An alphabet is a standardized set of abstract symbols called letters that represent the sounds of a spoken language. Although this commandment is meant to forbid idol worship it also serves as the very definition of an alphabet. The commandment Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, is of particular interest to me. According to the bible the alphabet was first engraved by God onto the tablets of the Ten Commandments and given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Some credit Moses with bringing us the alphabet. God created the universe by filling the void with the letters of the alphabet and from this alphabet he created all that was ever to be. I will give you my simplistic understanding of the text along with some rather peculiar observations. As with many sacred texts, it has been studied and interpreted by great scholars. Its story is also found in the Zohar, a written account of the oral traditions of the Kabbalah. The ancient story, The Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, is one of the oldest Jewish texts with a manuscript dating from circa the fourth century AD. The exploration of letterform, for the most part, was covertly categorized as instructional templates for the trades to properly draw letters for architectural adornment. Brutal trials of heresy had to influence the presentation of these alphabets. However all attempts by Renaissance artists to draw such a theological alphabet failed. Logically there was motivation to examine the Roman letters and unlock their divine geometric puzzle. However, the divinity of the Roman alphabet was a definite humanist interest. I have not yet found the reasons for his statement that all alphabets (not just the Hebrew alphabet) were designed by God. Excerpts from this book clearly speak to his knowledge of The Sefer Yetzirah and its alphabet based creationist story.
That same year Agrippa began drafts for his work Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Agrippa faced growing hostility from Catholic orthodoxy at a time when anti Jewish sentiment was reaching a crisis with The Burning of the Vanities where Jewish books were being gathered up and destroyed. Henry Cornelius Agrippa held lectures at the University of Dole on the work of Pico and Reuchlin. His influences impacted the courts of Florence and Ferrara as well as the French royal court in Paris. Pico is considered the father of the Christian Kabbalah. However, suspiciously, Pico died young at the age of 31. He was charged with heresy but released with impunity when Lorenzo de Medici came to his aid. To defend their actions from accusations of heresy they argued that there was strong support of Catholic doctrine within the antique pre-Christian Jewish literature. Pico collaborated with the German humanist scholar Johann Reuchlin who was accomplished at translating Hebrew. Pico was a nobleman intellectual who was connected to the prominent families of Italy the Sforza’s of Milan, the Medici’s of Florence, and the Estes of Ferrara. This humanist endeavor, to investigate ancient Jewish mysticism, was led by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. The Renaissance concept considered that the Roman alphabet shared the same ‘divine’ mysteries as the Hebrew letters. Interest to reconcile early Christianity with its Jewish roots drove this esoteric exploration. It is clear in Tory’s work that his explorations attempted to resolve an ancient Kabbalistic alphabet based creationist story known as The Sefer Yetzirah. Consensus among academics wrongly believe the constructed alphabets from the Renaissance were simply a task to insure that good looking lettering would be available to adorn architecture.Īs noted, many Renaissance artists created geometric drawings of the Roman alphabet. With these efforts no one succeeded in developing an actual proportional system for the alphabet, a point that highly valued academics have clearly made. Other known constructed alphabets from this period were by Felice Feliciano, Damian da Moyle, Albrecht Dürer, Geofroy Tory, Sabastian Serlio, and an unattributed author of an alphabet whose work is known as The Newberry Letters.
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus amongst scholars that Leonardo da Vinci designed and drew this alphabet, however, Jerzy Kulski, in his book Leonardo da Vinci and the Pacioli Code, © 2019, makes a compelling argument matching these published letters to letterforms found in Da Vinci’s paintings. Twenty three pages of the book are dedicated to this topic. Within this publication Pacioli first included a geometric construction of the Roman alphabet. In 1509, the first printed edition of Divina Proportione was published in Venice. It is about mathematical proportions, mysticism and geometric systems. Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci presented their manuscript, Divina Proportione, in 1498 to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico II Sforza.
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