GIORGIO (Zorzi), FRANCESCO°

GIORGIO (Zorzi ), FRANCESCO ° (Franciscus Georgius Venetus ; 1460–1540), kabbalist of the Franciscan Order of Minor Friars. Giorgio was the author of De Harmonia Mundi (1525) and In Scripturam Sacram et Philosophos Tria Millia Problemata (1536), which was placed on the donec corrigatur ("till it is corrected") list of prohibited books. After the censorships of G. Contarini, *Sixtus of Siena, R. Bellarmino, etc., the most famous is that of Marin Mersenne, Quaestiones…in Genesim, cum…textus explicatione. In volumine Atheir…expugnatur, et F. Georgii…cabalistica dogmata…repelluntur (1623). Giorgio was a cousin of Marino Sanuto, who mentions him in his Diarii, a friend of Gershom *Soncino, and the sponsor of several converts; his Hebrew library awakened the interest of H.C. Agrippa and Egidio da Viterbo. He was one of the active intermediaries in the controversial divorce case of Henry viii of England. His pupil Archangelus of Burgunuovo, the defender of Giovanni *Pico della Mirandola, plagiarized his works. A disciple of G. *Postel, Guy *Le Fèvre de la Boderie, translated the De Harmonia into French in 1578 and dedicated it to a member of the heterodox Family of Love. A manuscript of his detailed commentaries on the kabbalistic theses of Pico della Mirandola is in the National Library in Jerusalem (Yahuda Collection).

bibliography:

C. Vasoli, Testi scelti (1955); Biographie Universelle, s.v.Georges; A. Mercati and A.P.M.J. Pelzer, Dizionario Ecclesiatico, 3 (1958), s.v.Zorzi; D.W. Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (1909); L. Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 6 (1941); R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (19622); F. Secret, Le Zôhar chez les Kabbalistes chrétiens (1958); idem, Les kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (1964); idem, in: Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 30 (1968).

[Francois Secret]