A celebrated Jewish doctor, Guglielmo (Benjamin?) di Portaleone, of Mantua, first was physician in ordinary to Ferdinand of Naples, who ennobled him; he next entered the service of Duke Galeazzo Sforza, of Milan, and in 1479 became body physician to Duke Ludovico Gonzaga. He was the founder of a noble house and of a long line of skillful Italian physicians. There even arose an intimate relation between Jews and Christians in Italy. When a wealthy Jew—Leo, of Crema—on the marriage of his son, arranged magnificent festivities which lasted eight days, a great number of Christians took part, dancing and enjoying themselves to the intense displeasure of the clergy. Totally forgotten seemed the bull in which Nicholas V had quite recently forbidden under heavy penalties all intercourse of Christians with Jews, as well as the employment of Jewish physicians. In place of the canonically prescribed livery of degradation, the Jewish doctors wore robes of honor like Christians of similar standing; while the Jews connected with the courts wore golden chains and other honorable insignia. The contrast between the condition of Jews in Italy and that of their brethren in other lands is well illustrated by two similar incidents, occurring simultaneously in Italy and Germany, but differing greatly in their issues.
The mother of a family in Pavia, in consequence of differences with her husband, had given notice of her desire to be received into the Catholic Church. She was put into a convent where she was to be prepared for baptism. The bishop's vicar, with other spiritual advisers, was earnestly occupied with the salvation of her soul, when she was suddenly seized with remorse. The bishop of Pavia, far from punishing her for this relapse, or seeking to oppose her desire, interceded for her with her husband. He advised him to take her out of the convent forthwith, and testified most favorably as to her behavior, so that her husband, a descendant of the family of Aaron, might not be obliged, under the Jewish law, to put her away.
In the same year a spiteful fellow in Ratisbon, Kalmann, a precentor (Chazan), took the fancy to turn Christian. He frequented the convent, attended church, and at length the bishop received him in his house, and instructed him in the Christian religion. To curry favor with the Christians he calumniated his fellow-believers by asserting that they possessed blasphemous writings against Christianity. Kalmann also came to rue the step he had taken. He secretly attended the synagogue, and at length, during the absence of the bishop, left his house, and returned to the Jews. The clergy of Ratisbon were infuriated against him, arraigned him before the Inquisition, and charged him with having sought to blaspheme the church, God, and the blessed Virgin. He was specially charged with having said that, if baptized, he would remain a Christian only till he found himself at liberty. On the strength of this, he was condemned, and put to death by drowning.
Wherever even a little indulgence was granted the Jews, their dormant energy revived; and the Italian Jews were able to display it all the sooner from the fact that they had gained a certain degree of culture in the days of Immanuel and Leone Romano. They took an active part in the intellectual revival and scientific renascence which distinguished the times of the Medici. Jewish youths attended the Italian universities, and acquired a liberal education. The Italian Jews were the first to make use of the newly-discovered art of Gutenberg, and printing-houses soon rose in many parts of Italy—in Reggio, Ferrara, Pieva di Sacco, Bologna, Soncino, Iscion, and Naples. In the artistic creations of the time, however, in painting and sculpture, the Jews had no share. These lay outside their sphere. But several educated Jews did not a little for the advancement and spread of science in Italy. Two deserve especial mention: Messer Leon and Elias del Medigo, the latter of whom not only received the light of science, but also shed it abroad.
Messer Leon, or, by his Hebrew name, Judah ben Yechiel, of Naples, flourished between 1450 and 1490, and was both rabbi and physician in Mantua. In addition to being thoroughly versed in Hebrew literature, he was a finished Latin scholar, and had a keen appreciation of the subtleties of Cicero's and Quintilian's style. Belonging to the Aristotelian school, he expounded several of the writings of the philosopher so highly esteemed in synagogue and church, and wrote a grammar and a book on logic, in the Hebrew language, for Jewish students. More important than these writings is his Hebrew rhetoric (Nófeth Zufim), in which he lays down the laws upon which the grace, force and eloquence of the higher style depend, and proves that the same laws underlie sacred literature. He was the first Jew to compare the language of the Prophets and Psalmists with Cicero's—certainly a hardy undertaking in those days when the majority of Jews and Christians held the Scriptures in such infinite reverence that a comparison with profane pagan literature must have seemed a species of blasphemy. Of course, this was possible only in the times of the Medici, when love for Greek and Latin antiquities rose to positive enthusiasm. Messer Leon, the learned rabbi of Mantua, was liberal in all respects. He was never weary of rebuking the formal pietists for striving to withhold foreign influences from Judaism, as though it could be profaned by them. He was rather of opinion that Judaism could only gain by comparisons with the culture of the ancient classical literatures, since thereby its beauty and sublimity would be brought to light.
Elias del Medigo, or Elias Cretensis (1463–1498), the scion of a German family that had emigrated to Crete, is a striking figure in later Jewish history. He was the first great man produced by Italian Judaism. His was a mind that shone clearly and brilliantly out of the clouds which obscured his age; the mind of a man of varied and profound knowledge, and of both classical and philosophical culture. So completely had he assimilated the Latin literary style that he was able, not only to issue works in that language, but also to present Hebrew syntax under Latin analogies.
Medigo kept aloof from the vacuity of Italian sciolists, who were under the spell of the newly-discovered neo-Platonic philosophy introduced by Ficinus. He gave allegiance to those sound thinkers, Aristotle, Maimuni, and Averroes, whose systems he made known to Christian inquirers in Italy, by tongue and pen, through the medium of translations and in independent works. That youthful prodigy of his time, Count Giovanni Pico di Mirandola, made the acquaintance of Medigo, and became his disciple, friend and protector. Mirandola, who was a marvel by reason of his wonderful memory, wide erudition, and dialectic skill, and was, moreover, on friendly terms with the ruling house of the Medicis in Tuscany, learnt from his Jewish friend the Hebrew language, and the Arabic development of the Aristotelian philosophy, but he might also have learnt clearness of thought from him.
On one occasion a quarrel on a learned subject broke out in the University of Padua. The professors and students were divided into two parties, and, according to Christian custom, were on the point of settling the question with rapier and poniard. The University, acting with the Venetian senate, which was desirous of ending the dispute, called upon Elias del Medigo to act as umpire. Everyone confidently expected a final settlement from his erudition and impartiality. Del Medigo argued out the theme, and by the weight of his decision brought the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. The result was that he became a public lecturer on philosophy, and discoursed to large audiences in Padua and Florence. The spectacle was, indeed, notable. Under the very eyes of the papacy, ever striving for the humiliation and enslavement of the Jews, Christian youths were imbibing wisdom from the lips of a Jewish teacher. Against the protectors of Jews in Spain it hurled the thunders of excommunication, while in Italy it was forced passively to behold favors constantly showered upon the Jews by Christians.
Pico di Mirandola, a scholar rather than a thinker, took a fancy to plunge into the abysses of the Kabbala. He was initiated into the Kabbalistic labyrinth by a Jew, Jochanan Aleman, who had emigrated from Constantinople to Italy. Aleman, himself a confused thinker, made him believe that the secret doctrine was of ancient origin, and contained the wisdom of the ages. Mirandola, who had a marvelous faculty of assimilation, soon familiarized himself with the Kabbalistic formulæ, and discovered confirmations of Christian dogma in them; in fact, he found far more of Christianity than of Judaism. The extravagances of the Kabbala demonstrated in his eyes the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, the Fall of the Angels, Purgatory, and Eternal Punishment. He lost no time in translating several Kabbalistic writings from Hebrew into Latin in order to bring this occult lore to the knowledge of Christian readers. Among the nine hundred points which Pico, at the age of twenty-four, pledged himself to defend—to which end he invited all the learned of the world to Rome, and undertook to pay the cost of their journeys—was this: No science affords more certainty as to the Godhead of Christ than Kabbala and magic! Even Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was by this means so strongly attracted to the Kabbala that he was eager to procure Latin translations of Kabbalistic writings for the benefit of the Catholic faith.
It is a striking proof of his sober mind and healthy judgment that Elias del Medigo kept himself aloof from all this mental effeminacy and childish enthusiasm for the pseudo-doctrine of the Kabbala. He had profound contempt for the Kabbalistic phantom, and did not hesitate to expose its worthlessness. He had the courage openly to express his opinion that the Kabbala is rooted in an intellectual swamp, that no trace of this doctrine is to be found in the Talmud, that the recognized authorities of ancient Judaism knew nothing of it, and that its supposed sacred and ancient groundwork, the Zohar, was by no means the work of the celebrated Simon bar Yochaï, but the production of a forger. In short, he considered the Kabbala to be made up of the rags and tatters of the neo-Platonic school.