EGIDIO DA VITERBO°

EGIDIO DA VITERBO° (c. 1465–1532), Italian ecclesiastical statesman and humanist. He entered the Augustinian order in 1488. The papal Curia utilized his diplomatic talents and in 1517 Leo X made him a cardinal; he was also bishop of Viterbo. For many years he maintained elijah levita in his entourage in Rome, Levita instructing the cardinal in rabbinics and Jewish mysticism and himself obtaining instruction in Greek. He was also among reuchlin 's correspondents (Illustrium … epistolae … ad … Reuchlin, Hagenau, 1519, 97–98) and entertained the false messiah david reuveni . Egidio's interests in Jewish (particularly kabbalistic) studies were very considerable. In addition to projecting a plan for translating David Kimḥi's dictionary he translated (or sponsored translations of) extracts of the Zohar and various esoteric tracts (Ginnat Egoz, Razi'el, etc.; also portions of Menahem Recanati's commentary), and composed a treatise on the Ten sefirot (all preserved in manuscript: Paris Mss. 527, 596–8, 3363, 3367, Angelica Ms. 3). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vogelstein-Rieger, 2 (1896), passim; G. Signorelli, Il Cardinale Egidio da Viterbo … (1929); G.E. Weil, Elie Lévita … (1963), 203–11 and passim; C. Astruc and J. Monfrin, in: Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance, 23 (1961), 551–4; A. Palmieri, in: Dictionnaire Theologique Catholique, 6 (1920), 1365–71; F. Secret, Le Zôhar chez les Kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (1958), index. (Raphael Loewe)