Leaves from two practical Kabbalistic manuscripts including combinations of the Divine Name, Angelic writing, magical squares, names of Angels and amulet-designs, in Hebrew, manuscript on vellum

Leaves from two manuscripts containing Kabbalistic treatises, with Angelic script, the so-called 'Celestial Alphabet'

provenance

From the collection of the Oriental linguist, Antonio Assemani, professor of the Archgymnasium of Rome in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was a member of the prolific academic family of Syriac Maronites of Mount Lebanon, Syria, who distinguished themselves in the eighteenth and nineteenth century as researchers in Oriental languages and manuscript collectors. From the same collection as lot 16 below, and most probably given by Assemani to his contemporary Professor Emiliano Sarti, who was also a member of staff in the Archgymnasium of Rome, as well as the Vatican Library and the College di Propaganda Fide. From him to Michele Amari (d. 1899) of Florence, the Orientalist and Italian patriot.

text

These leaves are from two Kabbalistic treatises of the late fourteenth or fifteenth century. By that date the study of the mystic and esoteric inner meanings of the Hebrew Bible and traditional Rabbinic literature had reached a fully developed form, with texts of the Sefer Yetzirah and Hekalot becoming popular in European Jewish circles between the eighth and eleventh centuries, and leading to the formation of a number of secretive mystical brotherhoods, such as the Hasidei Ashkenaz or 'German Pietists' in the thirteenth century. Other developments in the thirteenth century in Spain laid the groundwork for the composition of Sefer Zohar, the first truly 'popular' work of Kabbalah, and the most influential. From this text the study branched out into an extensive body of medieval literature which divides roughly into two camps: one of which is primarily involved with philosophical discussion of the nature of things, and the other, represented in the manuscripts here, which seeks to provide a practical step-by-step guide to using signs, words and prayers imbued with supernatural powers to ensure well-being.

These manuscripts include an array of diagrams and short treatises on the combination of the Divine Names, names of angels, and a variety of formulas for the production of amulets and protective prayers. In particular, item (b) includes so-called magical squares and circles, and item (a) includes a number of examples of Angelic script or the so-called 'Celestial Alphabet', specifying ritual-processes to use these signs and prayers; stating on one page that the user must write a particular line in angelic script for three days in a row on every hour, whilst reciting the names of angels and a Hebrew prayer.

Forms of this script have captured the imagination of Jews and their Christian neighbours for centuries. The idea of an angelic script seems to have developed from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which contains a great deal of information on angels, and specifies that God gave Enoch his revelations by using an angel as an intermediary. This contact implied some form of language, and as numerous mystics and scholars in both the Jewish and Christian worlds took interest in angelology, so interest in the various forms of this script have followed suit. The Renaissance saw a boom in such fascination, and the Elizabethan alchemist, occultist and mathematician John Dee (1527-1608/9) recorded in his diary in 1581 that God had sent "good angels" to communicate with his prophets, and he kept a number of books containing angelic script close by him when scrying with spirits, adding to them in an attempt to distil a celestial language from the various traditions and his own experiments. It is no surprise therefore that item (a) has been glossed throughout in Latin by an apparently early modern hand, presumably by a Christian mystic or scholar engaged in similar study.