Thesis 11>48
Latin
Quicquid dicant caeteri cabalistae, ego decem spheras sic decem numerationibus correspondere dico, ut ab aedificio incipiendo, Iupiter sit quartae, Mars quintae, Sol sextae, Saturnus septimae, Venus octauae, Mercurius nonae, Luna decimae; tum supra aedificium, firmamentum tertiae, Primum mobile secundae, caelum empyreum decimae.
Farmer prints 'caelum empyreum decimae' and judges the tenth, rather than the first, probably a slip (farmer1998:27427; farmer1998:27460). Busi and Ebgi print 'decimae (sic)' (busi2014:24622) and Howlett 'decimae' (howlett2021:7779). Akopyan's Latin reads 'celum Empyreum prima', in a text he says follows Farmer's edition with some corrections, while his English keeps 'tenth' (akopyan2018:745; akopyan2018:569; akopyan2018:737). Akopyan also omits 'ab' before 'edificio' and reads 'cum supra' for 'tum supra' (akopyan2018:744).
English
Let the other Cabalists say what they will: my claim is that the ten spheres answer to the ten numerations in this way. Beginning from the edifice, Jupiter goes with the fourth, Mars with the fifth, the Sun with the sixth, Saturn with the seventh, Venus with the eighth, Mercury with the ninth, the Moon with the tenth; then, above the edifice, the firmament goes with the third, the primum mobile with the second, and the empyrean heaven with the tenth. unverified draft
'numerationes' is the Latin rendering of the sefirot (wirszubski1989:7453). The 'edifice' (aedificium) is the fourth to tenth sefirot (farmer1998:27453). The final 'decimae' is translated as printed; see latin_note.
Doctrine
Against 'the other Cabalists', Pico sets out a one-to-one correspondence between the ten celestial spheres and the ten numerations (farmer1998:27423). The numerations are the sefirot, the ten emanated powers of God in theosophical Kabbalah, which Pico's Latin sources call numerationes (farmer1998:27453; wirszubski1989:7451). In order they are Crown (Keter), Wisdom (Hokmah), Intelligence (Binah), Piety (Hesed), Judgment (Gevurah), Glory (Tiferet), Eternity (Nesah), Splendour (Hod), Foundation (Yesod) and Kingdom (Malkut) (wirszubski1989:7066; busi2014:13589; busi2014:15728). The 'edifice' is the fourth to tenth sefirot, and Pico starts there: Jupiter to Piety, Mars to Judgment, the sun to Glory, Saturn to Eternity, Venus to Splendour, Mercury to Foundation, the moon to Kingdom (farmer1998:27453; farmer1998:27424). Above the edifice the firmament goes to the third, the primum mobile to the second and the empyrean to the tenth, which Farmer judges a slip for the first (farmer1998:27426; farmer1998:27460). In the Heptaplus Pico counts the planets upward from the moon as Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (dougherty2008:7938). The thesis departs from that order, setting Saturn and Venus at the seventh and eighth with Mercury at the ninth, and Busi and Ebgi explain Mercury's place by the role of Yesod as mediator between Nesah, which receives Saturn, and Hod, which receives Venus (farmer1998:27425; busi2014:13589).
unverified draft
Context
Wirszubski uses the thesis to identify the unnamed science that the Apology calls the supreme part of natural magic, the science 'de virtutibus rerum superiorum quae sunt supra lunam': because 11>48 sets out the complete correspondence of sefirot and spheres, he concludes that this science is the counterpart of the doctrine of the ten sefirot (wirszubski1989:7315; wirszubski1989:7339). The thesis also supplies the key to 11>50, where sons are to be asked of the seventh and eighth, and Wirszubski ties that thesis to a passage of Gikatilla's Portae Iustitiae on petitioning Eternity and Splendour for children (wirszubski1989:7494; wirszubski1989:7498). Farmer counters that for Pico the inferior chariot of 11>50 is the realm of sensible natures, so that the petitions go not to the sefirot but to the bodies that 11>48 assigns to them, Saturn and Venus, or to lower natures (farmer1998:27454). Akopyan notes that Pico had placed the ten spheres in a Neoplatonic frame in the Commento and gives them a Kabbalistic version in the Conclusiones and again in the Heptaplus (akopyan2018:679; akopyan2018:709). The German study of Pico's epistemology and Christian Kabbalah (key kabbalah_paradigma; author not confirmed in the corpus copy) reports Idel's finding that Pico, like Ricci after him, drew on Isaac ibn Latif's Sha'ar ha-Shamayim (kabbalah_paradigma:1637).
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Reception
The thesis is not among those the commission censured: Blum observes that the Cabalistic theses according to Pico's own opinion went unchallenged (dougherty2008:2808). Copenhaver counts it among five emphatic first-person statements about Kabbalah in the second group of theses (copenhaver2019:17047). Sheila Rabin cites it first among four Kabbalistic theses on astrology, which she takes to show that astrology was integral to the magical and Kabbalistic outlook of the Conclusions (dougherty2008:7887; dougherty2008:7910). Black argues that in the Heptaplus the link between sefirot and spheres survives only as a shared structure, the number ten, without the names and attributes that made the sefirot an exegetical tool (black2006:8342; black2006:8348).
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Historiography
Farmer reads the correlation as a forced fit: the theses give ten spheres, which calls for awkward adjustments to Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology, partly so as to match the ten sefirot, the Ten Commandments and the ten operations of the soul (farmer1998:4748; farmer1998:4781). He adds that such vertical one-to-one correspondences clashed with Pico's emanationist metaphysics and fed his ambiguous views of astrology (farmer1998:4769; farmer1998:4805). The German study reads the scheme theologically, with firmament, primum mobile and empyrean answering to the quasi-Trinitarian first three sefirot, the moon to Malchut and the soul, and the sun to Tipheret (kabbalah_paradigma:1543; kabbalah_paradigma:1552). Howlett relates the thesis to the Heptaplus image of ten heavens, in which the tenth heaven is the unity of lights (howlett2021:7327; howlett2021:7329). Akopyan holds that the astrology of the Conclusiones is descriptive and contains no idea of astrological predestination (akopyan2018:714). The editor notes that the reading of the last word decides whether the scheme has a single summit: with 'decimae' the empyrean and the moon share Kingdom, whereas the Trinitarian reading of the German study presupposes the empyrean at the first (farmer1998:27427; kabbalah_paradigma:1543).
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Pico's sources
- Isaac ibn Latif, Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, as Pico's source for the parallel of spheres and sefirot in the Heptaplus, according to Idel as reported by the German study (key kabbalah_paradigma): reported source for the later form of the scheme; not checked against Idel's study (kabbalah_paradigma:1637)
Quotations cited
- “rather than with the first, as we would expect” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:27461)
- “outlined the correspondence between the ten sefirot and the ten spheres” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:7496)
- “All that remains is the residue: the number ten” — Crofton Black, Pico's Heptaplus and Biblical Hermeneutics (black2006:8351)
Not established
- The witness for Akopyan's reading 'prima' (akopyan2018:745); none is named in the sources consulted.
- Why the planets depart from their order in the Heptaplus; the explanation of Mercury's place by Busi and Ebgi (busi2014:13589) covers one planet only.
- Idel's study reported at kabbalah_paradigma:1637 was not in the corpus consulted, and whether it concerns this thesis or only the Heptaplus is not established.
Discussed in
- Ovanes Akopyan, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Astrology (1486-1493): From Scientia Naturalis to the Disputationes (2018)
- Ovanes Akopyan, Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (2021)
- Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (2014)
- M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (2008)
- Sophia Howlett, Re-evaluating Pico: Aristotelianism, Kabbalism, and Platonism in the Philosophy of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (2021)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
Farmer's cross-references
- 11>2 Quicquid dicant alii cabaliste, ego partem speculatiuam cabalae quadruplicem diuiderem, conrespondenter quadruplici partition: philosophiae
- 11>49 Qui sciuerit correspondentiam decem preceptorum ad prohibentia per coniunctionem ueritatis astrologicae cum ueritate theologica, uidebit ex
- 11>50 Cum dicunt cabalistae a septima et octaua petendos filios, ita dicas in merchiaua inferiori accipi, ut ab una petatur ut det, ab altera ne p
- 28.22 Licet fiat multiplex coordinatio curruum, tamen inquantum attinet ad phylacteriorum mysterium duo sunt currus ordinandi, ita ut ex secunda,
- 28.9 Per sex dies geneseos habemus intelligere sex extremitates aedificii procedentes a Bresith, sicut procedunt cedri a Libano.