Career
He became professor of philosophy in the University of Pavia. Subsequently he was physician to Emperor Maximilian I.
Riccio was inclined to astrology and the Cabala, and had a controversy with Johann Eck about the existence of life on the stellar bodies. He, moreover, advised the Christian nations to unite against the Turks, who were at that time the terror of Europe.
His best-known work is his De Porta Lucis R. Josephi Gecatilia (Augsburg, 1516), which is a free translation of a part of the Kabbalistic work Sha"are Orah by Joseph Gikatilla.
Jerome Riccio (Hieronymus Ricius), Paulo"s son, sent a copy of this work to Johann Reuchlin, who utilized it in the composition of his De Arte Cabbalistica. Riccio relates that he was ordered by Emperor Maximilian to prepare a Latin translation of the Talmud.
All that has come down of it are the translations of the tractates Berakot, Sanhedrin, and Makkot (Augsburg, 1519), which are the earliest Latin renderings of the Mishnah known to bibliographers. Riccio wrote besides these works about ten others, all in Latin, on various religious, philosophical, and cabalistic subjects, which appeared in Augsburg in 1546 and were reprinted in Basel in 1597.