Persecution and the Art of Translation: Some New Evidence Concerning the Latin Translation of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed

Abstract

The ongoing work on a critical edition of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in its medieval Latin translation, and the recently published detailed studies of the Latin manuscripts provide us with a unique opportunity to reconsider a field of study which, after more than 150 years of intensive scholarly engagement, still presents us with some remarkable lacunae. In confronting the new material evidence, this paper raises some basic questions regarding the unique nature of Maimonides’ work itself and the way it is reflected through its reception among European readers, Jews and Christians alike. My two main goals here are, first, to emphasize the unique character of the early Latin reception of the Guide, which was less philosophically oriented and more Hebraistic in nature, and, second, to emphasize its close ties to a set of persecutional acts that took place in the very same period.