Bridging Worlds is the first major study in years—and the first ever in English—of Immanuel of Rome, the fourteenth-century author of one of the most popular works of premodern Hebrew fiction, the Ma?barot ('Compositions'). It is the first study in any language to draw extensively on Immanuel's Bible commentaries, which were much admired in their time, but which have attracted little attention in modern scholarship and largely remain unpublished. Focusing on a chapter of the Ma?barot with the Dantesque title of 'A Tale of Heaven and Hell,' Fishkin illuminates the Ma?barot from the commentaries and the commentaries from the Ma?barot and shows how Immanuel's charming, sometimes even salacious fiction relates to the philosophical traditions of Maimonides and of Christian scholasticism. Bridging Worlds shows Immanuel to be not merely an entertainer but a serious intellectual representative of his time.
~Raymond P. Scheindlin, Professor Emeritus of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Fishkin's book is a fascinating and completely original study of one of the most difficult to understand figures in medieval Jewish thought and literature, and in fact the scholarship on him is mostly split between scholars of literature, philosophy, and exegesis. Fishkin's book is the first attempt to bring these different worlds together. What emerges is a singular figure whose philosophy and biblical exegesis informs his literature and whose literature serves to spread and develop ideas found throughout the Maimonidean tradition. In other words, Immanuel not only innovates in the way he adapts vernacular literary forms to Hebrew but he is also original in the way he uses poetry and literature to teach, popularize, and reflect on philosophical ideas and debates.
~James Theodore Robinson, Caroline E. Haskell Professor, University of Chicago Divinity School and the University of Chicago
Fishkin's Bridging Worlds is definitely worth the long wait for a book dedicated to Immanuel of Rome. Brilliantly written, groundbreaking in its insights, this consequential book provides a poignant display of the art of the fourteenth-century master of Hebrew erudition and literature, providing a significant contribution to fill the lacuna left by Hebraists.
~Tovi Bibring, Professor, Bar-Ilan University
For centuries, Immanuel of Rome has been pigeonholed as merely a comic, sensual poet, but that narrow image of him has been built on a selective reading of his literary production. With Bridging Worlds, Fishkin offers an important corrective by examining his oeuvre more fully.
~Fabian Alfie, Professor of Italian, University of Arizona
This book is the first attempt to produce a holistic reading of the oeuvre of Immanuel of Rome, most famously the stunning and sometimes ribald poetry and prose of his Ma?barot, but also the thousands of surviving manuscript pages of biblical exegesis as well as a number of short works. By reading across these genres, especially by probing the tantalizing cross-references through which Immanuel bridged his literary and philosophical-exegetical works, Fishkin has produced a work that fully situates Immanuel in an intellectual world informed by Iberian Hebrew literature, Maimonidean and Scholastic thought, Latin rhetoric, and Italian vernacular literature.
~Jonathan Decter, Edmond J. Safra Professor of Sephardic Studies, Brandeis University
