On the Mysteries of the Law. A Conversation Between Pietro Aretino and Rabbi Elijah Menahem Halfan

The author reconstructs the intellectual encounter between two significant 16th-century scholars, who spent part of their lives in Venice, the Jewish kabbalist Elijah Menahem Halfan and the Christian writer Pietro Aretino. The critical analysis of a letter sent by Aretino to Halfan, his Jewish physician, sheds light on the important role played by the traditional Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures for both Jews and non-Jews in the cultured Italian Renaissance society.