Moses da Rieti and His Miqdash me'at

Born in Rieti, northeast of Rome, Moses ben Isaac da Rieti (in Italian, Moisè di Gaio; 1388-after 1460) occupies a unique place in the history of medieval Hebrew literature, as the author of one of the most ambitious literary undertakings of the age, the Hebrew poem Miqdash meʿat (The Little Temple). Composed beginning in 1415/16 and comprising about 4,800 lines, the poem is a sort of Hebrew response to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, borrowing the meter and the general format of the Italian poem, but it is nonetheless original in important respects.¹

Rieti later became dissatisfied with the work ("I built stanzas on nothingness," he wrote), finding it not sufficiently "Jewish" in either its meter (which is imported from Italian, i.e., Christian, poetry) or in content (the amount of space given to "profane" science).² He therefore forged a new, highly personal, and sometimes enigmatic rhymed-prose style in which he composed shorter texts, such as the philosophical and mystical dialogue Iggeret yaʿar halevanon and the elegy on the death of his wife.³ It should be noted, however, that this order of composition is only hypothetical, as, with the exception of Miqdash meʿat, his works are not dated.

Rieti's poetry, like his prose, concentrates primarily on philosophical concerns. It could be said that for him the writing served the idea, or that the idea found its best expression in artistic endeavor. Rieti's originality as a philosopher is hard to assess, but as a writer he certainly displays an originality of tone that foreshadows changes in Jewish Italian culture on the cusp between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, changes that parallel those of the Renaissance in general European literature. His writing emphasizes an intense desire for learning, accompanied by a degree of intellectual frustration.

The biographical information available for Moses ben Isaac da Rieti consists of personal references in Miqdash meʿat, in other Hebrew and Italian texts with Jewish content, and in Latin documents from his places of residence and the papal chancellery. A few sparse, cursory references by his students complete the current, incomplete picture we have of him.⁴

A teacher in the yeshivas of central Italy (Latium and Umbria), Rieti was held in high esteem by his contemporaries as well as by the generations that immediately followed. One student called him haʾeshel hagadol—"great oak"—meaning a strong, reliable intellectual point of reference. Copyists transcribed several copies of his works. A concern for pedagogy impelled him to publish Filosofia naturale e fatti di Dio, a popularizing treatise on physics and metaphysics written in Italian, with the Italian transliterated into Hebrew characters.⁵ Rieti was also highly respected by Christians, who appreciated his professional qualities and his dedication as a physician. In 1458, Pope Pius II conferred on him full authorization to treat Christian patients, who had reservations about being under the care of Jewish physicians. The document referred to him as a reliable man who had healed "almost innumerable quantities" of patients. Rieti left a medical work in Hebrew, Liqqutim merefuʾot (Collectae therapeuticae).⁶ The archives of Rieti's hometown also reveal another activity—that of banker, in which capacity he seems to have had exclusive rights among the Jewish population.

Though it drew on the traditions of rabbinic literature about the fate of the righteous after death, Miqdash meʿat took Dante's Paradiso as its model. Yet Rieti's poem has less of the character of an initiatory journey than does Dante's. It is more like an encyclopedia in verse, in keeping with both Jewish and Christian medieval tradition, in which secular knowledge mingles with sacred knowledge in a narrative setting lacking any real continuity. The poem's structure reproduces that of the Temple in Jerusalem, with its three parts—the entrance hall (ulam), the hall (hekhal), and the Holy of Holies (devir)—and it carries the reader from the Temple's public space to the innermost sanctum, increasing in sacredness from the exterior toward the interior.

The phrase miqdash meʿat originates in Ezek. 11:16...