Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

and the Kabbalah

A long-time running project, started in 2003 and partly funded by the Italian Ministry of University, focuses on the humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494). Pico, famous for his wide-ranging culture, had also a deep interest for the kabbalah. In 1486 he had an entire kabbalistic library translated for him by the Jewish convert Flavius Mithridates. These texts are fundamental to understand Pico's philosophy as well as the whole European Humanism. They are now being critically edited and translated into English. The series is a joint project edited by Giulio Busi and carried out by the Institut für Judaistik of the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento (Firenze, Italy). It aims to bring to light the real contents of a central undertaking of the Renaissance that remained inaccessible for centuries. Five volumes have been published so far.