(Paulus Israelite”). De sexcentum et tredecim Mosaice sanctionis edictus.

RICIUS, PAULUS

Jacob de Burgofranco

Pavia

1510

Four parts in one volume. FIRST EDITIONS. Four title pages, first two printed in red and black. Printer’s mark on last leaf of Parts I-III. Opening letters historiated.

Not in Adams

Probably of German origin, Ricius was baptised in Italy in about 1505. He became professor of philosophy and medicine at Pavia and during that period, established connections with the Court of France. After 1514, he was physician to Emperor Maximilliam I in Augsburg and in 1530, Emperor Ferdinand I made him Baron of Sprinzenstein. Ricius was one of the few apostate Jews of the age who made a serious contribution to Christian Hebraism. He knew both Reuchelin and Erasmus, and in 1521, was named Professor of Hebrew at Pavia. He translated Jewish and Muslim texts and wrote a series of works designed to confirm the Christian faith and refute Jewish arguments by means of the Kabbalah. The present treatises, evidently issued together, are among his earliest published works. The first concerns the 613 edicts of the Mosaic law. The second, a disputaion with the synagogue and defense of the Christian faith on philosophic, prophetic and Talmudic grounds. The third, an introduction to the learning of the Kabbalists or allegorizers; and the fourth, a compendium of the nine categories of doctrine and its relation with the dogma of the philosophers. See Contemporaries of Erasmus, vol. III, pp. 158-60; F. Secret, Les Kabbalistes Chretiens de la Renaissance (1964) pp. 87-99 and Notes sur Paulus Ricius et la Kabbale Chretienne en Italie, in Rinascimento, vol. XI (1906) pp. 169-92; EJ, XIV cols. 163-4.