In the Company of Demons: Unnatural Beings, Love, and Identity in the Italian Renaissance (review)
and the Bahir, which were still unpublished. Postel had sent both manuscripts to Ioannes Oporinus in Basel, who never published them. He began his translation of the Zohar in 1548, commenting that he had received the manuscript “from Venetian blood.” The reference was, in all likelihood, to Daniel Bomberg, the Venetian printer for whom Postel had worked in the 1530s and 1540s. Bomberg had also provided Postel with his copy of the Bahir, which Postel had collated with his own copy found in Ferrara, as he notes in his translation of the Bahir (Universität Bibliothek, Basel, ms. A. IX. 99, fols. 36–98. See fol. 70 for statement about Bomberg.). Postel played an important part in the transmission of Hebrew texts in the Renaissance, and his Zohar was with him on the day of his death, 6 September 1581. Saverio Campanini’s edition of Mithridates’ Latin translation should kindle a rebirth of interest in the Bahir and in other important Hebrew texts which were studied so avidly in the Renaissance. Campanini’s edition provides all that a scholar could desire in a text. The introduction is detailed but clearly written, and the foreword by Giulio Busi introduces the reader to the world of the Bahir and its transmission. In Campanini’s introduction we find a careful explanation of the manuscript tradition. Flavius’s Latin translation is printed and annotated, as is the Hebrew text. The English translation is accurate and readable, a difficult task to accomplish for a work like the Bahir. The printing of this book is beautiful and the type large enough to provide easy reading. One could wish for an index of concepts as well as one of names, although this is a minor fault in comparison with what Campanini has provided for us. MARION LEATHERS KUNTZ Georgia State University