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Isaac ha-Kohen’s Letter to Marco Lippomano: Jewish-Christian Exchange and Arabic Learning in Renaissance Italy

This article publishes and extensively analyzes a previously unstudied Hebrew letter sent by Isaac ha-Kohen, a Jewish scholar from Syracuse, to the learned Venetian politician Marco Lippomano (ca. 1390-ca. 1446). Written at the latter's clear request, this epistle offers a brief introduction to the Arabic verbal system and was probably composed in the 1420s or 30s. Already recognized as an accomplished Hebraist, thanks to this letter we now know that Lippomano sought to learn Arabic as well, in one of the earliest documented cases of interest in the language in the context of the Italian Renaissance. The article argues that Lippomano's motivation was, as it had been in the case of Hebrew, primarily scientific in nature and suggests that he was specifically interested in learning Judeo-Arabic. It notes how Isaac draws upon Sephardic paradigms concerning the relationship between the languages of "Sarah" and "Hagar" in deducing that Arabic, like Hebrew, has seven "buildings" or verbal stem formations. And it further observes that the verb tables at the letter's core offer an important indication as to the continued vitality of Sicilian Judeo-Arabic into the fifteenth century. It also uses Isaac's letter to highlight the neglected linguistic element of Sicilian Jewish scholarship. Finally, this article places this unique document in a larger context of shared economic discourse concerning Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange. The article concludes with an listing and discussing all known manuscripts associated with this Isaac ha-Kohen, helping bring to light a clearly important, but previously neglected, Sicilian Jewish scholar.