The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
brill.com/vlr
Visual Kabbalah in the Italian Renaissance
The Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms
J.H. Chajes | orcid: 0000-0001-7890-1333
Department of Jewish History, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
chajes11@gmail.com
Eliezer Baumgarten | orcid: 0000-0002-4041-6911
Department of Jewish History, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
eliezer.baumgarten@gmail.com
Abstract
The Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms—a name we have given to this
anonymous and untitled treatise—is a unique work in the kab-
balistic library. The Italian kabbalist responsible for its first iter-
ation assigned great value to the images he found in the kab-
balistic works circulating in his environment. The most striking
aspect of the Booklet is the diverse range of schematic images
that have been gathered together, all representations of the
divine world culled from the repertoire of ca. 1500 Italian Jew-
ish Kabbalah. Rather than seeking to establish a “correct” visual
representation of the sefirotic Divine, the “forms” collected in
the Booklet were treated as images that bore meanings pertinent
to all manner of kabbalistic mysteries. The present article intro-
duces this singular work, followed by a critical edition and an
English translation.
Keywords
Kabbalah – visualization of knowledge – diagrams – emblems –
Sefirot – Ilanot – renaissance – Jewish mysticism – early modern
Jewish culture
It is now a commonplace of scholarship that Pico della
Mirandola’s 1486 De hominis dignitate, the “Manifesto of
the Renaissance,” was deeply indebted to the kabbalis-
tic sources that Pico so passionately studied.1 Just as key
Christian figures of the Renaissance took great interest in
the Kabbalah, often studying privately with local rabbis
1 See Copenhaver 2019. Pico’s kabbalistic oeuvre has been systemat-
ically examined by Giulio Busi, who has published critical editions
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/27728641-00101001
or engaging the services of converted Jews to assist with
the gathering, translation, and study of this esoteric lore,
many Italian Jews identified with the project of the Renais-
sance.2 The kabbalistic works they produced in this era
give expression to this spirit: innovative, philosophically-
informed, broadly learned, and aesthetically presented.3
This complex is particularly evident in the works of “visual
Kabbalah,” to borrow the coinage of Giulio Busi, and espe-
cially in the dedicated diagrammatic parchment rotuli
known as ilanot.4 Ilanot, the plural form of the Hebrew
word ilan (tree), is a genre borne of the wedding of
schema and medium. In its classical form, it may be
defined as an arboreal diagram inscribed upon a parch-
ment sheet.5
Ilanot are maps of the Divine topography, which, in
a kabbalistic context, means that they provide diagram-
matic visualizations of the sefirot—the hypostatic divine
categories at the heart of this tradition. Given the generic
appellation, the arboreal schema is, not surprisingly, dom-
inant. Unlike the Porphyrian Trees associated with this
figure, which made their debut in medieval natural phi-
losophy in the eponymous commentary on Aristotle’s Cat-
egories as a useful means of visualizing the scale of being,
the kabbalistic tree is often granted ontological status
and understood, to borrow Gershom Scholem’s phrase, as
the true “mystical shape of the Godhead.”6 It is neverthe-
of the Latin translations prepared for Pico by Flavius Mithridates. Of
particular relevance to the current essay is Busi 2004.
2 For a brief and reliable general survey, see Ruderman 1988.
3 See Ogren 2016. For a broad exploration of Italian Kabbalah, see Idel
2011.
4 Busi 2005, esp. 353–388; Chajes 2019.
5 On the ilanot genre, see Chajes 2022.
6 Scholem 1991. On the arboreal schema, see Verboon 2014. Scholem
92
less undeniable that the kabbalists chose to represent the
sefirotic array with a figure designed to expose relations
devoid of all spatial connotations. The tree may repre-
sent family relations or the branches of being, but nobody
would imagine that the latter resemble a tree. The tension
between the presumption of ontological structure and the
aniconic legacy of this diagrammatic device is frequently
discernable in kabbalistic writing.
Its dominance in artifacts of the ilan genre notwith-
standing, the tree was hardly the only schema used by
kabbalists to represent the structure of the divine. The
earliest extant kabbalistic codices, copied in Rome in
1284 and 1286, include a number of independent dia-
grams using varied schemata.7 None, however, bears the
slightest resemblance to the iconic sefirotic tree with
which the reader is likely familiar, if only from the oft-
reproduced frontispiece of Paolo Riccio’s Portae lucis
(Augsburg, 1516).8 In the earliest systematic kabbalistic
treatises written roughly a century after the miscellanies
copied in the 1280s, the sefirotic structure is represented
by means of graphically modest diagrams. They gener-
ally suffice with a text-only array of names, which are,
on occasion, supplemented by interconnecting lines. Such
images typically accompany discussions of the “correct”
structure of the Godhead and present divergent views of
the sefirotic constellation.
The authors of these early treatises show no sign of
having regarded their sefirotic diagrams as “trees,” despite
their fondness for arboreal metaphors when describ-
ing the Godhead. The tree was one of two dominant
metaphors for the shape of the divine in classical Kab-
balah, the other being the human body. In the late
thirteenth-century introduction to the sefirot, Shaʾarei
orah (Gates of Light), by the Spanish kabbalist Joseph
Gikatilla, the author describes himself as “drawing a form
(tzurah)” of the sefirot to clarify an important point
for his readers. The drawing—reproduced in scores of
manuscripts and printed editions over the centuries with
remarkable consistency—certainly makes a rather arbo-
real impression. Gikatilla, however, clearly meant it to sug-
used this phrase to describe the ancient so-called “Shiʿur komah”
esoteric traditions.
7 Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Cod. Parma 2784, and Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France (bnf), hébr. 763. On the diagrams in these
codices, see Busi 2005, 125–136, and Segol 2012. Daniel Abrams has
recently published an article on the wide variety of schemata in
early kabbalistic manuscripts. See Abrams 2021.
8 The “Tree of Wisdom/Science” diagram found in these manuscripts
is not a sefirotic tree but a visualization of Sefer yetzirah void of kab-
balistic, i.e., theosophical content; see Chajes 2022.
chajes and baumgarten
gest the human form. It is a “stick figure.”9 There was no
need to choose between the two metaphors, of course. The
rabbinic tradition had for centuries insisted on the confla-
tion, intentionally misreading Deuteronomy 20:19 as “man
is like the tree of the field.” The rich mythologomena asso-
ciated with the tree in Jewish tradition—from the Tree
of Life of Genesis, to the “Tree that is All” of the foun-
dational kabbalistic Bahir, of twelfth-century Provençal
provenance—as well as the scientific prestige of the Por-
phyrian Tree, ultimately conspired to bring kabbalists to
effect the conflation of metaphor and schema. (The con-
flation was abetted by the aniconic legacy and character of
the arboreal schema, as noted.) And if these trends began
with the emergence of Kabbalah in Provençe and Spain,
and ultimately led to the production of ilanot wherever
there were kabbalists, it is clear that the development and
full flowering of this genre took place on Italian soil from
the fourteenth to the sixteenth century.10 Nevertheless, we
do well to avoid a “whiggish” approach, which, in this case,
would mean a failure to appreciate the diversity of kab-
balistic visual materials generally and, in particular, before
the ascent of the kabbalistic tree—both as schema and as
genre—to its nigh canonical dominance in the sixteenth
century and beyond.
Kabbalists made sefirotic images using varied schemata
for different reasons. When treating the contested ques-
tion of the true array of the divine “constellation,” graphi-
cal variation was not simply inevitable—it was the point.
In the mid-sixteenth century, R. Moses Cordovero argued
for the correctness of the now iconic schema (undoubt-
edly a major contribution to making it so), referring to it
as “segolta, segol, segol”: the names of paratextual symbols
used in the cantillation and vocalization of the Torah that
resemble deltas and nablas.11 The mnemonic had been
coined by the kabbalist R. Judah Ḥayyat, a refugee of the
1492 Spanish expulsion, in his Minḥat Yehudah, a work
he composed in large measure to assert the authority of
Iberian traditions in his new home, Italy.12 It seems that
among Italian kabbalists, there was a certain preference
for a different configuration of the uppermost sefirot, one
in which they were centered one atop the other. Why?
9 See, e.g., bav, Vat. ebr. 560, f. 72v (an Italian 14th-century
manuscript); Paris, bnf, hébr. 822, f. 94r (16th-century Italian).
10 Chajes 2019.
11 See Chajes 2020a, 246–248. Cordovero’s discussion is in Pardes
rimonim (Cracow, 1592), 34a–38a.
12 Although it may be regarded as a composition in its own right,
Ḥayyat’s work was written and published as a commentary on
the anonymous kabbalistic classic, Maʿarekhet ha-elohut (The
Order of the Godhead) from the first printings of the latter in
Mantua and Ferrara in 1558.
The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance
Because the spatial implications of right and left could
not possibly apply to such sublime recesses of divinity—
something of a philosophical concern, in keeping with the
general character of so much Italian kabbalistic specula-
tion.13 This tower-like configuration may be seen in many
Italian codices of the period, with examples including (a)
the Iggeret ḥamudot of R. Elijah Ḥayyim of Genazzano of
the late Quattrocento, (b) some of the sefirotic diagrams in
the Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms presented here, and (c) the
Magnificent Parchment.14 Graphical variation also resulted
from the taking of a fundamentally different approach to
the issue of sefirotic representation. Rather than aspire to
show the constellation of sefirot with map-like accuracy,
“as they actually exist,” to use Cordovero’s words, images of
the sefirot might also be fashioned for their symbolic value.
In this latter scenario, the question was “what might we
learn about the sefirot from this picture? What important
idea does the image convey?” In his Pardes rimonim survey
of contenders for the title of “the true configuration,” Cor-
dovero had, in fact, begun by dismissing an image of the
sefirot in which they collectively formed the shape of an
alef, the first of the Hebrew letters.15 It was, he explained,
an image of another sort altogether, one that did not seek
to resemble its referent but rather to make the point that
despite their apparent multiplicity, the ten sefirot were
one. The alef, after all, was not only the first letter but the
sign of the numeral one.
The Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms—a name we have given
to this anonymous and untitled treatise—is a unique work
in the kabbalistic library.16 The Italian kabbalist respon-
sible for its first iteration clearly assigned great value to
the images he found in the kabbalistic works circulating in
his environment. Although we cannot ascertain with cer-
tainty which, if any, of the extant witnesses of this compo-
sition presents the earliest version, the compilatory nature
of the genre would have encouraged subsequent copyists
to supplement it freely. The various copies thus show sig-
nificant overlap as well as some variation, the latter mostly
consisting of images and texts that we may presume were
added to the original core collection.
13 Ogren 2016; Idel 2011.
14 Paris, bnf, hébr. 857, f. 9r (a 1526 Italian manuscript); on this
work, see Lelli 2002. On The Magnificent Parchment, see Chajes
2019, 181–183, and below.
15 See, e.g., bav, Neofiti 28, f. 88r. For a discussion, see Chajes 2020a,
242–245.
16 The Booklet was briefly described in Busi 2005, 376–379, under
the title, Seder ha-ʿilan—L’Ordine dell’albero. This title appears,
however, to be that of the composition preceding the Booklet in
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (bsb), Cod.hebr. 112.
The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
93
The most striking aspect of the Booklet is the diverse
range of schematic images that have been gathered
together, all representations of the divine world culled
from the repertoire of ca. 1500 Italian Jewish Kabbalah.
One entry (§3 in our edition) presents the sefirot as a tree,
but rather than a typically austere Porphyrian schema we
find a leafy phytomorphic figure. Another (§6) presents
the sefirot in the form of a Jewish wedding canopy.17
Whereas Cordovero’s aforementioned visual inventory
was dedicated to establishing the correct constellation of
the sefirotic godhead, the “forms” collected in the Booklet
were free to instruct their beholder in all manner of kab-
balistic mysteries.
The Booklet was not a widely disseminated work but its
reception history demonstrates at least one critical contri-
bution to the history of Kabbalah: it was a major source for
the anonymous author of the greatest of all Italian Renais-
sance ilanot, The Magnificent Parchment.18 The Magnifi-
cent Parchment, of which roughly a dozen complete and
fragmentary copies are extant, was created ca. 1500 by an
Italian kabbalist who likely moved in the same circles as
the creator of the Booklet. We cannot rule out the possi-
bility that the two were in fact one man, but this is sheer
speculation. What is clear is that The Magnificent Parch-
ment shows extensive reliance on both the images and
texts compiled in the Booklet. In all likelihood, this was the
“Tree of Kabbalah” to which Benedetto Blanis, a Florentine
Jew of the early seventeenth century, referred in a letter to
his patron Don Giovanni de’ Medici:
I am delighted to have so important a Tree of Kab-
balah here in Florence, brought from Lippiano at my
request. I am having it copied on vellum with great
diligence, so it will not be inferior to the original in
any way but even better. I hope that this Tree will
please Your Most Illustrious Excellency and that we
will be able to enjoy it together […].19
One of the most beautiful witnesses of The Magnificent
Parchment is found today in the Vatican Library (Vat.
ebr. 598). (Plate 1) Despite its astounding beauty and the
17 See Baumgarten & Safrai 2020, and Idel 2020a; see as well the
text published in Abrams 2013.
18 The Magnificent Parchment witnesses are untitled. For the sake
of convenience and disambiguation, we now refer to this family
of ilanot as such. For a digital critical edition, see www.ilanot​
.org. The Great Parchment, which is extant as Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Hunt. Add. E, belongs to a different family of ilanot. The
text of the latter was published in Busi 2004.
19 The letter was discovered in the Vatican Apostolic Archives; see
Goldberg 2011, 120–121.
94 chajes and baumgarten

plate 1
bav, Vat. ebr. 598. The Magnificent Parchment with the dia-
grams explained in the Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance
33,000-word kabbalistic miscellany inscribed upon it from
top to bottom, like the Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms, it is
only now receiving its first wave of scholarly attention.
1 The Booklet of Kabbalist Forms
The Booklet as it is here presented includes twelve distinct
units. Each is independent and does not engage explic-
itly with the content of the others. The units nevertheless
exhibit a consistent form and are not entirely unrelated
to one another, at least from an analytic point of view.
The commonalities that they share reflect their common
sources. Among these the writings of Abraham Abulafia
and the anonymous early fourteenth-century Maʿarekhet
ha-elohut stand out as particularly dominant.20 Their
influence on the author-compiler of the Booklet is evident
throughout. Particular subjects are also treated over multi-
ple units: the Garden of Eden and the devekut (adhesion)
of the intellect to the Divine are among the most promi-
nent recurring motifs.21 Their recurrence suggests their
centrality in the author-editor’s ideational world. The var-
ious units also share a common afterlife, as it were: their
deployment throughout The Magnificent Parchment, as we
have already noted. Although the daunting textual anthol-
ogy of The Magnificent Parchment includes excerpts from
a large number of works, nearly all of its diagrammatic ele-
ments are borrowed from the Booklet.22
The structure of each unit is largely consistent: an image
and an accompanying text. The images may be described
as diagrams. Although there is no timeless taxonomy for
different types of images, diagrams have been usefully
described in recent scholarship as “images with which one
thinks” and, a bit more technically, as “a data structure in
which information is indexed by two-dimensional loca-
tion.”23 As is often the case, these diagrammatic images
are captioned with short texts. The bulk of the text treat-
20 On Abraham Abulafia, see the many works of Moshe Idel, includ-
ing his most recent contribution, Idel 2020a. Abulafia’s dia-
grams have not yet received significant attention, though Idel has
touched upon them in his various works. See also the notes to §12
in the edition below. On Maʿarekhet ha-elohut, a work that has
received scant attention in the scholarship notwithstanding its
enduring popularity among kabbalists, see Gottlieb 1976a, 257–
343; Gottlieb 1976b; L. Chajes 2022.
21 On the Garden of Eden in classical Kabbalah, see Bar-Asher 2019.
The adhesion of the intellect to the Divine is constitutive of
prophecy in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed and central to
its kabbalistic appropriation in the works of Abraham Abulafia;
see., e.g., Afterman 2016, 151–170.
22 See Baumgarten & Safrai 2020. The digital scientific edition at
www.ilanot.org also demonstrates this dependence in extensio.
23 See Krämer & Ljungberg 2016; Larkin & Simon 1987.
The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
95
ing their signification is to be found, however, immedi-
ately below their inscription. These longer texts, essen-
tially reflections upon the images, exhibit a consistent
style—especially in their opening words. The formulaic
openings vary somewhat in their wording but share a com-
mon orientation, e.g., “In this form, two matters were made
apparent […]”, “This form comes to make apparent …”, “I
have drawn this form in order to make apparent two mat-
ters ….”24
This distinctive structure is unknown to us from other
works of Kabbalah or, indeed, of Hebrew literature more
generally. What may have inspired the author-compiler to
assemble such a sundry sample of kabbalistic images, sup-
plemented by suggestions of their significance? The Book-
let of Kabbalistic Forms marked quite a departure from the
text-image relation of the codices with which we began,
indeed inverting the customary relation between the two
typically found in the literature. Rather than using images
to clarify the text, the images were now primary, presumed
to be richly suffused with meaning. The texts that followed
them were written to offer insight into their meaning with-
out, however, exhausting it. The images encouraged addi-
tional contemplation and “thinking with.”
Our author-compiler may have been one of those rare
historical figures to have created a new form of expres-
sion, all but unprecedented. We nevertheless think it
reasonable to suggest the possibility that his approach
reflects his participation in a cultural milieu in which
the heuristic power of “emblems” was becoming increas-
ingly appreciated by scholars. The earliest emblemata
were likely circulating in manuscript in his environ-
ment. Like the Booklet, emblem books presented images
accompanied by explanatory texts. Unlike the Booklet,
the images of emblemata were typically representational
rather than schematic-diagrammatic. They nevertheless
shared a common presumption that their images were suf-
fused with symbolic signification. Both asked the reader
to study each image in light of an adjoining text that
unpacked and elaborated upon its meaning. Rather than
presume the influence of emblemata on the Booklet, it is
worth considering whether both the genre and this Jew-
ish parallel are expressions of an incipient cultural trend.
By the second half of the sixteenth century, emblemata
were in print, among them beautiful editions associated
with such names as Andrea Alciato, Achille Bocchi, Gio-
vanni Battista Pittoni, and Girolamo Ruscelli. Although
their emblem books do not include examples of kabbal-
istic iconography, we know, at least in the case of Boc-
chi, that it was neither unknown to them nor considered
24 These examples are drawn from the openings to §3, §11, §12.
96
beyond the bounds of the genre. Thus, in a letter to Giovan
Battista Pigna of 16 June 1556, Bocchi assured that another
volume to include “other kabbalistic and theological sym-
bols based on the Holy Scriptures” would be forthcom-
ing.25 Though none appeared, the very suggestion testifies
to his perception of Kabbalah as an emblematic resource.
The anonymous rabbinic scholar responsible for the
Booklet assembled—and perhaps, in a few cases,
created—various diagrams and what might be called
“knowledge generating” images.26 These are the “forms”
that make the various teachings communicated in their
associated texts “apparent.” The texts seem mostly to have
been modified from a handful of sources, noted above:
Abulafia, the Maʿarekhet, and the latter’s fourteenth-
century Italian commentator, Reuven Ṣarfatti. Although
in most cases we can identify the sources of the images
and texts, they were not all originally found together;
their integration and modification was undertaken by the
anonymous author-editor. His creative freedom also found
expression in the manner in which he reworked materials
without apparent regard for their functions in their origi-
nal contexts. Abulafia’s circle diagrams, for example, were
put to ecstatic use in his own compositions but are here re-
presented with an emphasis on their suggestive imaginal
content.
When units from the Booklet occur in The Magnifi-
cent Parchment, we find that they have been subjected
to yet another round of editing. As one might imagine,
in their integration into the ambitious parchment, the
images were retained with greater fidelity than the texts,
the latter being considerably abridged.
2 The Manuscripts
The Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms is extant in five manu-
scripts. The structure of the composition, divided as it
is into free-standing units, insured that copyists would
regard it as an “open text.”27 As such, it invited inter-
ventions—typically though not exclusively in the form
25 Rotondò 1962, 133 n. 2. We thank the anonymous reader who
brought Rotondò’s article to our attention. Bocchi’s cryptic word-
ing in this letter was recently reconsidered in Rolet 2015, 1:71–72.
Although Rolet was not able to clear up the vagaries of Bocchi’s
language in the letter, she adduced new manuscript evidence for
his interest in kabbalistic symbolism.
26 On “knowledge generating” images, see Drucker 2014, esp. 95–
116.
27 The notion of an “open text” was developed by Umberto Eco in
the 1960s; see, e.g., Eco 1989. Brian Ogren’s critique of attempts to
establish the “original texts” of the kabbalistic works produced in
the historical context here under discussion is also salient here,
chajes and baumgarten
of supplementation of additional image-text units that a
given scribe ostensibly regarded as a good fit. The fluidity
of the Booklet makes it difficult to assess with any degree
of certainty the genealogy of the five witnesses in relation
to one another. Although we may presume that witnesses
with fewer units reflect earlier versions and those with
additional units later ones, ultimately this remains pre-
sumptive. There is also no evidence that the five witnesses
reflect one genealogical line rather than branches stem-
ming from one or more manuscripts that are no longer
extant. On the contrary, there is good reason to surmise
precisely the latter.
J [‫ ]א‬Jerusalem, National Library of Israel, ms 2964,
ff. 8v–17r.
The Booklet in this manuscript was copied by the
kabbalist Jacob Poggetti in Italy in 1578. Poggetti
brought a number of kabbalistic works to press
even as he worked actively as a manuscript copy-
ist and editor. His editorial confidence and scribal
prowess are on display in this witness of the Book-
let. Poggetti’s evident perception of the Booklet as
an “open text” gave him license to reorder and sup-
plement its units.
M [‫ ]ב‬München, bsb, Cod. hebr. 112, ff. 214v–220r.
The Booklet in this manuscript was copied in an
Italian hand in 1538 from a manuscript akin to the
Vatican witness. The copyist was Paulus Aemilius,
a Jewish convert working under the employ of the
Christian Hebraist Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter
(1506–1557). Widmanstetter had a keen interest in
the sefirotic tree and personally drew four of the
diagrams in this copy.28
N [‫ ]נ‬New York, Jewish Theological Seminary Library,
ms 2641, ff. 24v–27r.
This miscellany, written in an Italian hand, is dated
to the sixteenth century. Much of the material in
the miscellany is astronomical. It contains units §3,
4, 7, and 9—though not in that order. Surrounding
the units are selections from Maʿarekhet ha-elohut
and Ṣarfatti’s commentary that are not part of the
Booklet as it is found elsewhere. These passages all
bear upon the kabbalistic tree in some fashion.
P [‫ ]פ‬Paris, bnf, hebr. 776, ff. 189r–193v.
This kabbalistic miscellany, written in a Spanish
hand, is dated to the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
Among the works included are treatises by Abra-
as it is to our observation above regarding the creative freedom
of the author-editor of the Booklet; see Ogren 2016, 177.
28 On both Aemilius and Widmanstetter, see now de Molière 2021,
esp. 104–112, 252–253.
The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance
ham Abulafia and Nachmanides’ commentary on
Sefer yetzirah. This copy of the treatise includes
all the units presented in the present edition. Its
scribal execution suggests that it was a rushed copy
produced by an amateur copyist.
V [‫ ]ו‬bav, Vat.ebr. 441, ff. 110r–117v.
The basis of the present edition is written in an
Italian hand and dated to the fifteenth or early
sixteenth century. It is found in a kabbalistic mis-
cellany that includes early kabbalistic works and,
again, treatises by Abulafia.
The modest Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms is a fascinating
work: a unique Hebrew kabbalistic emblem-like book.
Its author-editor and the kabbalist-scribes who subse-
quently augmented it over the course of the sixteenth cen-
tury embraced a broad repertoire of kabbalistic images—
“forms” being the Proclean term used throughout the text
to refer to the images—in the belief that each had some-
thing vital to teach. Unlike the diagrammatic inventories
found in other kabbalistic works, the point of which was
allow one to consider differing points of view with regard
to the structure of the Godhead, the “forms” of the Book-
let are presumed to coexist peacefully. Each has something
to teach. The thrust of the texts that accompany these
“forms” affirm what might be described as a philosophi-
cally nominalist rather than realist approach to their exis-
tence.
As the apparent source of the diagrammatic imagery
of The Magnificent Parchment, the Booklet is profoundly
embedded in what is arguably the most staggering
achievement in the history of visual Kabbalah. If the
bias against visual forms of knowledge blinded scholars
of the previous century to its significance, its day has
now come.29 With the present publication of the Book-
let of Kabbalistic Forms and the scientific edition of The
Magnificent Parchment,30 scholars will, for the first time,
be equipped to assess—and to enjoy—these intertwined
masterworks of Italian, philosophically-inflected visual
Kabbalah.
29 On this bias, see Drucker 2014, 16–17, and Chajes 2020b. See also
Busi 2010.
30 The Magnificent Parchment is on the “Maps of God” platform
(www.ilanot.org) under development by the University of Haifa-
based “Ilanot Project” and the digital humanities laboratory of
the University of Göttingen. Platform development is sponsored
by the Volkswagen Foundation under the rubric of the “Research
Cooperation Lower Saxony–Israel” funding program.
The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145
97
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foun-
dation (Grant 1568/18). The authors would like to thank
Dr. Delio Vania Proverbio, Scriptor Orientalis of the Vati-
can Library, Department of Manuscripts, for his gracious
assistance and support of our research.
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Idel, Moshe (1989): Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abra-
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Lelli, Fabrizio (2002): Eliyyah Ḥayim Ben Binyamin of Genazzano: Texts, Commentaries, and Diagrams of the Sefer Yetsirah. New
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she-nikhnesu le-pardes ve-tivʿah shel ha-mistikah ha-talmudit, Meaning of the ‘Shiur Qomah’ in Jewish Mysticism, Liturgy,
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Pedaya, Haviva (2003): ‫ זמן מחזורי וטקסט קדוש‬- ‫ התעלות‬: ‫הרמב"ן‬ Wolfson, Elliot R. (2005): Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic
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Pines, Shlomo (1963): Guide of the Perplexed. Chicago and Lon-
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Riccio, Paolo (1516): Portae lucis, Haec est porta Tetragramma-
ton justi intrabunt per eam Rabi Josephus Castiliensis. Paulus
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Rolet, Anne (2015): Les Questions symboliques d’Achille Bocchi
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Ruderman, David B. (1988): The Italian Renaissance and Jewish
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Scafi, Alessandro (2006): Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven
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Scholem, Gershom (1991): On the Mystical Shape of the God-
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Scholem, Gershom (1933–1934): ‫שרידי ספרו של ר׳ שם טוב אבן‬
‫[ גאון על יסודות תורת הספירות‬Seridei sifro shel rʾ Shem Tov ibn
Gaon ʿal yesodot torat ha-sefirot, “Fragments from R. Shem Tov
ibn Gaon’s Work on the Foundation of the Doctrine of the
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Sefer ha-pliah (1883): ‫[ ספר הפליאה‬Book of wonder]. Przemyśl:
Zupnik, Kneller, Hammerschmidt.
Segol, Marla (2012): Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: The

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪100‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫‪The Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms‬‬

‫‪Critical Edition and Translation‬‬

‫ו‪110 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪214 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪189:‬א‪ ,‬י‪11 :‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :1‬סוד גן ועדן‪a‬‬

‫‪figure 1. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 110r‬‬

‫סוד גן ועדן‬ ‫‪A‬‬

‫סוד גן ועדן בעולם הרוחני ר״ל בעולם הספירות‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫וסוד גן‪ b‬בעולם האמצעי בערבות‪ c‬בערבות‬ ‫‪C‬‬
‫וגן עדן במורגש‪d‬‬ ‫‪D‬‬
‫וסוד בעולם התחתון‪ e‬גם כן‬ ‫‪E‬‬
‫כתר‬ ‫‪1‬‬
‫חכמ׳ בינה‬
‫גדולה‬ ‫‪2‬‬
‫גבורה‬ ‫‪3‬‬
‫ת ״ת‬ ‫‪4‬‬
‫עטרת‬
‫נצח‬ ‫‪5‬‬
‫הוד‬ ‫‪6‬‬
‫יסוד‬ ‫‪7‬‬

‫מ‪215 :‬א‬ ‫והנך רואה איך עץ החיים | ועץ הדעת הרמוזי׳‪ f‬לת״ת ועטרת איך שניהם ביחוד ודוגמ׳‪ g‬כענין‬
‫לב בנפש‪ h‬בתוך הגן ר״ל באמצע הספירות הנק׳ גן ותבין כי הגן הרוחני‪ i‬הנז׳ שהוא הספירות‬
‫היו בעד״ן מקד״ם ר״ל בחכמה הנק׳ עד״ן ובכתר העליון‪ j‬הנק׳ קד״ם כי משם קבלתם‪ .‬ואתה‬
‫ידעת כי ת״ת הוא הנהר הנק׳ חדקל מלשון דקל הכולל זכר ונקבה כן הוא ד׳ פעמים נברא‪k.‬‬

‫‪ a‬חסר בכתב יד נ‪ b .‬י‪ :‬במקום ׳וסוד גן׳—׳וסודו׳‪ c .‬כפילות עם מחיקה‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ d .‬י‪ :‬וגם עניינו‬
‫במורגש‪ e .‬י‪ :‬וסודו בארץ התחתון‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬הרומוזי‪ g .‬י‪ :‬בדוגמה; פ‪ :‬בדוגמה ודמיון; מ‪ :‬ודוגמא‪ h .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫בענין לב ונפש‪ i .‬מ‪ :‬הרוחנית‪ j .‬מ‪ :‬עליון‪ k .‬מ‪ ,‬י‪ :‬ד״ו פרצופין נבראו; פ‪ :‬ד”פ‪ .‬וגי׳ זו נראית סבירה‬
‫יותר‪.‬‬

‫‪31‬‬ ‫‪This unit, which is not in all witnesses, likely existed independently before its inclusion‬‬
‫‪in this collection. It appears, albeit without the diagram, in Cambridge University Library,‬‬
‫‪Add. 651.2, f. 1r–v. The diagram appears in The Magnificent Parchment as well, albeit with an‬‬
‫‪abridged form of the text that follows here. On The Magnificent Parchment and its relation‬‬
‫‪to the Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms, see the introduction.‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 101

Unit 1: The Secret of Garden and Eden31 V: 110r, M: 214v, P: 189r, J: 11r

A The secret of Garden and Eden32

B The secret of Garden and Eden in the spiritual world, that is to say, in the
world of the sefirot
C And the secret of Garden in the intermediate world, in ʿAravot33
D And the Garden of Eden in the [realm of] sense perception (be-murgash)
E And [its] secret in the lower world as well
1 Keter (crown)
Ḥokhmah Binah (wisdom understanding)
2 Gedulah (grandeur)
3 Gevurah (strength)
4 Tiferet (beauty)
ʿAteret (diadem)
5 Netzaḥ (eternity)
6 Hod (majesty)
7 Yesod (foundation)

And you can see how the Tree of Life (Etz ha-ḥayyim) | and the Tree of Knowl- M: 215r
edge (Etz ha-daʿat), which allude to [the sefirot of] Tiferet and ʿAteret, are in
complete unification. Thus, for example, like the heart within a person, they
are within the Garden, i.e., in the middle of the sefirot that are called Gar-
den. And understand that this aforementioned spiritual Garden, which is the
sefirot, was in Eden, in the East, (Eden mi-Kedem, from Gen 2:8), that is to say,
in Ḥokhmah, called Eden, and in the Keter ʿElyon (Supernal Crown), called
Kedem, from whence they receive.34 And you know that Tiferet is the river
called Ḥidekel, from the word dekel (palm tree), which includes the male and
female;35 indeed, it was created “two-faced.”36 But afterwards the ʿAtarah was

32 This title appears above the diagram in most witnesses of The Magnificent Parchment.
33 ʿAravot, a biblical term for the heavens (see Ps 68:5) is the name of one of the seven
firmaments—indeed the uppermost—according to the rabbinic tradition. See, e.g.,
bḤagigah 12b.
34 The author is reading Kedem in light of its other meaning of “before” and even “primordial.”
The latter sense is found in the Aramaic Targum Onkelos (ca. 110 ce) and was endorsed by
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel in his fifteenth-century biblical commentary (on Gen 2:8–17).
Abarbanel also uses the term “ḥelkei ha-aretz,” which is found in the discussion below.
35 See Abrams 2013, 26–27, where we read, “And our rabbis of blessed memory, masters of
the Kabbalah, would compare the matter to the palm tree. Just as the palm tree does not
produce fruit so long as it is planted alone in a field, but only after a second palm tree—
its mate—is planted alongside it, becoming one below and from above seen as two, so too
are Tiferet and ʿAtarah.” For another closely related passage, see ‫[ ספר הקנה‬Sefer ha-kanah
1784], 63a. On the androgynous perception of the palm tree that reflects a kabbalistic view
of the equality of the feminine, see Weiss 2015, 35; Wolfson 2005, 151. The text to which
these discussions refer may be found in the Bahir; see Abrams 1994, 223 (§139).
36 The translation here follows the better reading of the Jerusalem and Munich witnesses.
The Vatican ms has mistakenly read the acrostic for “two-faced,”D”P, to mean “four times.”

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪102‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫אבל הוא‪ a‬אח״כ נתנה העטרה לראש פנה להנהגת התחתוני׳ ומטעם זה ר״ל שגן אילנות מקום‬
‫הרבה‪ b‬נקראת חכמת האלוהות פרדס כמו שאמרו ארבעה נכנסו לפרדס מפני שהיא הולכת‬
‫במדרגת‪ c‬הצורה והתכלית אל שאר החכמות וצריך לעבור אל‪ d‬שאר גבולי ההשגות טרם בא‬
‫אל‪ e‬קדש הקדשים‪.‬‬
‫סוד גן עדן ג״כ הוא בערבות והוא נק׳ אצל החכמי׳ פרדס ולשון ערבות‪ f‬הוא ערבות הוא‬
‫גן עדן‪ g‬והוא תענוג הנפשות אשר ראו עולמן בחייהן‪ .‬רפידתו‪ h‬אורים מה רב טובו והוא נר‬
‫השמים מאיר לכל צבאם‪ .‬וזכור ואל תשכח כי מלת ערבות משותפת לכל מה שלמעלה לגלגל‬
‫ו‪110 :‬ב‬ ‫המקיף הנק׳ ערבות כוללת גלגל השכל | אשר הוא הגלגל המעולה איננו גוף לא מניע ולא‬
‫מתנועע עומד בקדושתו תמיד ומזוהר זה הגלגל זוהר הנפשות ומלאכים‪ i‬קדושים ובכלל כוללת‬
‫עד כסא הכבוד ר״ל דמות כסא והבן היטב‪ j‬ובתנאי זה ומזה הצד‪ k‬אני אומ׳ שסוד גן עדן הוא‬
‫בערבות שהוא למעלה מהזמן שוה לנצחות ואין למעלה מהנצחות‪ l‬אלא מה שהוא על הנצחות‬
‫והוא ית׳‪.‬‬
‫י‪12 :‬א‬ ‫סוד גן עדן באדם והנה לב האדם נק׳ גן והוא באמצע | והנה הלב הרמוז בגן הוא בעדן‪m‬‬
‫הוא השכל אשר הוא העדון האמתי‪ n‬ובספר יצירה הלב בנפש והוא מבואר שבתוכו ר״ל בגן‬
‫הנקרא העץ‪ o‬החיים ועץ הדעת‪ p‬טוב ורע ר״ל שכל אנושי ושכל חומרי שהוא טוב ורע אבל‬
‫העץ חיים שהוא השכל האנושי העיוני המיוחד‪ q‬האמתי כלו טוב‪.‬‬
‫וסוד ענין גן עדן במורגש‪ r‬ידוע מפשט הפסוקי׳‪ s‬נאמרו בפרשת בראשית והוא באמצע‪t‬‬
‫במקום חלקי הארץ‪ .‬והפתחים‪ u‬והפתחים שלו בהרבה מקומות ואמרו כי הפילוסופי׳ הקדמוני׳‬

‫‪ e‬י‪:‬‬ ‫‪ d‬מ‪ :‬אבל; י‪ :‬כל‪.‬‬ ‫‪ c‬פ‪ :‬במדרגת‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬י‪ :‬הגן מקום אילנות הרבה‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מחוק‪ .‬בכתב יד ו בלבד‪.‬‬
‫מקדש‪ f .‬י‪ :‬׳ולשון ערבות׳ חסר‪ g .‬מ‪ :‬במשפט הראשון בפסקה חסרות המילים‪ :‬׳ג”כ הוא בערבות‬
‫והוא נק׳ אצל החכמים פרדס ולשון ערבות הוא ערבות הוא גן עדן׳‪ ,‬והוא דילוג מחמת הדומות‪ h .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫‪ j‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ i‬מ‪ :‬מלאכין‪.‬‬ ‫מילה לא ברורה לפני ׳רפידתו׳‪ ,‬ונראה כי המעתיק כתב מילה ומחק אותה‪.‬‬
‫‪ n‬מ‪ :‬׳בעדן׳ במקום ׳העדון‬ ‫‪ m‬י‪ :‬העדן‪.‬‬ ‫‪ l‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ k‬מ‪ :‬׳ומזה הצד׳ חסר‪.‬‬ ‫הטב‪.‬‬
‫האמיתי׳‪ o .‬י‪ ,‬מ‪ :‬עץ‪ p .‬פ‪ :‬ודעת‪ q .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ r .‬י‪ :‬במורגשיי׳‪ s .‬מ‪ :‬הכתובי׳‪ t .‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו‬
‫בלבד‪ u .‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬

‫‪37‬‬ ‫‪Ps 118:22.‬‬

‫‪38‬‬ ‫‪bḤagigah 14b. On this seminal rabbinic allegory of heavenly ascent, see the summary dis-‬‬
‫‪cussion in Gottstein 1995. See also Liebes 1990.‬‬
‫‪39‬‬ ‫‪Our kabbalist here uses terms associated with Aristotelian metaphysics in their typical‬‬
‫‪Hebrew forms. This terminology was fully, indeed practically universally, appropriated by‬‬
‫‪kabbalists. See, e.g., the use of Abraham Abulafia in Gross 1999, 189. On its valence in the‬‬
‫‪primary sources of our author, see Pedaya 2003, 225–226.‬‬
‫‪40‬‬ ‫‪As the text is unvocalized, these two words are identical in the Hebrew.‬‬
‫‪41‬‬ ‫‪bBerakhot 17b.‬‬
‫‪42‬‬ ‫‪Invoking Song of Songs 3:10.‬‬
‫‪43‬‬ ‫‪Ps 31:20.‬‬
‫‪44‬‬ ‫‪Deut 9:7.‬‬
‫‪45‬‬ ‫‪This terminology reflects the influence of Maimonides in his Guide of the Perplexed, where‬‬
‫‪it is used in the sense of “equivocal.” See, e.g., i:45, i:65, i:70. For English, see Pines 1963, 95,‬‬
‫‪158, 171.‬‬
‫‪46‬‬ ‫‪On the cosmology reflected in this passage, which places intellective spheres beyond the‬‬
‫‪planetary orbs, see below.‬‬
‫‪47‬‬ ‫‪This term was used in the Tibbonite Hebrew translation of Maimonides’s Guide ii:26, as‬‬
‫‪well as in their translation of Judah ha-Levy’s Kuzari, 1:62. See Klatzkin 1930, 63.‬‬
‫‪48‬‬ ‫‪See Hayman 2004, 179 (§59).‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 103

given to the cornerstone (rosh pinah),37 to govern the lower [realms]. And
for this reason—the Garden being a place of many trees—the science of the
Divine is called “orchard (pardes),” as [the Sages] said, “four who entered the
orchard.”38 This is because it operates on the level of the form (tzurah) and the
telos (takhlit) vis-à-vis all other sciences.39 And one must traverse the limits of
all other attainments before coming to the Holy of Holies.
The secret of the Garden of Eden is also in ʿAravot and it is referred to by the
Sages as “orchard.” And the term ʿAravot is ʿarevut (pleasantness),40 which is
the Garden of Eden, which is the pleasure of souls that have seen their [heav-
enly] world in their lifetimes.41 Its base42 is made of lights—how great is its
goodness43—and it is the lamp of the heavens, illuminating their hosts. And
remember, and do not forget,44 that the word ʿAravot may be applied (meshute-
fet)45 to all that is above the surrounding sphere (galgal ha-makif ) that is called
ʿAravot, which includes the sphere of the intellect (galgal ha-sekhel) |, which is V: 110v
the supernal sphere and is not corporeal. It does not move and it is unmov-
ing, remaining eternally in its holiness.46 And from the radiance (zohar) of
this sphere comes the radiance of the souls and the holy angels and includes
all up to the Throne of Glory, that is to say, the image of the Throne; under-
stand this well. And on this condition and on this basis, I say that the secret
of the Garden of Eden is in ʿAravot, which transcends time, and is thus eternal
(natzḥut).47 And there is none above other than that which is meta-eternal,
being the Blessed One.
The secret of the Garden of Eden within a person (adam): and behold the
heart of a person is called garden, and it is in the center. | And behold, the heart J: 12r
alluded to in “Garden” is in “Eden,” this being the intellect that is the true delight
(ʿidun). And in Sefer yetzirah (the Book of Creation) “the heart in the person
(ba-nefesh).”48 And it is clear that within it,49 meaning within the Garden, are
the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, [the latter] referring
to the human intellect and the material intellect50 that is good and evil. But the
Tree of Life that is the true contemplative human intellect is entirely good.
And the secret of the matter of the Garden of Eden in the [realm of] sense
perception is known from the verses from the pericope of Genesis: it is located
in a specific part of the earth.51 Its openings are in many places. And it was said
that the ancient philosophers wished to approach the earthly Garden of Eden

49 Referring to the phrase in Gen 2:9.

50 The term “material intellect,” i.e., the intellect intermixed with the body, occurs in Tib-
bonite translations of Averroes. It was also used by Abraham Abulafia and the fourteenth-
century Italian kabbalist Reuven Ṣarfatti. See Gross 2001a, 135; Becker 2013, 112. On Ṣarfatti,
see Gottlieb 1976b.
51 The word ‫[ באמצע‬ba-emtza] (the middle) is crossed out in the Vatican ms alone. This
(rejected) reading would seem to assert that the equator was the location of paradise.
Although Sacrobosco regarded the zone of the equator as uninhabitable, some of his
thirteenth- and fourteenth-century commentators thought otherwise and argued that in
fact the equator was the perfect zone (and not subject to the climatic fluctuation of the
other inhabitable zones) and the location of paradise. As noted above, the location of par-
adise was according to some traditions nowhere on earth, or above the earth just under
the sphere of the moon, etc. On the location of paradise in early kabbalistic literature, see
Bar-Asher 2019. More generally, see Scafi 2006.

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‫‪104‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫בקשו להתקרב לגן עדן‪ a‬הארציי והלכו מהלך ימים רבים עד שהגיעו לאורו ומפני להט החרב‬
‫המתהפכת ושומרי הגן נפל עליהם אימה ומפני זה נשכח מהם חכמתם‪ .‬ואל יכנס בדעתך‬
‫להיות נקל בעיניך ענין גן עדן שבארץ כי מי ומי הזוכי׳ להכנס בתוכו ועם כל זה יראה ורעד יש‬
‫בתוכו ומה נורא המקום הזה ואין זה כשאר מקומות‪ b‬שבעולם כי מקום מנוחת הנשמות מובדל‬
‫הוא במעלתו כי אמנם כל ציורים ועניני׳ שהם‪ c‬בגן עדן למעלה‪ d‬אשר הוא ציור‪ e‬הנפשות כלם‬
‫מ‪215 :‬ב‬ ‫הם בג״ע שלמטה‪ f.‬והנשמה בצאתה מהגוף‪ | g‬אם היא זכה מתענגת‪ h‬בגן עדן שלמטה תחלה‬
‫ותרגיל מעט מעט להכנס לאור העליון אשר עין לא ראתה‪ .‬הגע לעצמך מי שהיה מורגל לשכון‪i‬‬
‫בחשך אם‪ j‬נותני׳ לו האור לפי שעה תטרף‪ k‬דעתו ואבד הכל אבל נותני׳ מעט מעט ולא יבדל‬
‫י‪12 :‬ב‬
‫כל כך מהחשך‪ l‬ולאחר | שהיה מורגל יצא מאפלה לאורה ועל כן אינן נכנסין מיד לזוהר |‬
‫ו‪110 :‬ב‬
‫העליון‪.‬‬
‫ונחתום מאמרינו ונאמ׳ כי סוד זוהר שלמעלה‪ m‬הוא סוד צרור החיים והוא הטוב הגנוז‬
‫לצדיקי׳ עין לא ראתה והוא הגן עדן האמתי‪ .‬ואותו הגן הוא שהקב״ה חפץ בו תמיד ונשמתן‬
‫של צדיקי׳ צרורות שם ונהני׳ מזיוה וזיו גן עדן של מעלה אינו זולתי מאור זיו הנהר היוצא מעדן‬
‫פ‪189 :‬ב‬ ‫הנכנס לתוכו משפיע בו אור וזוהר מפניני׳ מסוד | וזוהר‪ n‬העולם הבא‪ o‬שהוא קדש‪ p‬הקדשי׳‬
‫של מעלה‪.‬‬

‫‪ a‬פ‪ :‬העדן‪ b .‬מ‪ :‬המקומו׳‪ c .‬י‪ ,‬פ‪ :‬אשר הם‪ d .‬מ‪ :‬חסרות המלים ׳בגן עדן׳‪ e .‬י‪ :‬צרור הנפשות‪ f .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫של מטה; פ‪ :‬׳אשר הוא ציור הנפשות כלם הם בג״ע של מטה׳ חסר‪ g .‬י‪ :‬מן הגוף‪ h .‬מ‪ :‬מתענג‪ i .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫‪ m‬מ‪ :‬של‬ ‫‪ l‬י‪ :‬מן החשך‪.‬‬ ‫‪ k‬מ‪ :‬תטרוף‪.‬‬ ‫‪ j‬מ‪ :‬׳אם כן׳‪ ,‬נראה כי המילה ׳כן׳ מחוקה‪.‬‬ ‫לשכן‪.‬‬
‫מעלה‪ n .‬פ‪ :‬זוהר‪ o .‬מ‪ :‬׳הבא׳ חסר‪ p .‬מ‪ :‬קדוש‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 105

and journeyed for many days until they arrived at its light.52 Because of the
fiery ever-turning sword and the guardians of the Garden, they were overcome
with terror, and as a result their wisdom was forgotten. And do not presume
to make light of the earthly Garden of Eden, for who, after all, has merited to
enter it? Nevertheless, awe and rumblings are within it. “How awesome is this
place!” (Gen 28:17); it is not like other places in the world. For the place where
souls rest has a distinct stature, for indeed all the images (tziyurim) and mat-
ters that are in the supernal Garden of Eden, which is the image of all souls,
are in the lower Garden of Eden. And when the soul leaves the body, | if it [the M: 215v
soul] is pure, it will at first delight in the lower Garden of Eden. It will gradually
become accustomed and enter into the supernal light that “no eye has seen”
(Isaiah 64:3). You may consider [the analogy] of a person accustomed to resid-
ing in the dark, who is then suddenly given light; he will become mad and lose
everything. Instead, it is given to him a little at a time so that it is not so distinct
from the darkness. After becoming accustomed to it, | he leaves the darkness J: 12v
for the light. For that reason, one does not enter immediately into the supernal
| radiance. V: 110v
And we shall conclude our essay53 and say that the secret of the supernal
radiance is the secret of the “bond of everlasting life” (iSamuel 25:29) that is
the “good hidden for the righteous,”54 “no eye has seen it,” and it is the true Gar-
den of Eden. And this Garden is what the Holy One Blessed Be He yearns for
always, and the souls of the righteous are bound there, enjoying its brilliance
and the brilliance of the supernal Garden of Eden, which is none other than
the light of the brilliance of “the river that flows from Eden” that enters into
it, flowing with light and radiance greater than pearls, from the secret of | the P: 189v
radiance of the World to Come, which is the supernal Holy of Holies.

52 The text here is based on a story depicting the arrival at the Garden of Eden that appears
in a variety of sources, including Moshe de Leon’s ‫[ הנפש החכמה‬The Wise Soul]. The dis-
cussion of the Garden of Eden begins on 11a (the pages are not numbered). In it, we read:
“And it should be said that the Garden of Eden exists on Earth, and it is constructed of
palaces [‫ ]היכלות‬shimmering with beauty and with all manner of precious stones as can
be found in this world, and incense and pleasant trees and fragrances. Inside the Garden
are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil. And it contains internal things as well as
figures [‫ ]ציורים‬beautiful, awesome, and hidden, and secrets the likes of the hidden super-
nal World to Come [‫ ]מעין עולם הבא‬this is the secret of the supernal Garden of Eden. And
they say that those that inhabit this land see it from afar and see the Tree of Life and the
Tree of Good and Evil and see the fiery ever-turning sword. And they say that the ancient
Greek sages, through their knowledge of the properties of the various inhabited regions,
knew this place and saw the four rivers flowing from there. And they considered together
whether they would be able to go there “to take from the Tree of Life that is in the Gar-
den and live forever” and then in turn feed others. And they began to walk by way of the
Euphrates higher and higher until they were about a half mile from the place. When they
got close, they were scorched by the fiery ever-turning sword; they were incinerated and
then their wisdom was lost.” (12b–13a)
For sources of this story see Idel 1982; Bar-Asher 2019, 391–397.
53 The phrasing here points to the original independence of this unit.
54 See bḤagigah 12a (on Gen 1:3–4) and Genesis Rabbah 12:6.

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‫‪106‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪111 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪215 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪189 :‬ב‪ ,‬י‪12 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :2‬הספירות ומסורת השמות שאין בהם פירוד‪a‬‬

‫‪figure 2. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 111r‬‬

‫ורבותינו ז״ל שאמ׳ ספירות ומיחדי׳‬ ‫‪C‬‬ ‫‪B‬‬ ‫‪A‬‬

‫להם שמות חלילה וחס שהם מכווני׳‬
‫לדבר נפרד ממנו ית׳ אלא אמרו אחר‬ ‫אדני‬ ‫יהוה‬ ‫אהיה‬ ‫‪1‬‬
‫כל דבר נעוץ סופן בתחלתן‪b.‬‬ ‫ספור‬ ‫ספר‬ ‫ספר‬ ‫‪2‬‬
‫ידוע‬ ‫יודע‬ ‫דעת‬ ‫‪3‬‬
‫מושכל‬ ‫משכיל‬ ‫שכל‬ ‫‪4‬‬
‫צבאות‬ ‫יהוה‬ ‫יה‬ ‫‪5‬‬
‫ו‬ ‫ה‬ ‫י‬ ‫‪6‬‬

‫עקר הכונה בזה שהוא אחד ושמו אחד וכן אהיה יה‪ c/‬יהוה אל‪ /‬אלהים‪ /‬יהוה‪ d/‬צבאות‪/‬‬
‫אלהים‪ e/‬צבאות‪ /‬אל אל חי‪ /‬אדני שהם הי׳ ספירות דוק ותשכח‪.‬‬

‫‪ b‬בכ״י‬ ‫‪ a‬הסרטוט והפסקה שאחריו חסרים מכתב יד י‪ .‬בכתב יד פ‪ :‬הפסקה כתובה מסביב לסרטוט‪.‬‬
‫י‪ :‬׳תם ונשלם תהלה לאל ושבח לבורא עולם׳‪ c .‬מ‪ :‬חסר ׳יה׳‪ d .‬מ‪ :‬׳יה יהוה׳‪ e .‬מ‪ :‬אלהי‪.‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 107

Unit 2: Sefirot and the Tradition of Indivisible Divine Names55 V: 111r, M: 215v, P: 189v, J: 12v

When our sages, may their memory be a blessing, spoke of sefirot and desig-
nated them with names, they did not intend, heaven forfend, to indicate some-
thing separate from Him, may He be blessed, but rather they ultimately said
“their end is in their beginning.” (Sefer yetzirah, Hayman 2004, 74 [§6])

A B C

1 ahyh yhvh adny

2 spr spr spur
3 Daʿat (knowledge) Yodeʿah (knowing) Yaduʿah (known)
4 Sekhel (intellect) Maskil (intellectualizing) Muskal (intellectualized)
5 yh yhvh Tzevaot
6 Y H V

The essential intention in this is that He is one and His name is one, (per Zech
14:9) as are ahyh yh/ yhvh El/ Elohim/ yhvh/ Tzevaot/ Elohim/ Tzevaot/ El
Ḥai/ Adonai, which are the ten sefirot. Consider it carefully and you shall find
[it to be so].

55 The content of this table, which presents a half-dozen examples of intradivine distinc-
tions that, like the sefirot, do not compromise divine unity, is based on the teaching of
Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi: “All these paths were included in three books, which are
three names, that is to say ‫[ אהיה הויה אדני‬ahyh hvyh Adonai]. They are all, that is to say
the paths of those patterns, included in ‫[ ספר ספר וספור‬sfr, sfr, and sfur], that is to say
in the three letters of the Blessed Name that are yud-hey-vav, and they correspond to intel-
lect (sekhel), intellectualizing (maskil), and intellectualized (muskal), and to knowledge
(daʿat), the knower ( yodeʿah), and the known ( yaduʿa).” Ashkenazi 1965, 17a. Ashkenazi,
in turn, was inspired by Maimonides, as in Pines 1963, 163–166.

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‫‪108‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪111 :‬ב‪ ,‬מ‪215 :‬ב‪ ,‬נ‪25 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪189 :‬ב‪ ,‬י‪13 :‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :3‬תרשים בעל מאפיינים בוטניים עם הספירות‪ ,‬כינויי ימים וצבעים‬

‫‪figure 3. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 111v‬‬

‫‪ [1‬אין סוף‬ ‫‪A‬‬

‫‪ [2‬לבן ונק׳‪ a‬ג״כ ָא ִין‪b‬‬ ‫‪ [1‬כתר‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫‪ [2‬ירוק‬ ‫‪ [1‬חכמה‬ ‫‪C‬‬
‫‪ [2‬כרכומי‪c‬‬ ‫‪ [1‬בינה‬ ‫‪D‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום שלישי‪d‬‬ ‫‪ [2‬ירוק‬ ‫‪ [1‬גדולה‬ ‫‪E‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום רביעי‪f‬‬ ‫‪ [2‬כרכומי׳‬ ‫‪ [1‬גבורה‪e‬‬ ‫‪F‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום ראשון‪g‬‬ ‫‪ [1‬ת ״ת‬ ‫‪G‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום חמשי‪h‬‬ ‫‪ [2‬כרכומי‬ ‫‪ [1‬נצח‬ ‫‪H‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום ששי‪i‬‬ ‫‪ [2‬ירוק‬ ‫‪ [1‬הוד‬ ‫‪I‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום שני‪k‬‬ ‫‪ [1‬עטרת‪j‬‬ ‫‪J‬‬
‫‪ [3‬יום שביעי‪l‬‬ ‫‪ [1‬יסוד‬ ‫‪K‬‬

‫בזאת הצורה נתפרסמו שני עניני׳ האחת שהכחות‪ m‬הכלליות‪ n‬אשר בכל המציאות הם‬
‫העשר‪ o‬ספירו׳‪ p‬בלי מה שבה׳‪ q‬ית׳ ולהיות כי מספר העשרה הוא הנכבד כי הוא ראש וסוף‬
‫ר״ל כי הוא ראש לעשרות וסוף לאחדים‪ r‬לזה‪ s‬יחסו‪ t‬לה׳ ית׳ כוחותיו‪ u‬האדוקות עמו כי הוא‬
‫ו‪112 :‬א‬
‫ראשון והוא אחרון בלי‪ v‬אחרית וכן ראשיתו בלי | ראשית‪ | w‬וגם זאת ההפרטה אינו מצד‬
‫מ‪216 :‬א‬

‫‪ c‬פ‪ :‬׳כרכומי׳ בין ספירת הבינה והתפארת‪ ,‬ונראה כי הוא מיוחס‬ ‫‪ b‬פ‪ :‬׳כתר׳ בלבד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬ונקרא‪.‬‬
‫לתפארת‪ d .‬מ‪ :‬יום ג׳‪ e .‬מ‪ :‬גבור׳‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬יום ד׳‪ g .‬מ‪ :‬יום א׳‪ h .‬מ‪ :‬יום ה׳‪ i .‬מ‪ :‬יום ו׳‪ j .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫עטר‪ k .‬מ‪ :‬יום ב׳‪ l .‬מ‪ :‬יום ז׳‪ m .‬מ‪ :‬שהכחו‪ n .‬מ‪ :‬הכלליו׳‪ o .‬מ‪ :‬הי׳‪ p .‬מ‪ :‬ספי׳‪ q .‬י‪ ,‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪:‬‬
‫שבשמו ית׳‪ .‬מ‪ :‬שבהם ית׳‪ r .‬מ‪ :‬לאחדי׳‪ s .‬מ‪ :‬׳לא׳ במקום ׳לזה׳‪ t .‬נ‪ :‬יחדו‪ u .‬מ‪ :‬כחותי׳‪ v .‬מ‪ :‬כל‬
‫אחרית‪ w .‬מ‪ :‬ראשי׳‪.‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 109

Unit 3: Arboreal Diagram with Botanical Features, Sefirot, Days, and Colors56 V: 111v, M: 215v, N:25v, P: 189v, J: 13r

A 1] Ein Sof (infinite)57

B 1] Keter (crown) 2] white, also called nothingness (ayin)58
C 1] Ḥokhmah (wisdom) 2] green
D 1] Binah (understanding) 2] saffron (karkumi)59
E 1] Gedulah (grandeur) 2] green 3] third day
F 1] Gevurah (strength) 2] saffron (karkumi) 3] fourth day
G 1] Tiferet (beauty) 3] first day
H 1] Netzaḥ (eternity) 2] saffron (karkumi) 3] fifth day
I 1] Hod (majesty) 2] green 3] sixth day
J 1] ʿAteret (diadem) 3] second day
K 1] Yesod (foundation) 3] seventh day

In this form, two matters were made apparent (nitparsemu). The first is that
the general forces of all existence are the “ten immaterial (belimah) sefirot”60
that are within the Lord, may He be blessed. As the number ten is noble,
being the beginning and the end, i.e., the first of the tens and last of the ones,
they thus attributed to the Lord may He be blessed His forces that adhere to
him. For He is the first and the He is last without end and his beginning is
V:112r
without | beginning. | And this individuation (hafratah) is not from the per-
M:216r
spective of His essence, may He be blessed, but rather only from the perspec-
tive of the receivers.61 Therefore, they referred to Him, may He be blessed,

56 The third form is distinguished by its phytomorphism, being a rare kabbalistic tree to
which leaves have been added to the branches that connect the central trunk to the
sefirotic medallions on its right and left. The emanatory sequence is expressed in the dia-
gram and reiterated in the text in terms of the seven days of the week. Such a correlation is
found in additional Italian ilanot, including the Magnificent Parchment. Associated colors
are inscribed outside the sefirotic medallions, though not in ms N. The primary concerns
of the explication of this form are the unitary nature of the denary godhead and sequence
of the sefirotic emanation. It is with regard to the latter that the represented order is
explained. As opposed to the now familiar (zoharic) sequential array of the seven lower
sefirot that runs from Ḥesed (here Gedulah) to Malkhut (here ʿAtarah), we find Tiferet as
the first and Yesod as the last of the primordial “days.” The text presents this latter order
as the first emanated, and still exhibiting the “two-faced” (du-partzufin) central sefirah
of Tiferet/ʿAtarah. Only subsequently is it explained that ʿAtarah was split off and relo-
cated to its more “familiar” position as the lowest sefirah. The emanatory sequence, and
therefore structure, was a contested issue in classical Kabbalah. The Booklet of Kabbalistic
Forms presents a position popular in its time and place of composition, stemming from
traditions associated with Nachmanides and Maʿarekhet ha-elohut rather than the Zohar.
On this issue, including the associations with the “days,” see Pedaya 2003, 213–232.
57 Drawn as a circle whose lower half is black and upper half is white. In ms P, Ein Sof is
described as funneling black into the rest of the sefirot.
58 P: only “Keter.” The color designations of both Ḥokhmah and Binah were also omitted.
59 The Hebrew may also be translated as the color crocus.
60 See Hayman 2004, 66–67 (§3). The term bli-mah occurs in Job 26:7, where it is often trans-
lated as “nothing”—over which God suspends the earth. It is repeatedly used in Sefer
yetzirah to describe the sefirot. The author of this unit provides his own understanding
of the term just below.
61 This phrase, “only from the perspective of the receivers,” is typical of Maʿarekhet ha-elohut,
a major source for our author, and comes to attenuate the theological-philosophical prob-
lem caused by the theosophical-theurgical presumption that the sefirot—understood as
God’s essence—are affected by human action.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪110‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫עצמותו ית׳ אלא מצד המקבלי׳‪ a‬ועל כן‪ b‬כנו לו ית׳ ספירו׳ כפי הפעולות‪ c‬וכן מדות ואתה‬
‫ידעת שאמ׳‪ d‬בעל ס״י‪ e‬ספר יצירה‪ f‬עשר שאין להם סוף‪ g‬וגם אמ׳‪ h‬נעוץ סופן בתחלתן‪ .‬וגם‬
‫אמ׳ ספירות‪ i‬בלי מה בלי מהות כלומ׳‪ j‬בלי מוגשמות‪ .‬דע כי כנו הכחות‪ k‬האדוקות‪ l‬בו ית׳‬
‫בלשון‪ m‬הויות‪ n‬לסוד גדול מאוד מלשון הוה וקיים‪ o‬לא מלשון הויה ותנועה‪ p‬ב״מ‪ q‬וגם לא‪r‬‬
‫ייוחס לו ית׳ לא עבר ולא עתיד כי אלו השנים‪ s‬על תנועות‪ t‬ועל כן‪ u‬ההויות‪ v‬אצל אמונתנו‬
‫י‪13 :‬ב‬ ‫לא | יתכן לומר שנבראו שהן הי׳ הויות‪ w‬שמהן התחייבו‪ x‬העשר ספירות שהאחד מהן שליח‬
‫צבור מנהיג והוא העשירי ולסוד‪ y‬שהוא ית׳ ראשית ההויות והוא בעצמו אמצע ההויות‪ z‬והוא‬
‫בעצמו סוף ההויות כלומ׳‪ aa‬היה והוה‪ bb‬ויהיה שסודו‪ cc‬גלגל הנרמז בשם הללוהו שסודו הללו‬
‫הוא ובשם הללויה שסודו הללו יה‪ dd‬והנה סודם גלגל הוה גלגל היה ומלת יהיה כוללת שניהם‪.‬‬
‫שנית בא לפרסם הסוד משיעור‪ ee‬קומה סדר זמני״ם שהיו‪ ff‬קודם לכן ר״ל סדר אצילותם‪gg‬‬
‫מן בינ״ה‪ hh‬ולמטה והוא כך גדול״ה גבור״ה‪ ii‬תפאר״ת‪ jj‬עטר״ת נצ״ח הו״ד יסו״ד‪ kk‬והוא היה‬
‫אחרון‪ ll‬בסדר המערכה‪ .‬וזהו שאז״ל‪ mm‬שארז״ל שהעולם‪ nn‬תחת עמוד אחד‪ oo‬ושמו צדיק‬
‫שנ׳‪ pp‬וצדיק יסוד עולם ונק׳‪ qq‬יסוד כל דבר אחרון‪ rr‬ובהיות העטרת כלולה בתפארת מפני‬
‫שתאומי׳ נאצלו ר״ל ששניהם‪ ss‬היו בסוד הלובן היה יסוד אחרון‪ tt‬באצילות שנ׳‪ uu‬וצדיק יסוד‬
‫עולם ר״ל וצדיק שהוא רמוז‪ vv‬רמז ליסוד הוא יסוד לעטרת הנק׳‪ ww‬עולם ומספר הימים‪ xx‬היו‬
‫בזה הסדר תפאר״ת יום ראשון עטר״ת יום שני גדול״ה יום שלישי גבור״ה יום רביעי נצ״ח‪yy‬‬
‫ו‪112 :‬ב‬ ‫יום חמישי‪ zz‬הו״ד יום ששי יסו״ד‪ aaa‬יום שביעי | ואחרי שעטר״ת נתנה לראש פנה כלומ׳‪bbb‬‬
‫להנהגת התחתוני׳ היה‪ ccc‬ששי למספר הימי׳ ולכל המספרי׳ יסוד והוא‪ ddd‬שביעי‪.‬‬
‫ועתה תוכל להבין בקלות כונת המאמר‪ eee‬שארז״ל שעץ החיים מהלך ששים‪ fff‬שנה ועוד‬
‫אמ׳‪ ggg‬שנופו מהלך ת״ק שנה‪ hhh‬האילן הוא יסוד‪ iii‬ומהלך ששי׳ שנה הרצון בו שלמעלה‬

‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬המקבלים‪ b .‬מ‪ :‬וע״כ‪ c .‬מ‪ :‬הפעל׳‪ d .‬מ‪ :‬שאמר‪ e .‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬ס״י‪ g .‬י‪:‬‬
‫‪ m‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ l‬מ‪ :‬האדוקו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ k‬מ‪ :‬הכחו׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ j‬מ‪ :‬כלומר‪.‬‬ ‫‪ i‬מ‪ :‬אמר ספירו׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ h‬מ‪ :‬וגם אני‪.‬‬ ‫סוד‪.‬‬
‫בלשו׳‪ n .‬מ‪ :‬הויו׳‪ o .‬מ‪ :‬וקים‪ p .‬מ‪ :‬ותנוע‪ q .‬בכ״י ו לא ברור‪ ,‬ההשלמה על פי שאר כתבי היד‪.‬‬
‫נ‪ :‬׳בדמיון׳‪ r .‬מ‪ :‬לו‪ s .‬י‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬נוסף ׳יורו׳‪ t .‬מ‪ :‬תנועו׳‪ u .‬מ‪ :‬וע״כ‪ v .‬מ‪ :‬ההויו׳‪ w .‬מ‪ :‬ההויות‪ .‬י‪:‬‬
‫לא יתכן לומר שנברא שהם המדות שמהן יתחייב עשר ספירות׳‪ x .‬נראה שצ״ל ׳התחייבו׳‪ .‬וכך בשאר‬
‫כתבי היד‪ y .‬מ‪ :‬ובסוד‪ z .‬נ‪ :‬׳והוא בעצמו אמצע ההויות׳ חסר‪ aa .‬מ‪ :‬כלומר‪ bb .‬מ‪ :‬והיה‪ cc .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫שסוד; י‪ :‬שסובב‪ dd .‬מ‪ :‬הללויה‪ .‬נ‪ :‬׳שסודו הללו יה׳ חסר‪ ee .‬מ‪ :‬הסוד משעור‪ ,‬פ‪ :‬בסוד השיעור‪ ,‬נ‪:‬‬
‫מסוד השיעור‪ ff .‬מ‪ :‬זמנים שהוא‪ gg .‬מ‪ :‬אצילות‪ hh .‬מ‪ :‬הבינ״ה‪ ii .‬מ‪ :‬גבורה‪ jj .‬מ‪ :‬ת״ת‪ kk .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫יסוד‪ ll .‬מ‪] :‬׳אחרות׳[‪ ,‬פ‪ :‬נוסף ׳מחמת׳‪ .‬נ‪ :‬אחרון סדר המערכה‪ mm .‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ nn .‬פ‪:‬‬
‫‪ tt‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ ss‬מ‪ :‬ששניה׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ rr‬מ‪ :‬אחרות‪.‬‬ ‫‪ qq‬מ‪ :‬ונקרא‪.‬‬ ‫‪ pp‬מ‪ :‬שנא׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ oo‬מ‪ :‬אחת‪.‬‬ ‫נוסף ׳עומד׳‪.‬‬
‫‪ yy‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ xx‬מ‪ :‬הימי׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ ww‬מ‪ :‬הנקרא‪.‬‬ ‫‪ vv‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ uu‬מ‪ :‬שנא׳‪.‬‬ ‫אחרות‪ .‬י‪ :‬האחרון‪.‬‬
‫‪ ddd‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ ccc‬מ‪ :‬היו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ bbb‬מ‪ :‬כלומר‪ ,‬י‪ :‬׳ר״ל׳ במקום ׳כלומר׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ aaa‬מ‪ :‬יסוד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ zz‬מ‪ :‬חמשי‪.‬‬ ‫נ צח ‪.‬‬
‫הוא‪ eee .‬מ‪ :‬המאר‪ fff .‬מ‪ :‬ששי׳‪ ggg .‬מ‪ :‬אמרו‪ hhh .‬מ‪ :‬שני׳‪ ,‬פ‪ :‬׳ועוד אמרו שנופו מהלך ת״ק שנה׳‬
‫חסר‪ iii .‬בכתב יד ניו‪-‬יורק הפיסקה מסתיימת כאן‪.‬‬

‫‪62‬‬ ‫‪On the kabbalistic transformation of philosophically understood divine attributes into‬‬
‫‪archetypal hypostases (i.e., sefirot) see Sendor 1994, 297.‬‬
‫‪63‬‬ ‫‪See Hayman 2004, 69, 74 (§4, §6).‬‬
‫‪64‬‬ ‫‪See See Hayman 2004, 66–67 (§3) and n. 209 above.‬‬
‫‪65‬‬ ‫‪On Malkhut as “the emissary of the community,” see e.g., Becker 2013, 138: “ʿAtara is‬‬
‫‪included in everything and acts in everything and oversees as an emissary all that is below.‬‬
‫’‪And therefore, she is called ‘the minister of the world,’ and is therefore called ‘emissary,‬‬
‫‪because she brought into existence (himtziah) all the lower creations by means of the‬‬
‫‪force of the supernal world upon the lower action.” See there also at 179.‬‬
‫‪66‬‬ ‫‪The author here invokes the ancient Heichalot work known as Shiʿur komah, a text that‬‬
‫‪records the galactic proportions of the divine body. For a recent treatment and bibliogra-‬‬
‫‪phy, see Sweeney 2013. The sefirotic array was likened to the Shiʿur komah by R. Shem Tov‬‬
‫‪ibn Gaon (1283–ca. 1330). See Scholem 1933, 534.‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 111

[with] sefirot which correspond to [His] actions and also [His] attributes.62
And you know that the author of Sefer yetzirah said “ten that have no limit”
and “their end is fixed in their beginning.”63 And he also said: “sefirot bli mah
(lit., without what),”64 without essence, that is to say, without corporeality
(mugshamut). Know that they have referred to these forces that adhere to Him,
may He be blessed, by the term havayot, which—a great secret—derives from
“present” (hoveh) and established (kayam) and not from “being” (havaya) and
motion (tenuʿah), heaven forfend. And they did not ascribe to Him, may He be
blessed, a past nor a future, because they both imply motion. Therefore, as per
our belief, havayot cannot be said to have been created, since they are the ten
havayot that necessitated the ten sefirot. One of them is the emissary of the
community (shaliyaḥ tzibbur),65 the leader, and he is the tenth. And this per-
tains to the secret that He, may He be blessed, is the beginning of the havayot,
and He Himself is the middle of the havayot and He Himself is the end of the
havayot, that is to say “was, is, and will be” (hyh ve-hvh ve-yhyh). Its secret is
the circle (galgal) alluded to in the name “Halleluhu” (Ps 150), whose secret is
“hallelu hv” and in the name Halleluyah whose secret is hallelu yh. And here is
their secret: circle hvh, circle hyh, and the word yhyh includes them both.
Second, [the form] comes to make apparent (lefarsem) the secret of the
Measurement of the Height [of the Divine] (shiʿur komah),66 the order of the
times (seder zmanim) that was before, that is to say, the order of their ema-
nation, from Binah down. It is thus: Gedulah, Gevurah, Tiferet, ʿAteret, Netzaḥ,
Hod, Yesod,67 and this was the last in the order of the constellation.68 This is
[in accordance with what] our Sages said, may their memory be a blessing:
the world is below a single pillar called tzaddik (righteous), as it is written:
“the righteous one is an everlasting foundation” (tzaddik yesod ʿolam) (Prov.
10:25).69 And every final thing is called Yesod. And as ʿAteret is included in
Tiferet, because they emanated as twins, i.e., they were both in the secret of
the white matter (loven),70 Yesod was last in the emanation; as it is written:
“the righteous one is an everlasting foundation.” In other words, “the righ-
teous,” which alludes to Yesod, is the foundation ( yesod) for ʿAteret, which is
called ‘world.’ And the number of days were in this order: Tiferet—first day,
ʿAteret—second day, Gedulah—third day, Gevurah—fourth day, Netzaḥ—fifth
day, Hod—sixth day, Yesod—seventh day. And after ʿAteret was given as the cor-
nerstone (rosh pinah),71 that is to say, [given] for the governance of the lower
realms, Yesod became the sixth in the order of the days and for all the numbers,
and [ʿAteret] the seventh.
And now you will be able to understand easily the intention of the statement
made by our Sages, may their memory be a blessing, that the [span of the] Tree
of Life was a sixty-year journey.72 And they further said that its bough is a five-
hundred year journey.73 The tree (ilan) is Yesod and the sixty-year journey is

67 The order of the sefirot follows that of the diagram at the beginning of this unit.
68 The discussion here is indebted to Ṣarfatti’s Perush zulati commentary. See Becker 2013,
109.
69 According to bḤagigah 12b, the world stands “on one pillar, called tzaddik.”
70 The term loven in rabbinic literature often refers to semen. It also recalls Galen’s phleg-
matic humor, a substance associated with the brain and thought to be the source of semen.
71 On ʿAtarah as cornerstone, see Sefer ha-pliah 1883, 53d.
72 Cf. Becker 2013, 109, “and this is the ilan about which it is said in the midrash [referring to
the Bahir] that its trunk is a sixty years’ journey ….”
73 See, e.g., Gen. Rabbah 15:6.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪112‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫הימנו‪ a‬שש ספירות‪ b‬כל‪ c‬ספירה‪ d‬נק׳‪ e‬שנה כי כל אחת‪ f‬כלולה מכלם ונופו שהוא מהלך‬
‫ת״ק‪ g‬שנה הכונה בו אחר‪ h‬שנתנה העטרת‪ i‬לראש פנה היו למעלה ממנה חמש‪ j‬ספירו׳ והן‬
‫חכמ׳‪ k‬בינה‪ l‬תפארת‪ m‬נצח‪ n‬הוד‪ o‬ולא שש‪ p‬כי עטרת‪ q‬הושמ׳ לראש פנה וכל אחת מהן‬
‫פ‪190 :‬א‬ ‫כלולה ממאה והבן כי אז היה‪ r‬שם מלא ועולם מלא‪ s.‬ושים לבך להבין | ולהשכיל ולשמוע‬
‫כי שרש הידיעה‪ t‬ועקר האמונה‪ u‬שש‪ v‬ספירות‪ w‬הן נאצלות ובכן יודע‪ x‬ליחידים‪ y‬שהעולם‬
‫מחודש ושאינו מקרה או קדמון‪ z‬כדעת קצת הפילוסופים‪ aa‬שאמרו‪ bb‬ששרש כל דבר נמצא‬
‫מ‪216 :‬ב‬ ‫| כמו ענין השאור בעסה לא באלה חלק יעקב ודעת חכמי הקבלה אבל דעתם שהוא ית׳‬
‫ברא היסודות וההתחלו׳‪ cc‬והאציל הפועלי׳‪ dd‬שהם כחותיו האדוקות‪ ee‬בו ושהעולם נפעל‬
‫באמצעות‪ ff‬הפועלי׳‪ gg‬הנזכרי׳‪ hh‬והכחות‪ ii‬העליונות‪ jj‬חדשם והיה העולם מתרחב‪ kk‬והולך‬
‫עד שאמ׳‪ ll‬די ולכן אל שדי‪ .‬והנה נא‪ mm‬ידעת שהפלוסופי׳ מכחישים‪ nn‬באצילות‪ oo‬הספירות‬
‫ועל כן יתחייב ] [‪ pp‬מדבריהם הקדמות ובהאמנת אצילותם יתחייב החדוש אשר הוא הדעת‬
‫האמתי‪.‬‬

‫‪ d‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ c‬מ‪ :‬׳כלל׳; י‪ :‬׳ר״ל כל׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬מ‪ :‬ו׳ ספירו׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬של מעלה ממנו; פ‪ :‬׳ממנו׳ במקום ׳הימנו׳‪.‬‬
‫‪ h‬ו‪ :‬נוסף מעל השורה‪ .‬מ‪ :‬כחלק מהטקסט‪ ,‬׳בו׳‬ ‫‪ g‬מ‪ :‬תק‪.‬‬ ‫‪ f‬מ‪ :‬׳אחד׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ e‬מ‪ :‬נקרא‪.‬‬ ‫ספיר׳‪.‬‬
‫‪ o‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ n‬מ‪ :‬נצ״ח‪.‬‬ ‫‪ m‬מ‪ :‬ת״ת‪.‬‬ ‫‪ l‬מ‪ :‬בינ״ה‪.‬‬ ‫‪ k‬מ‪ :‬חכמ״ה‪.‬‬ ‫‪ j‬מ‪ :‬ה׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ i‬מ‪ :‬העטרה‪.‬‬ ‫ח ס ר‪.‬‬
‫‪ p‬י‪ :‬׳והן חכמ׳ בינה תפארת נצח הוד ולא שש׳‬ ‫הו״ד‪ .‬פ‪ :‬ראשי התיבות של הספירות במקום שמם‪.‬‬
‫חסר‪ q .‬י‪ :‬העטרה‪ r .‬מ‪ :‬יהיה‪ s .‬פ‪ :‬׳והבן כי אז יהיה שם מלא ועולם מלא׳ חסר‪ t .‬מ‪ :‬הידיע׳‪ u .‬י‪:‬‬
‫שרש האמונה ועקר הידיעה‪ v .‬מ‪ :‬ו׳‪ w .‬פ‪ :‬׳שהספירות׳ במקום ׳שש ספירות׳‪ x .‬פ‪ :‬ישנה מילה‬
‫‪ cc‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ bb‬מ‪ :‬שאמ׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ aa‬מ‪ :‬הפלוסופי׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ z‬מ‪ :‬קדמות‪.‬‬ ‫‪ y‬מ‪ :‬ליחידי׳‪.‬‬ ‫נוספת‪ ,‬לא ברורה‪.‬‬
‫וההתחלות‪ dd .‬מ‪ :‬הפועלים‪ ee .‬מ‪ :‬האדוקו׳‪ ff .‬מ‪ :‬באמצעו׳‪ gg .‬מ‪ :‬הפועלים‪ hh .‬מ‪ :‬הנקר; י‪:‬‬
‫הנזכרים‪ ii .‬מ‪ :‬והכחו׳‪ jj .‬מ‪ :‬העליונו׳‪ kk .‬מ‪ :‬מתחרב‪ ll .‬מ‪ :‬שאמר‪ mm .‬מ‪ :‬המילה ׳נא׳ נוספה‬
‫מעל השורה‪ nn .‬מ‪ :‬מכחישין‪ oo .‬מ‪ :‬באצילו׳‪ pp .‬מילה מחוקה‪ ,‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 113

the will (ratzon) in it, for above it are six sefirot. Every sefirah is called a year
and each includes them all. And the intention of “its bough that covers a five-
hundred-year journey” is that after ʿAteret was given as a cornerstone. There
were five sefirot above her—and they are Ḥokhmah, Binah, Tiferet, Netzaḥ,
Hod—and not six, because ʿAteret was placed as the cornerstone; every one
of them is made up of one hundred. And understand, for then the Name was
complete and the world complete.
Apply your mind to understand, | to cognize, and to comprehend, for the P:190r
root of knowledge and the foundation of faith is that six sefirot emanate. Thus,
is it known to singular individuals that the world was created, that it is neither
an accident nor eternal, as was the opinion of a few philosophers who argued
that the root of everything always existed | like fermentation in the dough (bt M:216v
Berakhot 17a). However, “Jacob’s portion is not in these,” (Jer 10:16) nor is it
the position of the sages of Kabbalah. Rather, their opinion is that He, may
He be blessed, created the elements and first things, and emanated the acts
(ha-poʿalim), which are His forces that adhere to Him.74 And the world is oper-
ated by these acts. These supernal forces were created, and the world continued
expanding until He said, “Enough!” (dai); therefore, [the name] El-Shaddai.75
And verily, you know that the philosophers deny the emanation of the sefirot,
a position inextricably linked to that of the world being eternal. Belief in their
emanation, however, is inextricably linked to the notion that the world was cre-
ated, which is the true opinion.

74 Here again the terminology is indebted to Maʾarekhet ha-elohut, which uses the term “acts”
(poʿalim) to refer to the sefirot. See Pedaya 2003, 223. More generally, this terminology
could be considered a clever kabbalistic appropriation of Maimonidean-Tibbonite ter-
minology, in which the term refers to God’s acts in the world, through which knowledge
regarding Him may be inferred.
75 This ancient play on words breaks the name ‫( שדי‬generally rendered as “Almighty”) into
two: ‫( ש‬who) [said] ‫( די‬enough). See bḤagigah 12a.

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‫‪114‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪113 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪216 :‬ב‪ ,‬נ‪26 :‬א‪ ,‬פ‪190 :‬א‪ ,‬י‪14 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :4‬לך ה׳ הגדולה והגבורה‬

‫‪figure 4. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 113r‬‬

‫ז‬

‫]‪ [B‬הכתר‪b‬‬ ‫]‪ [A‬אין סוף‪a‬‬

‫]‪ [11‬והמתנשא לכל לראש –‬ ‫]‪ [1‬לך‬
‫]‪ [10‬הממלכה –‬ ‫]‪ [2.1‬יה‬
‫בגי׳ חכמה בינה‬
‫]‪ [C‬יהוה‬ ‫]‪ [2.2‬וה‬
‫]‪ [4‬והגבורה‬ ‫]‪ [3‬הגדולה‬
‫]‪ [5‬והתפארת‬
‫]‪ [7‬וההוד‬ ‫]‪ [6‬והנצח‬
‫]‪ [8‬כי כל בשמים‬
‫]‪ [9‬ובארץ‬
‫]‪ [D‬מלכות‪c‬‬

‫ובזאת הצורה יתבונן ב׳ עניינים האחת‪ d‬שאע״פ ששמות הספירות הנז׳ למעלה אשר הם‬
‫האלהות‪ e‬נפרדי׳‪ f‬זה מזה הם מתאחדים וקשורים בו ית׳ כמו ענין השלהבת בגחלת והמאמין‬
‫הפך זה קוצץ בנטיעות‪ .‬אך יש להאמין כי זה נאצל‪ g‬מזה וזה מזה‪ .‬ואצילות הנאצלי׳ אינו כי‬

‫‪ d‬י‪:‬‬ ‫‪ a‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ b .‬שמות הספירות‪ :‬כתר חכמה ובינה—לא מופיע בכ״י מ‪ c .‬מ‪ :‬ללא ׳מלכות׳‪.‬‬
‫‪ f‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫נוסף ׳ היסוד היחוד׳‪ .‬פ‪ :‬׳היא סוד הייחוד׳‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳האחד הוא סוד היחוד׳‪ e .‬מ‪ :‬׳אשר בהם אלהו׳׳‪.‬‬
‫׳נפרד׳‪ g .‬י‪ ,‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳מתאצל׳‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 115

Unit 4: “Yours yhvh is the grandeur (gedulah) and the strength (gevurah)” V:113r, M: 216v, N:26r, P: 190r, J:14v

[A] Ein Sof [B] Ha-Keter

[1] Yours76 [11] And you are exalted as head over all
[2.1]yh [10] the kingdom
in gematria, Ḥokhmah Binah77
[2.2]vh [C] yhvh
[3] and the grandeur (ha-Gedulah) [4] and the strength (ve-ha-Gevurah)
[5] the beauty (ve-ha-Tiferet)
[6] the eternity (ve-ha-Netzaḥ) [7] and the splendor (ve-ha-Hod)
[8] for all that is in the heavens
[9] and on the earth
[D] kingdom (Malkhut)

In this form, two matters are to be contemplated. The first is that even though
the names of the sefirot mentioned above—which are the Divine78—are dis-
tinct from each other, they unite and are bound to Him, may He be blessed,
as the flame is bound to a burning coal.79 He who believes the opposite “cuts
down the shoots” (kotzetz ba-netiot).80 However, one must believe this [sefirah]
emanated from that, and this from that. And the emanation of the emanated

76 i Chronicles 29:11: “Yours, yhvh, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the
victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is yours; yours is the
kingdom, yhvh, and you are exalted as head above all.” Cf. Becker 2013, 256.
77 The term for “the Kingdom” (ha-mamlakha) has the numerical value of 140, which is also
the sum of the numerical values of Ḥokhmah and Binah.
78 The Munich manuscripts reads “the sefirot, within which is divinity” (asher ba-hem elo-
hut). This would seem to be an intentional emendation of the text “the sefirot, which
are the Divine,” as found in the other witnesses. The anonymous author of Maʿarekhet
ha-elohut writes of the sefirot, “for they are the Divine” (ki hen ha-elohut); see Becker
2013, 29. On the question of the nature of the sefirot in this literature—divine essence
vs. instruments—see Gottlieb 1976b, 293–315.
79 The phrase is from Sefer yetzirah; see Hayman 2004, 74 (§6). On the centrality of this image
in Maʿarekhet ha-eluhut, see Idel 1982, 173.
80 “Cutting the shoots” became shorthand for heresy in the wake of its usage in bḤagigah
14b. There, as part of the story of “the four who entered the orchard”—a metaphor for the
divine realm—Elisha ben Abuya’s heretical misunderstanding of his vision is captured by
the phrase. Cf. jḤagigah, chapter 2:1, 77b–c.

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‫‪116‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫י‪15 :‬א‬ ‫אם להעד באחדות באי״ן סו״ף והמתקבל | מתאחד במקבל והמקבל במתקבל ומתאחד בכח‬
‫ו‪113 :‬ב‬ ‫אחד ועל כן יוכר ששניהם כח אח״ד והוא באחד יחיד | המיוחד‪.‬‬
‫ולבאור כל זה רמזם‪ a‬דוד הע״ה בפסוק אשר כתבתי בזאת הצורה‪ ,‬כיצד‪ ,‬ל״ך רמז לכת״ר‬
‫כד״א כתר יתנו לך יהו״ה י״ה רמז לחכמ״ה ו״ה רמז לבינה א״ב וא״ם או אמור י׳ לחכמה‬
‫ה׳ לבינה ו׳ לת״ת הכולל כל הו׳ קצוות ה׳ אחרונה לעטרת הנה שבשם ה׳ ית׳ היינו‪ b‬יהו״ה‬
‫כלולי׳ כל הי׳ ספירות‪ .‬וזה די להבין סוד היחוד‪ .‬עם כל זה הוסיף וביאר ואמר‪ :‬הגדול״ה‬
‫והגבור״ה והת״ת והנצ״ח וההו״ד כי כ״ל בשמי״ם ובאר״ץ‪ .‬והנה שספר כל העשר ספירות‪.‬‬
‫ועוד הוסיף ליחדו ממטה למעלה כמו שיחדו מלמעלה למטה ואמ׳ בזה הפסוק ל״ך ה׳‬
‫הממלכ״ה והמתנש״א לכל לראש‪ .‬ל״ך התחיל בעטרת להודיעך שאף הוא הכת״ר אם תהפוך‬
‫הספירות אז המלכות ראשונה וסימן היושבי׳ ראשונה במלכות‪ .‬כלומ׳ שאין להם לא ראש ולא‬
‫מ‪217 :‬א‬ ‫סוף‪ c‬תחלת המחשב״ה הוא סוף המעש״ה הממלכ״ה כלומ׳ לך היא הממלכה בלי | פרוד רמז‬
‫לחכמ״ה ולבינ״ה‪ .‬הממלכ״ה בגי׳ חכמ״ה בינ״ה הא״ב והא״ם שעל שמם נקראת הב״ת ג״כ‬
‫מלכ״ה‪ .‬והמתנשא לכל לראש רמז לכת״ר ועתה הכל‪ d‬ביאר לנו שכשם שירד ונעץ הראש‬
‫בסוף כך עלה מן הסוף וחברו מהרה בראש בלי פירוד וכל אחד מהי׳ הויות כלולה מכלם‬
‫והיא כח כלם וכלם כח אחד והמספר עשר לעד ר״ל שהוא ראש וסוף כמו שביארם למעלה‬
‫י‪15 :‬ב‬
‫וגם כי זאת ההפרטה אינו מצד עצמם כי | אם | מצד המקבלים כי אם‪ e‬לפי התעוררות האדם‬
‫פ‪190 :‬ב‬
‫בתחתונים יעורר גם הוא בעליונים ויהפוך מדת הדין לרחמים ומדת הרחמי׳ למדת הדין‪ .‬והכלל‬
‫הם מדות בהם יתנהגו עליונים ותחתונים‪.‬‬
‫נ‪26 :‬ב‬ ‫שנית באה‪ f‬לפרסם כי כשעלה בדעתו להמציא כל פעליו נראה בכבודו ואורו אשר כבר‬
‫היה אין חדוש במאציל ולא בנאצל ונגלה כבודו וזיוו וחביון עזו ומכבודו עשה עשר ספירות‬

‫‪ f‬מ‪:‬׳ בא׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ e‬י‪ :‬ח ס ר ‪.‬‬ ‫‪ d‬נ‪ :‬׳הכתוב׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ c‬מ‪ :‬נוסף ׳כי׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬י‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳ה׳ ית׳ היינו׳ חסר‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬׳רומזים׳‪.‬‬

‫‪81‬‬ ‫‪Oxford, Bodleian Library, Reggio 24 (Neubauer 2221), 126a, provides another witness from‬‬
‫‪this unit, beginning at this point. Its independent appearance in that earlier miscellany‬‬
‫‪points to the anthological nature of the Booklet of Kabbalistic Forms.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 117

is only to bear witness to the oneness of Ein Sof. And the | received is unified J:15r
with the receiver and the receiver with the received and they unite with one
force (koaḥ). It may thus be recognized that both of them are one force, which
is in the only One, the | Singular (ha-meyuḥad). V:113v
To explain all this, King David, may peace be upon him, alluded to them in
the verse (1 Chronicles 29:11) that I inscribed in this form. And how?81 “Yours”
(lekha) alludes to Keter, as it says, “a crown they will give to you (lekha).”82 yhvh:
yh alludes to Ḥokhmah and vh alludes to Binah, father and mother. Or [alterna-
tively] say Y is for Ḥokhmah, H is for Binah, V is for Tiferet which includes in it all
six endpoints,83 and the final H is for ʿAteret. Thus, in the name of the Lord, may
He be blessed, that is to say, yhvh, all ten sefirot are incorporated. And this suf-
fices to [enable one to] understand the secret of the unification ( yiḥud). Nev-
ertheless, he further explained and said, “the Grandeur (Gedulah), the Strength
(Gevurah), the Beauty (Tiferet), the Eternity (Netzaḥ), and the Splendor (Hod),
for All (kol) that is in the Heavens (she-ba-Shamayim) and on Earth (u-va-
Aretz).”84 He thus enumerated all ten sefirot. To unify Him from bottom to top
as he had unified Him from top to bottom he further added and said in this
verse, “Yours Hʾ is the kingdom and You are exalted as head over all.” “Yours”
began with ʿAteret so that you might know that it is also Keter if you invert the
sefirot, making Malkhut the first, as in “[who saw the king’s face, and] sat first in
the kingdom.” (Esther 1:14) In other words, they have no beginning and no end;
the beginning of thought is the last action.85 “The kingdom”—that is to say
“Yours is the kingdom” without division—alludes to Ḥokhmah and Binah. “The
kingdom” (ha-mamlakha) has the [combined] numerical value of Ḥokhmah
[and] Binah, the father (ha-av) and the mother (ha-em); the daughter is also
named after them and called Queen (Malka). “And You are exalted as head over
all” alludes to Keter. Thus [King David] has clarified all for us: just as the head
descended and was fixed at the end, so it ascended from the end to conjoin
quickly at the head, without division. And every one of the ten havayot incor-
porates them all, is the power of them all, and they are all one power. And the
number ten is eternal, that is to say, it is the beginning and end, as he clarified
above. And even though this individuation is not inherent but [as perceived] by
the observers (mekablim), nevertheless in accordance with the human awak-
ening in the lower realms one also awakens the upper worlds, transforming
the attribute of judgment (din) into the attribute of mercy (raḥamim) and the
attribute of mercy into judgment. These, then, are the attributes (midot) by
which the upper and lower realms operate.
Secondly, [the form] comes to make apparent (lefarsem) that when it arose N: 26v
in His thought (daʿato) to bring all his acts (poʿalav) into existence (lehamtzi),
it was evident in His already existent Glory (kevodo) and light that nothing new
[had come into existence], neither in the Emanator nor in the emanated. And
His Glory, His brilliance, and His hidden power (ḥevyon ʿuzo86) were revealed.

82 Appearing in the so-called Kedusha prayer of the Sabbath and holiday prayers.
83 The Hebrew letter V (vav) has the numerical value of six. The six endpoints refer to the
four cardinal directions, up, and down.
84 The words capitalized here are emphasized in the manuscript witnesses in order to convey
their identification with the sefirot.
85 On the origin of this phrase see Davidson 1957, 125, §2038, 2039.
86 Habakkuk 3:4.

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‫‪118‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫שאין להם סוף ולא חקר וגבול מצד עצמם ושם אותם בחקר וגבול במדות שיש להם חקר‬
‫ו‪114 :‬א‬ ‫וגבול‪ a‬אעפ״י שאין להם | גבול מצד התחלת עצמם ונתן העטרת לראש פנה וכלל בה ל״ב‬
‫נתיבות וגנז האור הראשון שהוא יסו״ד שהיה אחרון בסדר האצילות כאשר ביארנו למעלה‬
‫באילן‪ b.‬יען ראה שאין העולם מתקיים מפני תוקף ורבוי‪ c‬האור והשפע וכאשר נתן העטר״ת‬
‫בראש‪ d‬פנה אז ברא העולם ואז ראה במחשבה ויספרה בספ״ר וספ״ר וספו״ר הבינה כי לא היו‬
‫ההויו״ת עומדות על סדר תכונת הבנין‪ e‬והוא ית׳ המשיך אותם ההויו״ת וסדרן על סדר‪ f‬ועשה‬
‫מהם בנין אחד ושם אחד אחר הצירוף והשיקול והמדה בכ״ב אותיות אשר כל אחת ואחת‬
‫קשורה בחברתה מקבילות אשה אל אחותה וגם חקרה שם אותה במדות שיש להם חקר‬
‫וגבול אעפ״י שאין להם גבול מצד התחלת‪ g‬עצמה כמו שאמרנו למעלה והוא ית׳ נמצא‪ h‬בתוכן‬
‫כדמיון הנשמה באיברי גופה ופועל בהן פעלתו‪ .‬וכונת רז״ל היתה כשרצו לדבר בענייני׳ נסתרי׳‬
‫אלהיים אמרו לשון ספירות‪ .‬והוייות‪ .‬ומאמרות‪ .‬ונטיעות‪ .‬היכלות‪ .‬גוונים‪ .‬ימים‪ .‬כתרים‪ .‬כל זה‬
‫להודיע העלמתו ית׳ וחוזק השגתו וחלשת השגתינו ונתנו לנו דרך לדעת הפעלות הבאות ממנו‬
‫והיאך הם מסודרות‪i.‬‬

‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬נוסף ׳מצד עצמם׳‪ b .‬מ‪ :‬׳כאשר ביארנו למעלה בסדר האילן׳ מודגש בקו תחתון‪ c .‬ו‪ :‬הוספה מעל‬
‫השורה‪ .‬בשאר כתבי היד‪ ,‬חלק מהטקסט‪ d .‬י‪ ,‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳לראש׳‪ e .‬פ‪ :‬׳הבינה כי ההויות שהיו עומדות על‬
‫סדר תכונת הבנין׳‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬׳תכונת הבנין והוא ית׳ המשיך אותם ההויו״ת וסדרן על סדר׳ חסר‪ ,‬ונראה כי‬
‫הוא דילוג מחמת הדומות‪ g .‬מ‪ :‬׳החלק׳‪ h .‬מ‪ :‬׳נאצל׳‪ i .‬נ‪ :‬׳ודי למבין׳ נוסף‪ .‬י‪ :‬בסוף הקטע קולופון‪/:‬‬
‫תו״שלב״ע‪ /‬כ״א אגוס׳ של״ח‪ /‬יעקב פוייטי‪] /‬יצ״ו[‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 119

From His Glory He made ten sefirot that have no inherent end, [susceptibil-
ity to] investigation, nor limitation, and He made them [susceptible to] con-
templation and limitation, in attributes that have investigation and limitation,
despite their not having | originary inherent limitation. And He placed ʿAteret V:114r
as the cornerstone and bundled within her thirty-two paths (netivot), and con-
cealed the first light that is Yesod (which was last in the order of emanation
as we explicated above in the ilan). Seeing that the world could not exist in
the face of the strength ⟨and magnitude⟩ of the light and effluence, he placed
ʿAteret as the cornerstone and then created the world. He then saw in thought
(be-maḥshava)87 and recounted it (vayesapra)88 with writing (spr) and num-
bers (spr) and speech (spvr) of Binah.89 As the havayot were not positioned
according to the order of the figure of the structure (tekhunat ha-binyan), He,
may He be blessed, drew the havayot down and arranged them in order and
formed them into a single structure and a single name. After the combination,
weighing,90 and measurement of the twenty-two letters, each one bound to the
other, each opposite the other,91 He also contemplated her [ʿAteret] and placed
her amongst the attributes that are [susceptible to] contemplation and lim-
itation despite their not having any originary inherent limitation, as we said
above. And He, may He be blessed, exists in them as a soul in the limbs of its
body, performing its acts by them.
When wishing to speak of hidden divine matters, it was the practice of our
Sage to use terminology [including] sefirot, havayot, maamarot (utterences),
netiʿot (saplings), heikhalot (palaces), gvanim (hues), days, [and] crowns. All
this to make known His blessed concealment, as well as the strength of His
apprehension and the weakness of ours. They also provided us with a way to
know the acts that come from Him and how they are ordered.

87 Referring to the sefirah of Ḥokhmah.

88 Job 28:27.
89 The telling, the development of that seen in “thought,” is associated with Binah, and linked
to the famous thrice-reiterated spr of Sefer yetzirah; see Hayman 2004, 59 (§1). The trans-
lations of these iterations of the same letters are necessarily conjectural-contextual.
90 Hayman 2004, 100 (§19).
91 The language, borrowed from Exodus 26:5, here refers to the symmetry of the sefirotic
array.

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‫‪120‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪114:‬א‪ ,‬מ‪217 :‬א‪ ,‬פ‪192:‬א‪ ,‬נ‪26:‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :5‬זכר ונקבה‬

‫‪figure 5. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 114r‬‬

‫מצאתי זאת הצורה והבינה‪a‬‬

‫אב‬ ‫‪1‬‬ ‫זכר ונקבה בראם‬ ‫‪A‬‬

‫בן‬ ‫‪2‬‬ ‫ויקרא את שמם‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫בת‬ ‫‪3‬‬ ‫אדם ומלת אדם‬ ‫‪C‬‬
‫אם‬ ‫‪4‬‬ ‫כולל זכר ונקבה‬ ‫‪D‬‬
‫יה וה‬ ‫‪5‬‬

‫‪ a‬לא נמצא בכתב יד י‪ .‬בכתב יד פ‪ ,‬נמצא בדף ‪142‬א יחד עם סרטוט החופה וגלגל המזלות‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 121

Unit 5: Male and Female V:114r, M: 217r, N:26r, P:192r

I found this form; understand it92

A Male and female He created them 1 father

B and called their name 2 son
C Adam, and the word Adam 3 daughter
D includes male and female 4 mother
5 yh vh

92 This form is not in all the extant manuscripts of the Booklet, and may represent an addition
to the original composition. It is in the Paris witness. The inscription beside the form is
somewhat cryptic and seems to use the imperative form to demand that the reader make
an effort to understand the diagram. The latter is presented without explication, unlike
the previous units. From a formal point of view, one might regard it as being something
of a square of opposition, the four corners of which present the generative-oppositional
categories of Father-Mother-Son-Daughter. The square is split into right and left halves,
containing the first and second halves of the four-letter name yhvh respectively. The
inscribed text running along the sides of the square alludes to the androgyny of Adam, pre-
sumably reflecting the polarities of the Godhead as represented in the square. On squares
of opposition, see Berger 2017, 147–151. On androgyny in classical Kabbalah, see, e.g., Idel
2005.

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‫‪122‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪114 :‬ב‪ ,‬מ‪217 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪190 :‬ב‪ ,‬י‪16 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :6‬הספירות כחופה‬

‫‪figure 6. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 114v‬‬

‫גג החופה‬ ‫‪1.2‬‬ ‫כתר‬ ‫‪1.1‬‬

‫כתלי החופה‬ ‫‪2.2‬‬ ‫חכמה‬ ‫‪2.1‬‬
‫כתלי החופה‬ ‫‪3.2‬‬ ‫בינה‬ ‫‪3.1‬‬
‫מזוזות החופה‬ ‫‪4.2‬‬ ‫גדולה‬ ‫‪4.1‬‬
‫מזוזות החופה‬ ‫‪5.2‬‬ ‫גבורה‬ ‫‪5.1‬‬
‫החתן הוא תפארת לימין‬ ‫‪6.1‬‬
‫והכלה היא מלכות אל השמאל‬ ‫‪6.2‬‬
‫שניהם באמצע הם העץ חיים ועץ הדעת בתוך הגן בתוך הספירות‪a‬‬ ‫‪7‬‬
‫תפארת והוא עץ החיים ומלכות הוא עץ הדעת טוב ורע‪ b‬ר״ל מדת הדין רפה‬

‫‪ b‬י‪ :‬׳טוב ורע׳ חסר‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬י‪ :‬׳י׳ ספירות׳‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 123

Unit 6: The Sefirot as a Wedding Canopy (Ḥuppah)93 V: 114v, M: 217v, P:190v, J: 16v

1.1 Keter 1.2 roof of the ḥuppah

2.1 Ḥokhmah 2.2 walls of the ḥuppah
3.1 Binah 3.2 walls of the ḥuppah
4.1 Gedulah 4.2 doorposts of the ḥuppah
5.1 Gevurah 5.2 doorposts of the ḥuppah
6.1 The groom is Tiferet to the right
6.2 The bride is Malkhut to the left
7 The two of them are in the middle—they are the Tree of Life and Tree of
Knowledge
In the Garden, in the sefirot, Tiferet is the Tree of Life and Malkhut is the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that is to say, the attribute of weak
Din94 (midat ha-din ha-rafah).

93 Excepting its inscriptions, this form is without explication. Like the first form, it asso-
ciates the sefirot with the Garden of Eden. Here, however, the array is projected upon a
ritual object: the wedding canopy under which Jews customarily wed. Both in the wedding
ceremony and in this kabbalistic imagining, the canopy represents as well as affects the
unification of male and female. See Abrams 2013, Baumgarten and Safrai 2020, Idel 2020.
94 Lest one think that the judgment (din) of the Tree of Knowledge associated with the bride
is truly severe, the text insists that the softer aspect often associated with discernment and
scrutiny is intended.

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‫‪124‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪115 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪217 :‬ב‪ ,‬נ‪25 :‬א‪ ,‬פ‪192 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :7‬אחדות המשכיל והמושכל‬

‫‪figure 7. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 115r‬‬

‫מושכל הוא ה׳ ית׳‪a‬‬ ‫‪1‬‬

‫שכל‬ ‫‪2‬‬

‫בזה המשל מהנר והשלהבת קצת הערה להבין ולצייר מה הוא שכל ומה הוא מלאך ומה הוא‬
‫עלתם ר״ל ה׳ ית׳ שנקרא צורת השכל ועל צד השאלה ודוגמא נאמ׳ הנר הוא ה׳ יתברך והוא‬
‫המושכל והוא הראש וסוף שלהבת הנר הוא שכל האדם‪ b‬הנשפע מסוף הנפרדי׳ ואמצעיות‬
‫השלהבת רמז לשאר השכלי׳ הקרובי׳ והרחוקי׳ וכל הקרוב יותר אל הנר הרמוז קבל יותר‪c‬‬
‫מהאור ומזה נבין‪ d‬שהאמצעי בין האדם ובין בוראו הוא השכל הנמצא בו בפועל‪ e‬וכשתדבק‬
‫הנפש בשכל והשכל אומ׳‪ f‬למלאך והמלאך לשרף והשרף לכרוב ותחבר חלק אחר חלק‬
‫מסופה לראשה אז תגיע למושכל ותמצא הכל אחד ר״ל השכל והמשכיל והמושכל דבר‬
‫אחד והנה‪ g‬נא ידעת שהבורא והמלאך ושכל האדם מצד הצלם והדמות שהוא הרוח הפנימי‬
‫עצמות אחד בעת ההשכלה אמנם ה׳ יתברך תמיד הוא השכל ותמיד הוא המשכיל ותמיד הוא‬
‫המושכל כלומר תמיד בפועל‪h.‬‬
‫אמנם הסבה הראשונה‪ i‬היא על הנצחות מקיף לא מוקף ומבואר שהוא ית׳ אינו שכל כי‬
‫הוא יוצר השכל ועל הבלתי בעל תכלית ועל המציאות ועל הנצחות ועל החיים כי הוא סבה‬
‫תקצרנה הלשונות מהגדתן‪ j.‬ומאשר שהוא ית׳ אינו גשם ולא כח בגשם אינו לא‪ k‬תוך העולם‬

‫‪ a‬נ‪ :‬יתעל׳‪ b .‬נ‪ :‬׳הוא שכל האדם׳‪ c .‬מ‪ :‬כפילות של המילים ׳קבל יותר׳‪ d .‬נ‪ :‬׳תבין׳‪ e .‬מ‪ :‬׳בו׳‬
‫חסר‪ f .‬נ‪ :‬׳חומר׳ במקום ׳אומר׳‪ g .‬נ‪ :‬׳הנה׳‪ h .‬כל הפיסקה הבאה איננה בכתבי יד נ‪ .‬בכתב יד‬
‫‪ j‬י‪ ,‬פ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ i‬י‪ :‬׳אמנם הסיבה הראשונה׳ חסר‪.‬‬ ‫י ו‪-‬פ הפסקה משויכת ליחידה הבאה )גלגל המזלות(‪.‬‬
‫׳בהגדתו׳‪ k .‬מ‪ :‬׳אלא׳ במקום ׳לא׳‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 125

Unit 7: Thought Thinking Itself95 V:115r, M: 217v, N:25r, P:192v

1 Cognized object (muskal) is the Lord, may He be blessed

2 Intellect (sekhel)

On this allegory of the candle and the flame, a bit of explication in order to
understand and to picture (le-tzayer) what is “intellect” (sekhel), what is “angel,”
and what is their cause, i.e., the Lord, may He be blessed, who is called “the form
of the intellect (tzurat ha-sekhel).” Metaphorically, as an example, we shall say
that the candle is the Lord, may He be blessed, and He is the cognized object
(ha-muskal) and He is the beginning. And the end of the flame of the candle is
the intellect (sekhel) of man, which is emanated from the last of the separate
[intellects].96 And the middle of the flame alludes to the rest of the intellects,
far and near, and whichever is closer to the alluded candle receives more of the
light. And from this we understand that the intermediary between man and
his creator is the active intellect found in him.97 And when his [animal] soul
(nefesh)98 cleaves to the intellect, and the intellect99 to the angel (malakh), and
the angel to the seraph, and the seraph to the cherub, one part after another
connected from the end to the beginning, you then reach the cognized object
(ha-muskal) and find that all is one: the intellect (ha-sekhel), the thinker (ha-
maskil), and the cognized object are one. And behold you know that the Cre-
ator, the angel, and the human intellect are from the image (tzelem)100 and
likeness (demut), which is the inner spirit, and they become one essence (ʿatz-
mut) at the moment of cognition (haskalah). However, the Lord, may He be
blessed, is always the intellect, and is always the thinker, and is always the cog-
nized objected. In other words, He is always active.
However, the first cause is beyond eternity, surrounding and not sur-
rounded.101 And it is explained that He, may He be blessed, is not an intel-
lect, because He is the creator of the intellect. And words fail to speak of One
beyond limitation, beyond existence, beyond eternity, and beyond life, as He is
the cause. And because He, may He be blessed, is neither a body nor a force in a
body,102 He is neither within the world nor external to it. Yet He [i.e., His provi-

95 In ms M (f. 217v) the human-divine intellect diagram abuts the ḥuppah diagram. The scribe
was either trying to make efficient use of space or presumed the two figures were some-
how related without realizing that form seven was a representation of the intellect as fire.
96 The identification of the “separate intellects” (sekhalim nifradim) with angels was a com-
monplace in medieval Jewish philosophy. Maimonides championed this view in the
Guide, and many kabbalists followed suit. See, e.g., Pines 1963, 262; Ivry 2016, 90–96. See
also Gikatilla 1994, 17a; Becker 2013, 212; and the commentary Minḥat Yehudah there, 247.
97 On this notion, which is the basis of Maimonides’ theory of prophecy, see Afterman 2016,
102–129.
98 See, e.g., Pines 1963, 91.
99 Here ms V seems to read “says [to]” whereas ms N reads “[is] matter (ḥomer) to.” Although
the latter seems to make somewhat better sense, neither significantly affects the sense of
the passage, which is devoted to establishing the chain of separate intellects, here identi-
fied as distinct classes of angels.
100 On the tzelem in this context, see Harvey 1973, 36.
101 mss J and P inscribe this text around and above the eighth form in a manner that graphi-
cally evokes the Throne mentioned at the end of the passage. mss V and M, however, treat
it as a purely textual continuation of the discussion of the intellects associated with the
seventh form.
102 Following the language of Maimonides (in the ibn Tibbon translation) in 2:1 of the Guide.
See Pines 1963, 246.

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‫‪126‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ולא חוצה לו‪ .‬והוא ג״כ בכללו ובכל חלק מחלקיו‪ .‬והנמצא הנברא הראשון הוא השכל הוא‬
‫עצם אשר אינו עם גודל ולא גוף ולא יתנועע אשר בעבור זה היה על הזמן ועם הנצחות אמנם‬
‫מיני השכלים הם רבים והמתחייבי׳ מהסבה הראשונה מהם רמז לדמות כסא‪ .‬והנפש היא‬
‫הנמצא על הזמן אחר הנצחות עלולה מהשכל השוה לנצחות ולה ג׳ פעולות‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 127

dence] is generally [in the world] and in every part of it.103 And the first created
existent is the intellect, a substance (ʿetzem) that has no size, no body, and is
immovable—and therefore is beyond time and with eternity. Indeed, there are
many different types of intellects and they are necessitated by the first cause,
alluded to by the “the likeness of the Throne.”104 And the human soul is the
existent beyond time, eternity caused by the intellect, which is equivalent to
eternity; it has three activities (peʿulot).105

103 Again following the Tibbonite language of the Guide in i:72. See Pines 1963, 192–193.
104 The identification of the first cause with the likeness of the Throne in the vision of Ezekiel
is made by Isaac Abarbanel in Maʿayanei ha-yeshuʿa [Springs of redemption], 2:2, 8b.
105 Here the text echoes the opening of Maimonides’ Shmonah prakim. See https://tinyurl​
.com/yxs3zfkh (last accessed 30.10.21).

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‫‪128‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪115 :‬ב‪ ,‬מ‪218 :‬א‬

‫|יחידה ‪ :8‬גלגל המזלות‬
‫פ‪192 :‬א‪ ,‬י‪17 :‬א‬

‫‪figure 8. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 115v‬‬

‫וזה‪ a‬הוא גלגל ערבות המקיף את הכל הוא הגוף העליון שבכל הגופי׳‪ b‬והנכבד והמהיר‬ ‫‪A‬‬
‫שבכלם אין אחריו ר״ל למעלה לו גוף כלל ולא מניע ולא מתנועע אבל גוף הגלגל הזה‬
‫הוא מתנועע‪ c‬הראשון המאיר לכל שאר הגלגלי׳ אך למעלה הימנו גלגל השכל אינו גוף‬
‫כשאר הגלגלי׳ עומד בקדושתו לעולם ומבדיל בין מים הרמוזי׳ למים ומדרגות השכלי׳‬
‫רבים והמתחייבי׳ מן העלה‪ d‬הראשונה הם דמות כסא והם סבה לחיות הקדש‪ :‬ולעוררך‬
‫על סוד הכסא דע כי כלל הגלגלי׳‪ e‬נקראי׳ כסא והם דמות כסא לשכלים וכאשר הבנת‬
‫שיש כסא לכסא יהיה אמתת כסא המיוחס לה׳ מה שאינו גוף‪f:‬‬

‫‪ [1‬טלה‪ [2 .‬שור‪ [3 .‬תאומים‪ [4 .‬סרטן‪ [5 .‬אריה‪ [6 .‬בתולה‪.‬‬ ‫‪B‬‬

‫‪ [7‬מאזנים‪ [8 .‬עקרב‪ [9 .‬קשת‪ [10 .‬גדי‪ [11 .‬דלי‪ [12 .‬דגים‪.‬‬

‫‪ d‬י‪:‬‬ ‫‪ c‬מ‪ :‬׳המתנועע׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬מ‪ :‬׳שבגופים׳ במקום ׳בכל הגופים׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬פ‪ :‬׳וזה הוא׳‪ .‬מ‪ :‬׳וזהו׳‪ ,‬י‪ :‬׳וזהו׳‪.‬‬
‫׳מהעלה׳‪ e .‬י‪ :‬׳הגלגל׳‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬וכאשר הבנת שיש כסא לכסא יהו״ה אמתת כסא המיוחס לה מה שאינו‬
‫גוף‪ .‬י‪ :‬וכאשר הבנת שיש כסא לכסא יהיה אמתת כסא המיוחס לה׳ מה הם שאין גוף‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 129

Unit 8: The Sphere of the Zodiac106 V: 115v, M: 218r, P: 192r, J: 17r

A And this is the sphere of ʿAravot that surrounds all. It is the most sublime
of all bodies and the most noble and swift of them all; none follow it. In
other words, above it there is no body at all, neither mover nor moved
entity. Rather, the body of this sphere is the first moved that illuminates
all the other spheres. However, above it is the sphere of the intellect that
is not a body as are the other spheres; it stands forever in its holiness and
separates between the alluded water and water.107 And the gradations of
the intellects are manifold, necessitated from the first cause. They are the
likeness of the Throne and the cause of the Holy Living Creatures (ḥayyot
ha-kodesh).108 And to awaken you regarding the secret of the Throne,
know that collectively the spheres are called “Throne” and they are the
likeness of the Throne for the intellects. And when you have understood
that there is a Throne for the Throne, the Throne attributed to the Lord
will be verified as not being a body.
B 1] Aries. 2] Taurus. 3] Gemini. 4] Cancer. 5] Leo. 6] Virgo.

7] Libra. 8] Scorpio. 9] Sagittarius. 10] Capricorn. 11] Aquarius. 12] Pisces.

106 This unit does not appear in ms N. Asterisks appear in the concentric circles of ms V and
P. Their signification is as follows: each of the signs of the Zodiac is a domicile of one (or
two) of the seven traditional planets. These are indicated by the placement of an asterisk
in the orb associated with a given planet within the 30° sector of the ecliptic assigned to
each sign. For example, a look at the orb of Saturn—the seventh—shows asterisks in the
sectors of Capricorn and Aquarius. Many thanks to Prof. Shlomo Sela for his help with
this symbolism, which he had not seen in any other Hebrew or Latin manuscript (private
email communication of 22.10.19). ms J has an odd geometric drawing at its center, which
could be the vestigial remains of the aspect lines of a natal chart.
107 As per Gen 1:6, and bḤagigah 15b.
108 Again referring to the vision of Ezekiel, the likeness of the Throne being above the cherubs
(kruvim) is taken as indicative of its priority in the emanatory sequence.

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‫‪130‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪115 :‬ב‪ ,‬מ‪218 :‬א‪ ,‬נ‪25 :‬א‪ ,‬פ‪192 :‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :9‬עץ החיים‬

‫‪figure 9. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 115v‬‬

‫ועץ החיים‪ a‬מהלך ת״ק שנה וקומתו‪ b‬הוא מהלך ת״ק‪ c‬עד גלגל הלבנה משל אל חכמת‪d‬‬ ‫‪A‬‬
‫הטבע אבל נופו הוא יותר‪ ,‬וענין נוף הוא‪ e‬משל לידיעת הגלגלים והמלאכים‪.‬‬
‫וממשל‪ f‬עץ חיים‪ g‬וסודו תבין מאמר רז״ל בב״ר שהוא מהלך ת״ק שנה ור׳ יצחק אמ׳‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫לא סוף נופו אלא אפי׳ עקר קורתו מהלך ת״ק שנה‪ ,‬והשכל האנושי בכחו להגיע לדעת‬
‫חכמת הטבע הנמשל לקורה וגם בנופו ר״ל בידיעת הגלגלי׳ ובידיעת המלאכי׳ שהם‬
‫רמי הקומה והנוף‪.‬‬

‫‪ f‬מ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ e‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬חסר‪.‬‬ ‫‪ d‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳לחכמת׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ c‬מ‪ :‬נוסף ׳שנה׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬נ‪ :‬וקורתו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬׳עץ׳‪ .‬פ‪ ,‬נ‪ :‬׳והעץ חיים׳‪.‬‬
‫׳של׳ נוסף‪ g .‬פ‪ :‬׳העץ חיים׳‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 131

Unit 9: The Tree of Life109 V: 115v, M: 218r, N: 25r, P: 192r

A The Tree of Life spans a five-hundred year journey, and its trunk spans a
five-hundred-year journey—until the lunar sphere, an allegory alluding
to [the limits of] natural philosophy (ḥokhmaht ha-teva).110 But its bough
is greater still—and the matter of the bough is an allegory alluding to the
knowledge of the spheres and angels.
B From the allegory of the Tree of Life and its secret you will understand
the dictum of our sages in Genesis Rabbah that it spans a five-hundred
year journey, to which R. Isaac added that not only its bough (nofo) but
its trunk (ʿikar korato) spans a five-hundred year journey. And the human
intellect has the capacity to acquire a knowledge of natural philosophy,
allegorized as as the trunk (korah), as well as the bough (nofo), i.e., the
knowledge of the spheres and knowledge of the angels, who are of sub-
lime stature and height (nof ).

109 Both paragraphs appear in the Magnificent Parchment. They are not in ms J.
110 Gen. Rabbah 15; jBerakhot 11. This rabbinic dictum is mentioned but not explicated by
Maimonides in the Guide, ii:30. See Pines 1963, 357.

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‫‪132‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪116 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪218 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪192 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :10‬אחדות הגלגלים והיסודות‬

‫‪figure 10. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 116r‬‬

‫אחד‬ ‫‪A‬‬
‫אחד‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫אחד בגימ׳ י״ג לרמוז האחדות וגם אם נתאר אותו ית׳ בי״ג מדות‪ .‬והאלף מורה על עולם‬ ‫‪C‬‬
‫העליון הרוחני‪ .‬והח׳ מורה עולם הגלגלי׳ והם ח׳ גלגלי׳ המצויירות ר״ל כדורי הצורות‪.‬‬
‫והד׳ מורה על עולם ההפסד וההויה בעל יסודות הארבעה‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 133

Unit 10: The Unity of the Spheres and the Elements111 V: 116r, M: 218v, P: 192v

A one [spelled in Hebrew Aleph, Ḥet, Dalet]112

B one
C one in gematria [the numerical value of the letters] is thirteen, alludes to
oneness, even as we describe Him, may He be blessed, as having thirteen
attributes. The aleph [1] stands for the supernal spiritual realm. The ḥet
[8] stands for the world of spheres, these being the eight spheres that are
drawn, that is to say, the circular forms (kadurei ha-tzurot). And the dalet
[4] stands for the world of corruption and being with its four elements.

111 This unit is not found in mss J and N. The diagram is presented in ms P in a more tabu-
lar schema than in ms V, with the text pertaining to each letter inscribed just beneath it.
The bottom row of this table—the content of which is not in ms V—presents geometrical
associations for the Hebrew letters A, H, V, Y (‫)אהוי‬, discussed in unit 15 below.
112 The explication of this form is based on the alpha-numeric signification of the letters that
form the word for “one” in Hebrew, ‫אחד‬. The letters have the respective numerical val-
ues of one, eight, and four. The unit is likely based on a teaching of Abraham Abulafia.
See Gross 2002a, 14–15. The Gross edition is based on Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 425;
see 94b for this teaching. Note that in many of Moshe Idel’s publications on Abulafia, this
manuscript, formerly Neubauer ms 1658, is erroneously referred to as “Ms. Oxford 1682.”

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‫‪134‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪116 :‬א‪ ,‬מ‪218 :‬ב‪ ,‬פ‪191 :‬א‪ ,‬י‪9 :‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :11‬נתיבות‪ ,‬ספירות‪ ,‬אותיות‬

‫‪figure 11. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 116r‬‬

‫אבגדהוזח‬ ‫‪A‬‬
‫טיכלמ‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫נסעפצ‬ ‫‪C‬‬
‫קרשת‬ ‫‪D‬‬
‫כתר‪ ,‬חכמה‪ ,‬בינה‪ ,‬גדולה‪ ,‬גבורה‪ ,‬תפארת‪ ,‬נצח‪ ,‬הוא‪ ,‬יסוד‪ ,‬מלכות‪.‬‬

‫עגולה בגו ריבועא רהטי ואי רבועא בגו עגולא לא רהטי‪ ,‬כל נקודה עגולה וכל רבועא‪ a‬אתיא‬
‫רבועא‪ .‬ומתקיימי אתייא בנקודה‪ .‬ואינון חייהון והדין נקודא אתיא דרך הצינורות‪ b‬להדין אתיא‬
‫על ידי הקרבן ומיד יורד דכתי׳ ריח ניחוח לי״י שיורד ה׳ אל ה׳‪ c‬הדא הוא דכתי׳ שמע ישראל‬
‫ה׳ אלהינו ה׳ אחד‪d.‬‬
‫ואלו הם עשרה‪ e‬כתרי׳ והכחות שלהם שנים ועשרי׳ שהם כ״ב אותיו׳ הפורחות‪f‬‬
‫והמציירות‪ g‬מהם מכוונות‪ h‬עד כ״ב אותיות האצילות מכח לכח ו‪ i‬יסוד וסוד‪ j‬זאת הצורה‬

‫‪ a‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ b .‬י‪ :‬׳בכמה צנורין׳‪ c .‬י‪ :‬׳שיורד י״י א״ל י״י׳‪ d .‬פ‪ :‬מ׳עיגולא׳ ועד ׳אחד׳—בתוך‬
‫העיגול החיצוני המקיף את עיגול הספירות‪ e .‬י‪ :‬נוסף ׳אותיות׳‪ f .‬פ‪ :‬פורחות ‪ g‬פ‪ :‬והמצטיירו׳ ‪ h‬פ‪:‬‬
‫כוחות מכוונו׳ ‪ i‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪ j .‬פ‪ :‬׳ויסוד׳‪ .‬בכ״י פ׳ ו‪-‬י׳ מ׳ואלו הם׳ ועד ׳ויסוד׳ בתוך העיגול‬
‫הפנימי‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 135

Unit 11: Paths, Sefirot, Letters113 V: 116r, M: 218v, J: 9r, P: 191r

A A B G D H V Z Ḥ114
B T Y Kh L M
C N S ʿA P Tz
D K R Sh T
Keter, Ḥokhmah, Binah, Gedulah, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzaḥ, Hod, Yesod,
Malkhut

A circle can move inside a square, but a square cannot move inside a circle.115
Every vowel point is round and every letter is square. The letters exist through
the vowel point, and the vowel points are their life. This vowel point comes
through the pipes to this letter, through sacrifice, and thence descends, as it
is written: “A sweet aroma unto the Lord” (Lev 1:9), the Lord descends to the
Lord, it is as it is written: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one” (Deut
6:4).116
These are the ten crowns117 and their powers (koḥot) are twenty-two, which
are the twenty-two flying letters.118 And that which they picture is directed to
the twenty-two letters of Atzilut, from power to power, element and element.119

113 This unit in mss J and P is designed with the text integrated into the illustration.
114 The order in which the letters are distributed in the outer square differs in various copies.
115 The Vatican and Munich manuscripts present relatively simple versions of this form, with
minimal textual inscription in comparison to their parallels in the Paris and Jerusalem
witnesses. In the latter, the texts are inscribed within the diagram until “This form comes
to make apparent […].”
116 The preceding paragraph is a paraphrase of the Bahir:
What is the meaning of the word shevet (tribe or rod)? It is a simple object that is a square.
And what is the reason that a square cannot be inside another square? Because a circle
inside a circle can move, while a square inside a square cannot move. And what is this
circle? A vowel point in the Torah of Moses, for they are all round, and are to the letters
like the soul that lives in the body of man, for whom it is impossible to live as long as she
[the soul] is not within him, nor to grasp a word, small or great, without a soul. Similar
to this is the vowel point, without which it is impossible to say a word, be it big or small.
Every vowel point is a circle and every […] letter is a square. The letters exist through the
vowel point, and the vowel points are their life. This vowel point comes through the pipes
to these letters through the fragrance of the sacrifice and thence descends, as it is written:
“A sweet aroma unto God” (Lev 1:9), that is descending to yyy, as it is written “Hear O Israel
the Lord our God the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4).
See Abrams 1994, 169–171 (§83).
117 These “crowns” are the ten sefirot that are the primary content of the circle within the
square. They also correspond to the circular vowel points (rather than to the “crowns” on
certain letters in the Jewish scribal tradition). There are ten basic (uncompounded) vowel
points in Hebrew.
118 Recalling the martyr’s death described in bAvodah Zarah 18a, in which Rabbi Ḥanina ben
Teradyon was burned alive while wrapped in a Torah scroll. Rabbi Ḥanina says to his dis-
ciples, “I see the parchment burning, but its letters are flying [to the heavens].”
119 The translation of this enigmatic passage is necessarily speculative. The last word, “ele-
ment” ( yesod) follows ms P; mss V, J, and M read “secret” (sod).

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‫‪136‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫באה לפרסם שהל״ב נתיבות הם הי׳ ספירות והכ״ב אותיות ואע״פ שאמרו‪ a‬שהי׳ ספירות‬
‫ו‪116 :‬ב‬ ‫בכלל הנתיבות אינם כאותיות‪ b‬כי הם פנימיות יותר מהאותיות | והם דבר נעלם נכללות‬
‫באותיות ויוצאות עמהם במבטא אחד בשביל אחד בהעלמה בגוף‪ .‬שנית באה להודיע‬
‫שהאותיות הם כחומר והנקוד להם צורה כנפש אשר היא מניעה‪ c‬הגוף‪ .‬נמצא שהאות כחומר‬
‫והנקוד כצורה‪ d‬כרוח המניע והמדע וההשגה המתנועע‪ e‬המניע את שניהם‪:‬‬

‫‪ e‬פ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ d‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ c‬מ‪:‬׳מניע׳‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬׳שאמר׳‪ b .‬י‪ :‬׳אמרו באותיות׳ במקום ׳אינם כאותיות׳‪.‬‬
‫׳המניע והמדע וההשגה המתנועע׳ ליתא‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 137

This form comes to make apparent (lefarsem) that the thirty-two paths are
the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters.120 This is despite the fact that they
said121 that the ten sefirot of the paths are not like the letters, as they are more
interior than the letters. | And they are concealed within the letters, going out V: 116v
with them in one act of speech, on one trail, concealed in the body. Secondly,
[the form] comes to make known that the letters are like matter, and their
vocalization (nikkud) is their form, like the soul that is the mover of the body.
We thus find that the letter is like matter and the vocalization like the spirit that
moves them both.122

120 mss P and J inscribe this paragraph outside the diagram.

121 Referring to the text inscribed in (or just below) the diagram upon which the author is
commenting.
122 The translation of this last sentence follows the simpler wording of ms P. Near the end of
the sentence, after “like the spirit that moves,” mss V, J, and M add “the knowledge (madʿa)
and the moved apprehension ….” The entire passage, including the convoluted phrase I
have chosen to omit from the body of the translation, paraphrases a passage in Abraham
Abulafia’s Or ha-sekhel [Light of the Intellect]: “It was already explained to you that the
letter is like matter and the vowel is like the spirit moving the matter. And the apprehen-
sion is with the intent of the moved, and the mover is in the intellect and it is the one
acting in the spirit and in the matter.” Gross 2001b, 102.

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‫‪138‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫ו‪116 :‬ב‪ ,‬מ‪219 :‬א‪ ,‬פ‪191 :‬א‪ ,‬י‪9 :‬ב‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :12‬אותיות אהו״י‬

‫‪figure 12. bav, Vat.ebr. 441, f. 116v‬‬

‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫]‪[2‬‬ ‫ה ָוה‬

‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬ ‫]‪[1‬‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ָוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ֶוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ָוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ָוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ֶוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ֶוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ָוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ֶוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬
‫ָי ֵי ִי ֻי‬ ‫ה ֶוה‬ ‫ֹ‬ ‫יֹ‬

‫וזאת הצורה ציירתי לפרסם בה שני ענייני׳ האחת להודיע שאותיות השם הם ד׳ והם הד׳‬
‫אותיות הנשימ׳‪ a‬שהם אהו״י ונק׳ בכללם אותיות ההעלמה על דרך זה שמי לעולם ונאמ׳‬
‫בקבלה לעלם‪ b‬כתי׳ כלומ׳ שראוי להעלימו‪ .‬אמנם הסוד הוא ענין המעלה והוא שאותיות השם‬
‫ראוי לעלם כלומ׳ לעלה אותם והוא כמו להעלם למעלה הראויה ובעבור שהשם נמצא חיוב‬
‫מציאות‪ c‬יורו עליו אשר מכללם במספרם התחייב מציאות כלם בהכרח והם כלם יחד ומה‬
‫שהוא ראשית כל מה שנמצא אחריו והתחייב מרצונו הוא האלוה ית׳ ועל כן צריך שיורה עליו‬
‫י‪10 :‬א‬
‫אות שיורה שכן עניינו | עם הבאים אחריו וזהו | אות א׳‪ d‬כי א׳ הוא אות נמצא ראשון לכל‬
‫ו‪117 :‬א‬
‫האותיות במדרגה ולא יתכן להזכיר אחד במבטא בלתי‪ e‬אלף וכל נקוד שמניע עמו תנועת‪f‬‬
‫אלף משותפת ואחר צאת הברת האות מן הפה נשארה הנקודה המשותפת עם א׳ מתגלגלת‪g‬‬
‫בנגון בהארכה מתמדת על דרך משל על הא׳ לבדה בלי הפסק בנתים אלא מנשימה לנשימה‬
‫וזה הכרח לפי מציאות האדם שאם תפסק ממנו נשימתו אשר היא הסבה הקרובה לחיותו קצת‬

‫‪ d‬האות מוקפת‬ ‫‪ a‬מ‪ :‬חסר‪ b .‬מ‪ :‬׳לעולם׳ וכן בהמשך‪ c .‬לשונו של אבולעפיה‪ :‬״חייב המציאות״‪.‬‬
‫בריבוע בכ״י ו׳‪ e .‬פ‪ :‬׳בלי׳‪ f .‬מ‪ :‬׳תנוע׳‪ g .‬מ‪ :‬׳מתגלגל׳‪.‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 139

Unit 12: The Letters ahvy V: 116v, M: 219r, P: 191r, J: 9v

[1] Yo HoVaH [2] YaYeYiYu

Yo HoVaH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVeH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVaH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVaH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVeH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVeH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVaH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVeH YaYeYiYu
Yo HoVeH YaYeYiYu

I have drawn this form in order to make apparent (lefarsem) two matters.123
First, to make known that the letters of the Name are four, and they are the four
letters of breath, which are ahvy, and are called collectively the ‘Letters of Con-
cealment,’ [otiot ha-haʿalamah] as in “This is my eternal [le-ʿolam] name.”124
And tradition states, “ ‘eternal’ [le-ʿelem] is written [in defective form], mean-
ing that it is proper to conceal it.”125 However, the secret is the matter of degree
[maʿale], i.e., that the letters of the name ought to be concealed [leʿalem], i.e.,
to raise them [le-haʿalem]. And this is as if [to say] “to raise them to their apt
degree.”126 For as the Name is necessarily existent, [its letters] indicate collec-
tively in their number all that is necessarily existent, and they are all united.127
And whatever is first that everything follows and is necessitated by its will, is
the Divine, may He be blessed; and this must be indicated by a letter [of this
name] that indicates that such is its disposition | with regard to that which fol- J: 10r
lows it. And this is | the letter aleph because the letter aleph is the first letter V: 117r
of all the letters by rank, and it is impossible to utter [the word] eḥad (one,
spelled aleph, ḥet, dalet) without aleph.128 And every vowel point that moves is
joined by the aleph, and after the phonemic letter is uttered by the mouth, the
vowel point joined to the aleph remains resounding in a melody continuously.
This is like [uttering] the aleph alone, without pause except between breaths,
which is required by human existence; were one’s breathe to cease—which is
the proximate cause of one’s life—for even a short time, one would die immedi-

123 This unit is derived from the writings of Abraham Abulafia, which our author has intro-
duced with his typical opening. The placement of this unit in ms Jerusalem is differ-
ent than in ms Vatican and ms Munich. Moreover, the names in ms Jerusalem are not
enclosed by a square as they are in the other manuscripts. The diagram appears in a num-
ber of manuscripts of Or ha-sekhel [Light of the Intellect]. See, e.g. the 1548 manuscript
in the Bavarian State Library (Munich, Germany), Cod. hebr. 59, f. 225r (https://tinyurl​
.com/u9y49zf; last accessed 30.10.21). For a study of the diagram in its original setting,
see Michelini Tocci, 1975.
124 Ex 3:15. ʿA.L.M. is the root of the Hebrew words for “hidden” and “world.”
125 The word ‘eternal’ (le-ʿolam) in Ex 3:15 is written without the letter vav (using plene
spelling), and thus according to bPesaḥim 50a can be read as le-ʿelem, to be concealed.
126 From this point forward until the words “all vowels from beginning to end” is copied from
Abulafia’s Or ha-sekhel. See Gross 2001b, 83 ff.
127 The language is indebted to Maimonides in the introduction to section ii of the Guide,
premise 20: “everything that is necessarily existent in respect to its own essence has no
cause for its existence in any way whatever or under any condition.” See Pines 1963, 238.
See also https://tinyurl.com/yxsealuu (last accessed 30.10.21).
128 Eḥad is the word for one, and the ultimate term of Deut 6:4, the verse at the center of
Jewish devotion and belief.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪140‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫שעה ימות מיד הורה אות הנשימה שעליה נתלו‪ a‬כל הנשימות ] [‪ b‬מציאות האלוה שהוא חיי‬
‫כל חי‪ c,‬והוא הסבה הראשונה לכל חיי החיים כלם ועליו נתלו כל התנועו׳ מראש ועד סוף‪.‬‬
‫מ‪219 :‬ב‬ ‫ואשר בא לגלות הוא | שהא׳ היא מאותיות שם העצם משם אהי״ה‪ d‬והי׳‪ e‬היא מאותיות השם‬
‫העצם והיא ראשונה בשם העצם שהוא שם יהו״ה‪ f‬והיא אחרונה במדרגת האחדי׳ וראשונה‬
‫במדרגת העשרות‪ .‬כל זה הורה על היותו‪ g‬ית׳ ראשון ואחרון כלומ׳ ראשית‪ h‬שאין לו ראשית‬
‫ותכלית שאין לו תכלית‪ .‬ואחר שהיו אלו השני אותיות מורים על השם והם ראש וסוף ליחוד‬
‫הוכרחו להשתתף אליהם עוד שנים אחרים אמצעיים כי מפני שהם זוג אי אפשר להמצא אות‬
‫אחת לכך האמצעי ביניהם כי אם שנים ועל כן היו האמצעיים ראוים להיותם שם לשם והם הו‪i‬‬
‫ונקרא חשבונם חשבון עגול ונקרא חשבון א׳ שרש ראשון לכל חשבון וחשבון ו׳‪ j‬חשבון שלם‪.‬‬
‫י‪10 :‬ב‬ ‫ויש לך לשאול אחר שהדבר כן | מפני מה לא היה שם אהו״י‪ k‬מורה שהוא שם המיוחד דע‬
‫פ‪191 :‬ב‬ ‫שכן היה ראוי אבל מפני שהשם רצה |‪ l‬להעלים שמו כדי לבחון בו לבות ] [‪ m‬משכילים ולצרף‬
‫וללבן ולברר בו כח שכלם היה הכרח לכסותו‪ n‬ולהסתירו ולהעלימו והורכב על זה מאותיות‬
‫ההעלמה ואילו היה נעלם תכלית העלם אפי׳ המשכילי׳ בעיינם אליו לא היו יכולי׳ להשיג ממנו‬
‫שום דבר והיה ה׳ נמצא אצלם דרך מקובל ולא דרך מושכל אבל היה‪ o‬הכרח שיהיה משותף‬
‫בין שתי קצוות כדי להשלים בו שני מיני בני אדם שנ׳ עליהם אדם ובהמ׳ תושיע ה׳ והם שכלים‬
‫וסכלים אלה בכח עיונם בשם ואלה בקבלם עליהם שהוא נמצא ועוד טעם שהשם האמתי לא‬
‫יובן סודו בלתי גלגול שהוא יורה שכל גלגול מאמתת מציאותו התחייב ולו באתי בביאור זה‬
‫הענין יהיה המאמ׳ ארוך מאד ונקצר ונאמ׳ כי שם י הוה‪ p‬בו יובן סוד היחוד ולא באהו״י וגם‬
‫בשם‪ q‬א היה‪ r‬הראשון מורה אני אחרון והשני מורה אני ראשון‪ ,‬ואמנם בשם‪ s‬א דנ י‪ t‬הוראת‬
‫ו‪117 :‬ב‬ ‫השני ענייני׳ ר״ל שהוא ראשון והוא אחרון‪ .‬והד׳ והנ׳ שהם‪ | u‬באמצע רמז לנ״ד שמות מרובעי׳‪v‬‬
‫מן ויסע ויבא ויט‪ .‬הדבר‪ w‬השני שבא להודיע בזאת הצורה הוא שכל ההברות הם חמשה מינים‬
‫במציאות הדבור אחת למעלה ושמה חול״ם ואחת למטה ושמה חיר״ק ואחת תלויה בין מעלה‬
‫ובין מטה באמצע האות אחר גוף האות ושמה שורק ואחת למטה מושכת ישרה ושמה קמ״ץ‬
‫י‪11 :‬א‬ ‫ואחת למטה ושמה צר״י נמצא שכל ההברות הה׳ הן למטה ולמעלה | ובאמצע ושאר הנקודי׳‬
‫מאלו הורכבו וסימן הה׳ הנקודים נוָּט ֵר ִיקוֹ״ן‪x:‬‬

‫‪ a‬י‪ :‬׳יתלו׳‪ b .‬ו‪ :‬מילה מחוקה‪ c .‬מ‪ :‬׳חיי׳‪ d .‬פ‪ :‬השם מוקף בריבוע‪ e .‬מ‪ :‬׳והי”א׳‪ f .‬פ‪ :‬השם מוקף‬
‫בריבוע‪ g .‬מ‪ :‬׳היותה׳‪ h .‬מ‪ :‬ראשון‪ i .‬ו‪ :‬השם מוקף בריבוע‪ j .‬פ‪ :‬׳י׳ במקום ׳ו׳‪ k .‬פ‪ :‬השם מוקף‬
‫בריבוע‪ l .‬בשולי העמוד בכתב יד פריס ישנה הערה שנלקחה מתוך מערכת האלוהות פ״ג‪ :‬״מצאתיו‬
‫במערכת האלוהו׳ יש לדעת כי ענין האצילות אשר זכרנו ואשר אזכיר … ״ עד סוף הפרק‪ .‬ראו במהדורת‬
‫בקר ‪ m .52–46 ,2013‬ו‪ :‬מילה מחוקה‪ n .‬מ‪ :‬׳לכסותן׳‪ o .‬פ‪ :‬חסר‪ p .‬ו‪ :‬השם מוקף בריבוע‪ q .‬ו‪,‬‬
‫מ‪ :‬השם מוקף ריבוע‪ .‬בכ״י ו‪ ,‬האות א מופרדת ברווח מאותיות היה‪ .‬בכ״י מ‪ ,‬ההפרדה נעשתה על ידי קו‪,‬‬
‫‪ s‬ו‪ ,‬מ‪ :‬השם‬ ‫‪ r‬ו‪ :‬השם מוקף בריבוע‪.‬‬ ‫החוצה את הריבוע לשניים‪ .‬בכ״י פ האות א׳ בלבד מוקפת‪.‬‬
‫מוקף ריבוע בעל תאים פנימיים‪ .‬בתא אחד‪ ,‬האות ׳א׳‪ ,‬האותיות ׳דנ׳ בתא שני והאות י׳ בתא שלישי‪ t .‬ו‪:‬‬
‫האותיות הראשונה והאחרונה מוקפות בריבועים המחוברים ע״י שורה מלמעלה‪ u .‬י‪ :‬׳שהוא׳‪ v .‬מ‪:‬‬
‫‪ x‬כאן מסתיימת‬ ‫‪ w‬פ‪ :‬המילה מוקפת ריבוע‪.‬‬ ‫׳ד׳ שמות מרובעים היוצאים׳‪ .‬י‪ ,‬פ‪ :‬׳היוצאים׳ נוסף‪.‬‬
‫היחידה בכ״י י‪ ,‬פ‪ .‬בכ״י מ מנוקד‪ :‬׳נוַּט ֵר ִיקוֹ״ן׳‪.‬‬

‫‪129‬‬ ‫‪The last lines present a kind of Abulafian version of Pythagorean number mysticism in‬‬
‫‪which the number five has a special status in view of its being half of 10, and the number‬‬
‫‪six the perfection of being the sum of 1 + 2+3. The claims presented axiomatically here are‬‬
‫‪more fully developed in Ner Elohim [Lamp of God], a work ascribed to Abulafia but likely‬‬
‫‪penned by one of his students. See Gross 2002b, 38–42, 97–98. For a manuscript witness,‬‬
‫‪see München-Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 10, esp. 144r.‬‬
‫‪130‬‬ ‫‪Ps 36:7.‬‬
‫‪131‬‬ ‫‪Punning here on two homophonous terms, one beginning with a sin and the other with a‬‬
‫‪samekh.‬‬
‫‪132‬‬ ‫‪The term gilgul—meaning in this context rotation or revolution—here refers to the letter‬‬
‫‪substitution technique advocated by Abulafia. See, e.g., Idel 1989, 98.‬‬
‫‪133‬‬ ‫‪The name is enclosed in a square. In ms Paris only the letter Y is enclosed.‬‬
‫‪134‬‬ ‫‪The text references a tradition going back to the early kabbalistic work Maʿayan ha-‬‬
‫‪Ḥokhmah, adduced as well by Gikatilla in Shaʿarei Orah (Gate i), according to which the 72‬‬
‫‪triplet divine names that are derived from these three verses in Exodus correspond to 54‬‬
‫‪permutations of the Tetragrammaton. The technical details of these derivations and cor-‬‬
‫‪respondences may be found in the commentary by the sixteenth-century rabbi Matthias‬‬
‫‪Delacrout. See Gikatilla 1883, 5a.‬‬
‫‪135‬‬ ‫‪Notarikon is a term used frequently by Abulafia to denote abbreviations, particularly‬‬

‫‪The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145‬‬

visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 141

ately. The letter of breathing, upon which all breaths depend, indicates the
nature of the Divine who is the life of every living being, and He is the first
cause of the life of all living things, and upon him are contingent all move-
ments (tenuʿot, also suggesting “vowels”) from beginning to end. This comes to
show that | the aleph is one of the letters of the proper noun (shem ha-ʿetzem) M: 219v
that is the name ahyh, and the yud one of the letters of the proper noun (ha-
shem ha-ʿetzem), the first [letter] of the proper noun that is the name yhvh.
And [the yud, the tenth Hebrew letter] is the last of the ones and first of the
tens. All this indicates His, may He be blessed, being first and last, that is to
say, beginning without beginning and end without end. Because these two let-
ters indicate the name and they are the beginning and end of the unification
( yiḥud), two more middle letters had to join them. For as they are a couple,
one letter cannot exist alone between them, but rather two. The middle ones
were thus worthy of being a name for the name, and they are hv. Their num-
ber is called a circular number. And the number aleph is called first root of all
numbers, and the number vav a perfect number.129
This being the case, you might ask why the name ahvh is not in fact the
unique name. Know that it was indeed worthy, but because the Lord wanted | P: 191v
to conceal His name in order to inspect the hearts of the enlightened (mask-
ilim) and to refine, clarify, and purify their rational faculty (koaḥ sikhlam), it
was necessary to cover, hide, and conceal it. Upon it were grafted letters of
concealment. Had it been entirely concealed even the enlightened in their
contemplation of it would not be able to apprehend any of it, and then God
would exist for them as a tradition (mekubal) and not as something directly
apprehended (muskal). Yet it was necessary that there would be commonality
between two extremes in order to perfect two types of people, of whom it is
written: “Man and beast you deliver O Lord,”130 and they are the intellectuals
and the ignorant131—the former from their contemplation of the name and the
latter on the basis of the tradition that He exists.
Another reason for the secret of the true name not being understandable
without rotation (gilgul),132 is that it indicates that every rotation verifies the
necessity of His existence. Were I to explain this matter, the essay would be very
long. We will thus be brief and say that the secret of unification is understood
through the name yhvh133 and not ahvy. Also in the name ahvh the first [let-
ter] teaches that “I am the last” and the second teaches that “I am first.” And
indeed the name adny teaches these two matters, i.e., that He is first and that
He is last. The dalet and the nun that are | in the middle allude to the fifty-four V:117v
[represented as nun-dalet, the numerical value of which is 54] four-fold names
from “he went … he came … he raised” (Ex 14:19–21).134
The second thing this form makes known is that there are five types of
phonemes (havarot) that exist in speech. One above called ḥolam; one below
called ḥirik; one suspended between, above, and below in the middle of the
letter—after the body of the letter—called shuruk; another below drawn
straight called kamatz; and one below called tzerei. Thus all five vowels are
found below, above, | or in the middle; the rest of the vowels are constructed J: 11r
from them. And a sign [siman] for the five vowels is notarikon.135

acrostics. The word “notarikon” is spelled using all five vowels named in the text and is
thus a mnemonic for them. Note that ms Vatican ends here; what follows is based solely
on ms Munich. This supplement in ms Munich may have been added by Johann Albrecht
Widmanstetter. See de Molière 2021, 388–391.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪142‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫מה שכתו׳ בספר יצירה שלש אמות וכו׳ פירושו שלש אמהות‪ָ a‬ראִשיוֹת‪ b‬ותנקד הא׳ ִחירק‬
‫ותקרא ִאמוֹת וכו׳ ונגזר מלשון שקמתי ֵאם‪ c‬בישראל‪ d.‬גרון—מאותיות הגרון ב׳ קלות וב׳‬
‫מ‪220 :‬א‬ ‫כבדו׳‪ .‬א״ה קלו׳ ח״ע כבדו׳ וה״א יותר קל״ה | חי״ך מאותיו׳ גיכ״ק הג׳ והיו״ד קלו׳ והכ׳ והק׳‬
‫כבדו׳ והי׳ יותר קלה‪ .‬לשו״ן מאותיו׳ ד״ט לנת הדלת והט׳ כבדות והאחרות קלות‪ .‬שניי״ם ז״ס‬
‫שר״ץ כלן כבדות והשי״ן פחות מכלן‪.‬‬
‫שפתים מאותיו׳ בומ״ף הב׳ והמ׳ והו׳ קלות והו׳ יותר קלה‪ .‬הא לך הא לך‪ e‬כ״ב אותיות‪.‬‬
‫ואמנם האותיו׳ הקלות לפעמי׳ הם שורש ולפעמים הם משמשות וסימן להם אתכנ״ה משלי״ם‪f‬‬
‫ב״ו או משה כתב אלינו אבל האותיו׳ הכבדות אינם משמשו׳ ומניעו׳ אלא לעולם הן שרש וסימן‬
‫גז״ע צד״ק חט״ר ס״ף ואולם המש]מש[ות הראשונות הראשונות יש מהן משתמשות בראש‬
‫התיבה לבד וסימן אלבש ומהם בראש ובסוף וסימנן תכ״ן היו״ם ומהקלות הקלות מאוד הן‬
‫אותיות אהו״י‪.‬‬
‫לכל אות ואות מן הכ״ב אותיות עש׳ תנועות ה׳ גדולות וה׳ קטנות‪ .‬ואלה שמותם והראשונ׳‬
‫גדולה והשני׳ קטנ׳ ממנה קמ״ץ ופתח ציר״י וסגו״ל חיר״ק עם יו״ד חר״ק בלי יו״ד חול״ם וחט״ף‬
‫קמץ שורק ושלש נקודות‪ .‬ופירו׳ תנועה מלשון נע ונד מפני שהן מניעו׳ ולתנועות הללו משרתים‬
‫עוזרין להן והן שב״א חטף פת״ח חט״ף סגול‪ .‬ולפעמי׳ השורק מתערב עמהן לשרת בתחלת‬
‫המלה ולפעמים החטף קמ״ץ ואפילו באמצע המלה כשאין אחריו דגש ולא שבא נח‪.‬‬
‫דע כי העשר ספירות נקראו אספקלריו׳ המאירו׳ והאחרונ׳ אינ׳ מאיר׳ כי יש בה טיפי חשך‬
‫רמז למ״ה‪ g‬דמיון זה אם תשים לפני אור השמש בגד פשתן לבן דק מאד יאיר השמש אורו ויוכל‬
‫האדם להביט בניצוצו ולא יזיקנו כלל‪ .‬ואם ישירים בגד שני יסבול יותר‪ .‬ואם ישים בגד שלישי‬
‫יסבול יותר‪ .‬וכ״ש אם ישים עשר בגדים אעפ״י שהם דקים כל אחד מחשיך מעט מאור השמש‬
‫עד שמגיע לעני׳ שאינ׳ מונע לעצמו מלהעמיד עיניו כנגד אורו ואינו מזיק לו כך הי׳ ספירו׳ אע״פ‬
‫שכלם מאירו׳ ומזהירו׳ יוכלו הנביאי׳ לסבול האחרונ׳ יותר מן הקרוב׳ אליה׳ ואינו דומה אור‬
‫השני׳ לראשונ׳ והשלישי לשניה וכן כלם‪:‬‬

‫‪ d‬כאן מסתיים כתב יד ותיקן‪ .‬המשך‬ ‫‪ c‬מנוקד בכ״י ו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬מנוקד בכ״י ו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬מחוק‪ .‬בכ״י ו בלבד‪.‬‬
‫התעתיק מבוסס על כ״י מ׳ בלבד‪ e .‬כפילות‪ f .‬נראה שצריך להיות ׳אתכנה משלי בו׳‪ g .‬מ״ה—‬
‫מדת הדין‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 143

The phrase from Sefer yetzirah “three a/imot”136 means three primary letters
(rashiyot). The aleph is to be vocalized with ḥirik and pronounced imot, as in
the expression “a mother arose in Israel” (Judges 5:7). Throat: of the guttural
letters two are light and two heavy: A H are light, Ḥ ʿA are heavy. The aleph is
lightest. | Palate: of the letters G Y Kh K, the gimmel and the yud are light and M: 220r
the khaf and kuf are heavy. The yud is lightest. Tongue: of the letters d”t lnt,
the dalet and the tet are heavy and the others light. Teeth: Z S Sh R Tz are all
heavy, but the shin least of all.
Lips: of the letters B V M F, the bet, the mem and the vav are light and the vav
lightest. These are twenty-two letters. Sometimes indeed the light letters form
part of the root [of a word] and sometimes they are auxiliary.137 Their sign is:
A Etkana meshalim bo (I will prepare my allegories by it), or Moshe katav eleinu
(Moses wrote to us).138 But the heavy letters are never auxiliary nor do they
vocalize, but rather they are always [part of the] root. Their sign is: G Z ʿA Tz D
K Ḥ T R S P. However, the first of the letters in use among them are letters that
are only used at the beginning of the word and their sign is A L B Sh, and of
them there are letters that appear at the beginning and the end [of the word]
and their sign is T Kh N H Y V M. Of the light letters, the lightest are the letters
A H V Y.
For every single letter of the twenty-two letters there are ten vowels, five long
and five short, and these are their names. The first is long and the second is
shorter than it: kamatz, pataḥ, tzeire, and segol. Ḥirik with a yud and ḥ[i]rik
without a yud. Ḥolam, ḥataf-kamatz, shuruk, and three dots [kubutz]. And the
meaning of the term tenuʿa (vowel) is akin to “restless wanderer” (nʿa ve-nad,
Gen 4:14), because they move. And those vowels have assistants that help them,
and they are shva, ḥataf-pataḥ, ḥataf-segol. Sometimes the shuruk joins them to
assist at the beginning of the word, and sometimes the ḥataf-kamatz appears,
even in the middle of the word when it is not followed by a dagesh [diacritic]
or a resting shva.
Know139 that the ten sefirot are called “shining specula,” but the last one does
not shine because it has drops of darkness in it, alluding to the attribute of
Din [Judgement]. This may be compared to what would happen were one to
block the light of the sun with a very fine white linen cloth through which the
sun could shine its light, enabling one to look at the rays without suffering any
harm. Were one to add another cloth, one would be able to endure more; were
yet a third cloth added, one could endure even more. And all the more so were
one to use ten cloths. Even though they are fine, each slightly darkens the light
of the sun until it reaches the eyes. In this manner, one need not avoid fixing
one’s eyes upon its light, and it does him no harm. So too the ten sefirot: even
though they shine and illuminate, the prophets could endure the final sefirah
better than the one closest to it. And the second light is not akin to the first, nor
the third to the second, and so for them all.

136 The vocalization is ambiguous in the source and will be clarified in what follows.
137 Auxiliary, as in functioning to modify a word in gender or number.
138 A mnemonic rearrangement of the letters. Such mnemonics were adduced by the Spanish
grammarian David Kimchi (1160–1235). See Kimchi 1545, 13a–b.
139 This unit is taken from Menachem Recanati’s commentary on the Torah, pericope Va-era.
See Recanati 1880, 40b.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145

‫‪144‬‬ ‫‪chajes and baumgarten‬‬

‫פ‪191 :‬ב‪ ,‬י‪26 :‬א‬ ‫יחידה ‪ :13‬טבלת הספירות‪ ,‬השם בן ד׳ אותיות‪ ,‬וספר יצירה‪a‬‬

‫‪figure 13. Jerusalem, National Library,‬‬

‫‪ms 2964, f. 26r‬‬

‫‪D‬‬ ‫‪C‬‬ ‫‪B‬‬ ‫‪A‬‬

‫קוצו של יוד‬ ‫זה שמי לעלם‬ ‫עילום‬ ‫מחשבה‬ ‫‪1‬‬
‫זה ימש לעלם‬
‫י‬ ‫ספר‬ ‫רשימה‬ ‫חכמה‬ ‫‪2‬‬
‫ה‬ ‫ספר‬ ‫חקיקה‬ ‫בינה‬ ‫‪3‬‬
‫ו‬ ‫ספור‬ ‫חציבה‬ ‫תפארת‬ ‫‪4‬‬
‫או כתיבה‬
‫ה״א אחרונה‬ ‫וזה זכר״י לדר‬ ‫מעשה‬ ‫מלכות‬ ‫‪5‬‬
‫וזה יזכ״ר לדר‬ ‫או בעל פה‬

‫בזאת הצורה קצת הערה איך הי׳ ספירו׳ שהם סוד הייחוד‪ b‬נכללת‪ c‬בשם אחד ר״ל שם בן ד׳‬
‫אותיו׳ ושהוא ית׳ הם והם הוא ונקראו ספירו׳ מצד המקבלי׳ ובלי מה‪.‬‬

‫‪ c‬י‪ :‬ונכללות‪.‬‬ ‫‪ b‬י‪ :‬היחוד‪.‬‬ ‫‪ a‬התמונה מכתב יד ירושלים‪.‬‬

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visual kabbalah in the italian renaissance 145

Unit 13: Table of the Sefirot, the Tetragrammaton, and Sefer yetzirah140 P: 191r, J: 26r

A B C D
1 Thought Hidden (ʿilum)141 This is my name Thorn of
(maḥshavah) (ShMI) for eternity the yud
This is IMSh for
eternity
2 Wisdom Tracing (reshimah) Book (sefer) Y
(Ḥokhmah)
3 Understanding Engraving (ḥakikah) Book (sefer) H
(Binah)
4 Beauty (Tiferet) Hewing (ḥatzivah) or Story (sippur) V
Writing
5 Kingdom Deed or Fully articulated This is my Final H
(Malkhut) utterance (be-ʿal peh) remembrance from
generation
This will be
remembered from
generation

In this form, a small indication of how the ten sefirot, which are the secret of
unity, are incorporated in one name, i.e., the four-letter name. And He, may He
be blessed, is they, and they are He. And they are called sefirot from the point
of view of the receivers, and are without substance (bli mah).

140 This form is found only in the Paris and Jerusalem witnesses; the reproduction here is
from the Jerusalem manuscript. The table was incorporated into the Magnificent Parch-
ment, which indicates that the creator of the latter had at his disposal a copy akin to these
witnesses, rather than to the Vatican-Munich branch of the manuscript family.
141 This term, a rather unusual form of the root ʿa-l-m that was treated in unit 12 above, is best
known from the ancient Palestinian liturgical poem or piyyut central to the Ashkenazic
rite of the High Holidays, Uʾnetaneh tokef. On this, see https://tinyurl.com/y4a72rtm. The
term was also used by the creator of the Magnificent Parchment. In his fourteenth-century
“Commentary on the Small Parchment,” Reuven Ṣarfatti wrote that the “32 pathways,”
when still in the primordial “faculty of thought,” were called “ʿilum”. See the manuscript
copied in Italy in 1392, New York, Jewish Theological Seminary ms 2367 (F 28620), f. 69r–v.

The Vatican Library Review 1 (2022) 91–145