General

Title

Vatican Borg.ebr. 21 Ilan

Manuscript name

Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat.ebr. Borg.ebr. 21 Ilan

Summary

This seventeenth-century Italian copy of a classical ilan that goes back to the fourteenth century demonstrates the ongoing relevance of such artifacts even in an era typically presumed to have been dominated by the Lurianic Kabbalah. It preserves the core content associated with the genre from its inception: names and appellations associated with each of the ten sefirot inscribed in the medallions, networking principles inscribed in or adjacent to the channels that connect the sefirot. Ein Sof is represented as a medallion above the arboreal figure, its bottom half blackened to signify its impenetrability to human thought. A clear channel connects the top half of Ein Sof to the highest sefirah of Keter. A rectangular double-lined frame follows the cut of the parchment and a double-lined circle frames the central arboreal figure. Though likely intended to serve as an organizational device to distinguish the tree from the material below it, the circle may have also been intended symbolically to signal the realm of the holy. The scribe has added two additional diagrams in the substantial space that remained beneath the arboreal figure. To the left, ten sefirot are represented as concentric circles formed of the acrostics of their respective names. This diagram is known from the ca.1400 work Meirat 'einayim of R. Isaac of Acre. To the right, the ten sefirot are represented in the form of an alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet that also has the numberical value of one.

Layout

1

Support material

parchment

Form

http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300028629

Identifier

MS Borg.ebr. 21

Alternative identifier

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Repository

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Country

http://ontologi.es/place/VAT

Settlement

Vatican

Dimensions

Measure

1 sheet

Width

34.5 cm

Height

55.5 cm

Creation time