Elia del Medigo

This article is about Elia del Medigo. For his descendant, the 17th-century scientist and philosopher, seeJoseph Solomon Delmedigo.

Elia del Medigo

Elia del Medigo,also calledElijah DelmedigoorElias ben Moise del Medigoand sometimes known to his contemporaries asHelias Hebreus Cretensisor in HebrewElijah Mi-Qandia(c. 1458 – c. 1493). According to Jacob Joshua Ross, "while the non-Jewish students of Delmedigo may have classified him as an “Averroist”,he clearly saw himself as a follower ofMaimonides".But, according to other scholars, Delmedigo was clearly a strong follower of Averroes' doctrines, even the more radical ones: unity of intellect, eternity of the world, autonomy of reason from the boundaries of revealed religion.

Born inCandia,on the island ofCrete(which at that time was under the control of theVenetian Republic), whither his family had emigrated fromGermany,he spent ten years inRomeand inPaduain northernItaly,returning to Candia at the end of his life.

He is remembered for a number of translations, commentaries onAverroes(Ibn Rushdin Arabic) (notably a commentary onAverroes'Substantia Orbisin 1485), for his influence on many ItalianPlatonistsof the earlyRenaissance(especially GiovanniPico della Mirandola), and for his treatise on Jewish philosophy,Sefer Beḥinat ha-Dat(The Examination of Religion), published many years after his death, in 1629.

Biography

Del Medigo had a traditional religious upbringing in Candia, demonstrating considerable breadth. In addition to rabbinic learning, he studied philosophy, and had a good knowledge of Italian,Greek,as well asLatinandHebrew.It is likely that he also studied medicine, and it may have been with that intention that he originally went toPadua,where the University was the most important center for traditionalAristotelian philosophyin Italy. By 1480, he was inVenice,where he wroteQuaestio utrum mundus sit effectus,and supported himself by giving classes inAristotelianphilosophy attended by the sons of wealthy and important families.

He moved toPerugiaand taught classes in "radical Aristotelianism," that is, heavily interpreted with the ideas ofAverroesand other Islamic commentators. Del Medigo became quite well known as a majorAverroistin Italy. While in Perugia, he metPico della Mirandola,and wrote two pamphlets for him.

Another important student of del Medigo's at that time wasDomenico Grimani,a Venetian, who eventually became theCardinalofSan Marco.Grimani proved to be a consistent patron, and with his encouragement, del Medigo wrote several manuscripts which received wide distribution among Italian philosophers.

He stayed in close contact withPico della Mirandola,traveling toFlorence,the site ofMarsilio Ficino's Platonic Academy, to give classes and to translate manuscripts from Hebrew to Latin for Pico.

In the end, however, Del Medigo was noKabbalist,and he became disenchanted with thesyncreticdirection Pico and his colleagues were moving in, a tendency to combine concepts of magic,HermeticismandKabbalahwithPlatoandNeoplatonism.

In addition to his increasing disappointment with Pico, he was somewhat discredited himself by the backlash from Pico's imprisonment and the interdiction by the Vatican of his 900 Theses. Furthermore, tension arose between del Medigo and the Italian Jewish community over his secular intellectual interests and his associations with gentile scholars. As a consequence of the financial difficulties he experienced in the wake of Pico's disfavor, del Medigo decided to leave Italy for good. He went back to Crete, where he spent the last years of his life. During this period, del Medigo returned to Jewish thought, writing theSefer Bechinat Ha-dathfor his students, in which he clarified his disagreement with the magical and Kabbalistic theories that inspired Pico'sOration on the Dignity of Man,and expounded his belief that a human being cannot aspire to become a god, and thatJudaismrequires that a man must "fight for rationality, sobriety and the realization of [his] human limitations."^[1]

Delmedigo argued against the antiquity of the Kabbalah, noting that it was not known to the sages of the Talmud, or to the geonim, or toRashi.He also denies thatRabbi Shimon bar Yochaiwas the author of theZohar,since that work mentions people who lived after the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. In addition, he attacks the esoteric allegorists among Jewish philosophers. In another section of his work Delmedigo discusses the intellectual reasoning underlying the commandments of Torah (ta'amei ha-mitzvot).

His descendantJoseph Delmedigowas a famous rabbi, philosopher and a staunch defender of the Kabbalah.

Popular culture

Elia del Medigo is likely the inspiration for the fictional character Judah del Medigo, in "The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi" by Jacqueline Park.

See also

• Greek scholars in the Renaissance

Notes

1. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on del Medigo --http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/delmedigo/downloaded 1/17/2006.

References

• TheJewish Encyclopedia,article onAverroeism–[2]
• Italian Ashkenazi website –[3]
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyarticle on del Medigo –[4]
• Paul Oskar Kristeller,Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance.Stanford University Press (Stanford California, 1964.)
• Giovanni Licata, "Delmedigo, Elijah", in Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. M. Sgarbi, 2019[5]
• Sefer Behinat Hadatof Elijah Del-Medigo,critical editionwith introduction, notes and commentary by Jacob Joshua Ross, Tel-Aviv: Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, 1984
• Giovanni Licata,La via della ragione. Elia del Medigo e l’averroismo di Spinoza,Eum, Macerata, 2013, pp. 1–422,ISBN978-88-6056-352-1.The book contains Hebrew text and Italian translation of Elia del Medigo’s "Sefer Beḥinat ha-Dat"
• The Medieval World – Europe 1100–1350by Friedrich Heer.
• Michael Engel, "Elijah Del Medigo and Paduan Aristotelianism", Bloomsbury, 2016