doukai/Ducae, Δοῦκαι), from the Latin title ''dux'' ("leader", "general", Hellenized as 'ðouks'', is the name of a Byzant ...

, Recherches, pp. 46, 69, 72; *

Joseph Perles Joseph Perles (1835–1894), Hungarian Jewish rabbi. Biography Perles born in Baja Hungary on November 26, 1835. Having received his early instruction in the Talmud from his father, Baruch Asher Perles, he was educated successively at the gymn ...

, in R. E. J. xii. 249; *idem, Beiträge, pp. 178–196; *

Brüll Brüll or Bruell is a surname. The British surname Bruell has been identified as a variation of Brewell, derived from the village of Braithwell, West Yorkshire. Other variants of this surname include Briel Brill and Bril Notable people with ...

's Jahrb. iii. 196; *

Siegmund Salfeld Siegmund Salfeld (24 March 1843 – May 1926) was a German rabbi and writer. He was born at Stadthagen, Schaumburg-Lippe. Having received his degree of Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1870, he became in the same year rabbi of Dessau, Anha ...

, ''Das Hohelied'', p. 117; *

Moritz Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...

, in Monatsschrift, 1898, p. 262; *idem, Hebr. Uebers. p. 492; *Hermann Vogelstein and

Paul Rieger Paul Warren Rieger (born ) is a former New Zealand local-body politician. He served as mayor of Palmerston North from 1985 to 1998, and was a member of the Horizons Regional Council between 1998 and 2019. Rieger served on the Council of Massey ...

, ''Geschichte der Juden in Rom'', ii. 75.

Notes

Bibliography

* Giulio Busi (ed.), with Simonetta M. Bondoni and Saverio Campanini, ''The Great Parchment: Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version'', "The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" - 1, Nino Aragno Editore, Torino 2004. * Saverio Campanini (ed.), ''The Book of Bahir. Flavius Mithridates' Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version'', with a Foreword by G. Busi, "The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" - 2, Nino Aragno Editore, Torino 2005. * Saverio Campanini, ''Talmud, Philosophy, Kabbalah: A Passage from Pico della Mirandola’s Apologia and its Source'', in M. Perani (ed.), T''he Words of a Wise Man’s Mouth are Gracious''. Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, W. De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin – New York 2005, pp. 429–447. * Mauro Perani (ed.), ''Gugliemo Raimondo Moncada alias Flavio Mitridate. Un ebreo converso siciliano''. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Caltabellotta (Agrigento) 23-24 ottobre 2004, Officina di Studi Medievali, Palermo 2008. * Michela Andreatta - Saverio Campanini, ''Bibliographia Mithridatica'', in Mauro Perani (ed.), ''Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada alias Flavio Mitridate'', Palermo 2008, pp. 241–257. * Saverio Campanini, ''Latin into Hebrew (and Back): Flavius Mithridates and His Latin Translations From Judah Romano'', in A. Fidora – H. J. Hames – Y. Schwartz (edd.), ''Latin into Hebrew. Texts and Studies, Volume Two: Texts in Contexts'', Brill, Leiden – Boston 2013, pp. 161–193. * Saverio Campanini, ''תפלה לעני / Oratio pauperis. A Kabbalistic Prayer attributed to Todros ha-Levi Abulafia in Mithridates’ Latin Translation'', in «Iberia Judaica» 6 (2014), pp. 23–34. * Saverio Campanini, ''Who Was Rabbi Mithridates? Following a Neglected Trail'', in F. Buzzetta (ed.), ''Cabbala'', Cahiers Accademia 11 (2018), pp. 9–22. * Saverio Campanini, ''Four Short Kabbalistic Treatises'', "The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" 6, Fondazione Palazzo Bondoni Pastorio, Castiglione delle Stiviere 2019.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mithridates, Flavius Italian translators Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Italian Roman Catholics 15th-century Italian writers Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown Italian Renaissance humanists