Un frammento sconosciuto dello pseudo-Zohar nella Roma del Rinascimento

A hitherto unknown fragment of the Pseudo-Zohar, i.e. a fabrication, probably of Spanish origin, in Aramaic, prophesizing the divine origin, the passion and the resurrection of Jesus, has been discovered in the guard sheets of an incunabulum (the Soncino vocalized Bible of 1488), and it is preserved in the Vatican Library (sign. Stamp. Barb. AAA.I.126). The owner of the incunabulum, Veriano da Toscanella, who copied the pseudo-zoharic text and narrated how he had been able to obtain it from a certain Hieronymus of Tudela, most likely a Jewish convert, was a member of the Roman clergy at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The text of the fragment is edited and its wider context, the dissemination of pseudo-zoharic texts in the Renaissance, is reconstructed in constant reference to the mixture of polemical attitudes and veneration for ancient Jewish texts characterizing the Renaissance and specifically, the Christian Kabbalah.