Dialoghi d’Amore

This is a work of philosophical fiction by Judah Leon Abravanel, a Portuguese Jewish poet, doctor, and philosopher exiled to Italy from Spain after the Inquisition. Dialoghi d’Amore consists of three dialogues on love between Philo, who speaks for passion and desire, and Sophia, who speaks for wisdom; both represent the two parts of philosophia, philosophy. The first dialogue discusses the nature of love, and whether it is compatible with desire, crowned with an explanation of the allegory in the myth of the birth of Cupid. The second dialogue discusses the universality of love, while the third tackles the origin of love (namely the love of God). Leon combines Renaissance Platonism’s confidence in reason and interest in Greek mythology with the Jewish tradition’s emphasis on the love of God and the untranscendable importance of earthly love and desire. This edition reproduces the first edition printed posthumous in 1535.