Hebrew Fragments and Kabbalistic Diagrams in the Urbino State Archive
Résumé
This article focuses on kabbalistic diagrams that were discovered as part of reused Hebrew fragments in Urbino State Archive; their analysis makes it possible to recognise, and to reconstruct, the whole text or the manuscript from which they derive. First the historical background of the Hebrew manuscripts’ reuse in the Urbino State Archive, Cancelleria del Luogotenente and Fondo Notarile, is described and an introduction to the findings’ typologies is provided. Then my analysis deals with fragments that once belonged to a unique kabbalistic miscellanea. I virtually reconstruct at least part of this anthology that was penned by an Italian non square Hebrew hand and should be dated to the fifteenth century. The diagrams extant in four fragments of this miscellanea - from the treatise Massekhet Hekhalot (The tractate of the Palaces) and from Yosef ben Shalom Ashkenazi's Commentary on Sefer Yeṣirah - are extremely precious for the virtual reconstruction of the original mise en page of the copy.