Experimental Science and Kabbalah in the Works of Francesco Giorgio (1466-1540)

The article deals with the role played by experimental science, or rather the attitude of the author towards experience and its possible relationship with Kabbalah, in the works, published and unpublished, by the Venetian Franciscan Francesco Giorgio (Zorzi). The author, well-known as a theologian, a Biblica exegete and an erudite, attributed the utmost importance to the Kabbalistic literature, showing a high degree of expertise in the matter. At the same time he took any opportunity to underline the epistemological value of experience and experimental knowledge in battling the Aristotelian-Averroistic worldview then prevailing in the academic world. a possible link between these two trends, apparently remote, is explored by delving into specific case studies, such as the Kabbalistically oriented mathematical understanding of natural phenomena and the magical-medicinal usage of prodigious liquids appearing miraculously in the cell of the nun Chiara Bugni, of the Venitian convent of Santo Sepolcro. Avoiding anachronism one can still see a robust inclination towards the natural verificaion of abstruse theories as a possible "franciscan" way of battling "dominican" thomism wich, although defeated by the Catholic reaction, stood as a possible Hermetic way of renewing the academic mindset decades before Francesco Patrizi and Giordano Bruno.