Judah Leon Abravanel
Encyclopedia
Judah Leon Abravanel (c. 1465 Lisbon- c. 1523 Naples) was a Jewish
Portuguese
physician
, poet
and philosopher. His work Dialoghi d'amore (Dialogues of Love) was one of the most important philosophical works of his time. He was born of Castilian
Jewish heritage in Lisbon
, and wrote his most important work in Italian
.
family was an extraordinarily prominent one among Jewish families in the Middle Ages
, active in public service in the court of Castile
. Judah (or Leon, as he is known in Spanish) was the son of Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, (meaning Isaac “son of Judah” Abravenel) who, according to Soria was “the last great commentator of the Bible of Medieval Jewry” (12). Don Isaac was a statesman, financier, and a defender of the Jewish faith, who was also born in Lisbon in 1437 and spent most of his life in Portugal
, eventually becoming a financial advisor to King Afonso V
. However, in 1481, King Afonso V died, and Dom Isaac was suspected of conspiring to enthrone the Duke of Braganza
, whom he had befriended earlier, over the son of Afonso, João II. Consequently, he had to flee without his family from Portugal to Seville
, Castile
finally settling in Toledo
. Dom Isaac eventually took refuge from his financial and political dealings in his other love—literature—while living with his reunited family in Toledo.
Spain had recently seen the marriage of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragón
, the Catholic Monarchs
. Under their rule began the centralization of power in Spain, then fragmented by individual governance of its many regions. The monarchs desired to conquer the kingdom of Granada
, which at that time was Muslim
. Dom Isaac Abravanel saw this as an opportunity and became a financier at the court. His son, Judah, joined him in service to the Catholic Monarchs in 1484 as personal doctor to the royal family.
The year 1492 brought a turbulent change to the Abravanel
family and to all Jews in Spain, as Isabel and Fernando ordered the conversion
or expulsion
of all Jews in Spain. Dom Isaac, in a desperate plea, threw himself at the feet of the Catholic Monarchs and begged them to revoke their decree, but to no avail. He made plans to move his family to Naples
, Italy
. A plot was hatched to kidnap Judah’s son as an attempt to persuade the Abravanel family to convert to Christianity
and, ultimately, to remain in the service of the Catholic Monarchs. In an attempt to circumvent the plot, Judah sent his son to Portugal with a nurse, but by order of the king, the son was seized and baptized. This occurrence was a devastating insult to Judah and to his family, and was a source of bitterness throughout Judah’s life and the topic of his writings years later.
The Abravanel family chose exile
over conversion, although it was not an easy choice, considering that there were not many places in Europe
that Jews were welcomed and that living in exile required money, and the Jews were not allowed to take much with them. Originally intent on traveling to the Ottoman Empire
, Isaac and his family settled in Naples. There, Dom Isaac became a financial advisor to the King of Naples, Ferrante
, and his son Alfonso. The Abravanel family enjoyed a position of prestige in the court of Naples until 1494 when Charles VIII
, king of France
, invaded Naples. The Neapolitan royal family then fled to Sicily
, accompanied by Dom Isaac.
Judah, meanwhile, moved to Genoa
, where he studied in an Italian humanist
milieu and probably wrote the first two of his Dialoghi. There is evidence that he moved from Genoa to Barletta
in 1501, where he became a servant of King Frederick
of Naples, leaving in 1503 for Venice
, where he rejoined his father Dom Isaac. Other sources say that he left Genoa for Naples in 1501 and remained there until 1506. While in Naples, Judah (apparently overlooking the injuries of the past) became the doctor of the Spanish viceroy
, Don Gonsalvo of Cordoba
, “The Great Captain.”
By 1506, the Neapolitan government was defeated, and Spain gained control of southern Italy. Judah left Naples for Venice, where he dedicated himself again to the study of philosophy until 1507. After this time, little is known about Judah’s life. His most famous work, Dialoghi d'amore, appears to have been written around 1501-02. In 1535, when his friend Mariano Lenzi discovered the manuscript and had it published in Rome
, records indicate he had already died.
There are claims that Judah converted to Christianity at the end of his life; however, upon further investigation, these claims appear unfounded. One source states that allusions made to Saint John the Evangelist in the work indicate his Christian beliefs; however, the tendency of Jewish scholars to cite examples from both New Testament and the Classics was common during this time. However, the Venetian press that printed the second and third editions of his Dialoghi in 1541 and 1545 claimed on the first pages of the work that the author had converted to Christianity: “Dialoghi di Amore composti per Leone Medico, di Natione Hebreo, et di poi fatto Christiano” (Dialogues of Love, composed by Doctor Leon, of Hebrew heritage, and who later became Christian). This statement does not appear in the first edition, nor in later editions. Therefore, this “editorial note” was most likely included to promote the work and to persuade those who harbored hostilities against Jews at that time to purchase the book. Further evidence that Judah remained true to his Jewish faith can be found in Dialoghi, where Judah directly addresses his heritage and religion, stating that the book was written “according to Hebrew truth” and addresses “all of us who believe in the holy law of Moses.”
while in Florence
and composed for him a discourse on the “Harmony of the Skies.” If so, he also probably associated with Elia de Medigo, teacher of Pico della Mirandola, Yohanan Alemanno
(a Jewish writer influenced by the Medici
court and mysticism
and author of Song of songs), Giovanni Pontano, Mario Equicola
and monk Egidio da Viterbo.
Leon was surrounded by humanists interested in the topic of Love. The Chancellor of Florence, Marsilio Ficino
commented on Plato
’s Symposium (1474–75), while Girolamo Benivieni
composed his Canzone d’amore (1486), which Pico della Mirandola analyzed soon after. Equicola’s Libro della natura d’amore (1495), Pietro Bembo
’s Asolani and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto’s De amore were published while Judah was writing. Abravanel’s Dialoghi is regarded as the finest of these works. Menéndez Pelayo describes it as the most monumental work of Platonic philosophy since Plotinus
's Enneads.
n
Similar to other humanist works, Dialoghi is strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle
. Menéndez Pelayo states that Abravanel employs Platonic ideals in his work, but filtered through his heritage. That is, his Neo-platonism derived from the Hispanic Jewish community, especially the works of Ben-Gabirol and Maimonides
. A disciple of these renowned Jewish scholars, Abravanel was also influenced by the Hellenic
spirit of the Renaissance
. Platonic notions of reaching towards a nearly impossible ideal of beauty, wisdom, and perfection encompass the whole of the work.
. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega made one of its three translations into Spanish (México: Editorial Porrúa, 1985.) Abravanel’s Dialoghi is notably one of the first original philosophical compositions to be published in the vernacular (as opposed to Latin). However, there is some controversy about the language in which it was originally written. According to Roth, although Abravenel had ample time to embrace and employ Italian , “the Dialogue read a little stiffly, [therefore] there is good reason to doubt whether [it] represents the original text” (xii). Also, the Hebrew text that remains was probably a translation, and while Spanish scholars also want to claim he wrote it in the language of the country from which he was exiled, it is possible that he wrote it in Judeo-Spanish, the language of many Spanish Jews and a mixture of Hebrew and Castilian. In the British Museum
, there is a Ladino copy that may actually be the original work.
In his Dialoghi d'amore, Judah (Leon) Abravanel seeks to define love in philosophical terms. He structures his three dialogues as a conversation between two abstract and mostly undeveloped “characters”: Philo, representing love or appetite, and Sophia, representing science or wisdom, in other words, Philo+Sophia (philosophy).
The first dialogue, titled, “Philo and Sophia on Love and Desire” is a contemplation on the distinctions between love and desire, or the types of love and the true nature of love. In Sophia’s opinion, love and desire are exclusive; however, Philo argues that love and desire mix in things we find pleasurable. and that desire assumes knowledge of its object and, thus, its existence. Philo defines desire as that which seeks to become united with its object and love as that which, in union with its object, is enjoyed. When love and desire intersect, there are three different qualities of objects: useful, pleasant and good. Useful objects are not loved and desired together. Useful objects are those that are possessed. Meanwhile, love and desire of pleasant objects grows and perishes at the same time; pleasant objects exist because of privation. Good objects, on the other hand, exist when love and desire have no limit.
Sophia then asks Philo to distinguish love of God from love of friends. He posits that God is the fountainhead, reason and end of good in the world. However, as humans, we lack the knowledge to love God completely.
Happiness is the next topic of discussion, and the two determine that it exists not by gaining or enjoying a possession but rather in wisdom, when virtue is assumed. Wisdom is not omniscience, however, which is noted to be almost unreachable and can be found only in knowing God or communing with the Active Intellect.
From there, Sophia asks Philo to clarify knowledge and love of God. Wisdom is born out of the love of God, he explains, and is the source of human happiness. Sophia then asks Philo to give a definition of the love that he feels for her, according to their discussion. He attempts to win her affection by stating that union increases love because of the physical aspect of human love, while injury does not. He adds that love is born of Reason (though it is not subject to it directly, or at least not to its “ordinary” form; rather, “heroic Reason” motivates it to seek the beloved as its object). At this point, Philo tells her that the hour is drawing late and she must rest while “my mind keeps it usual anguished watch.” However, she is not satisfied to end the discussion yet.
The second dialogue, titled, “Philo and Sophia on the Universality of Love” postulates that love is the dominant principle of all life and describes how love operates in human beings’ lives.
Sophia asks Philo to expound on his ideas of love’s origin and universality. As the translation by F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes in The Philosophy of Love reads,
The third and most lengthy dialogue, “Philo and Sophia on the Origin of Love” is a discussion about God’s love and how it encompasses all of existence, from the lowest creatures to the heavens and is the “cohesion of the universe.” A discussion of beauty and the soul follows, with an analysis of Plato’s ideas. The third dialogue is considered the most important at the aesthetic level.
In this dialogue, Philo and Sophia meet unexpectedly. After Philo apologizes for not recognizing Sophia because he was struck by her beauteous image, he begins to discuss a comparison between the soul and intellect. As the translation by F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes in The Philosophy of Love reads, "The intellect is purely spiritual, whereas the soul is partly spiritual and partly corporeal, and is ever-moving to and fro between body and mind."
Philo [later] defines the essence of love:
Philo then turns to Sophia’s first question, and shows her that love must have been created and is subject to birth, because it presupposes both lover and beloved, from whom it takes its origin.
The answer to the second question—when was love first born?—must depend on yet another—when was the world first created? The first love and procreative cause of the universe is that of God for Himself as eternal lover and beloved, and whenever the universe was first created, then love was first born.
As to the birthplace of love, this must have been the angelic world, which is the most perfect of all created being and has, therefore, the most perfect knowledge of the divine beauty it lacks.
In answer to the fourth question—who were the parents of love?—Philo tells Sophia of the allegorical meaning of the birth of Cupid
, and that of the ancient and mythological figure, Androgynous, and of the creation of Adam and Eve and the fall of man. The universal father of all love is the beautiful, and the universal mother a knowledge of the beautiful together with privation. Beauty is the necessity a prior condition of all love, because it is upon the world. The supremely beautiful is God, the highest beauty is His intellect or wisdom, in the image of which the whole derives from the form that actuates their matter, and therefore all the forms or Ideas pre-exist in the eternal splendor. The end of all love is pleasure, and this is the same as the desire of the lover for union with the beloved, because pleasure consists in union with the pleasurable. The end of love of the universe is union with divine beauty, the final beatitude and highest perfection of all creation.
Philo, however is careful to point out that his love has no end but torment and grief, because Sophia is unwilling to grant him his desire and makes no return of his love. She persists in her refusal to recognize any save the love of the intellect, and finding that argument cannot avail her against the subtleties of Philo’s reasoning, reminds him of his promise to tell of the effects of love, for she would know further of the dangers into which he would lead her. And so the lovers part, and the tale of their promised meeting is as yet untold.
Dialoghi d'amore was an important work in Spanish culture as it brought Renaissance ideals to Spain. Otis Green argues in his España y la tradición occidental that in Abravanel's work human love is spiritualized, placing it in connection with divine love, by posing the necessity of going beyond physical union to merge minds and souls.
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and philosopher. His work Dialoghi d'amore (Dialogues of Love) was one of the most important philosophical works of his time. He was born of Castilian
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
Jewish heritage in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, and wrote his most important work in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Biography
The AbravanelAbravanel
The Abravanel family is one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish families of the Iberian peninsula; they trace their origin from the biblical King David...
family was an extraordinarily prominent one among Jewish families in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, active in public service in the court of Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
. Judah (or Leon, as he is known in Spanish) was the son of Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, (meaning Isaac “son of Judah” Abravenel) who, according to Soria was “the last great commentator of the Bible of Medieval Jewry” (12). Don Isaac was a statesman, financier, and a defender of the Jewish faith, who was also born in Lisbon in 1437 and spent most of his life in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, eventually becoming a financial advisor to King Afonso V
Afonso V of Portugal
Afonso V KG , called the African , was the twelfth King of Portugal and the Algarves. His sobriquet refers to his conquests in Northern Africa.-Early life:...
. However, in 1481, King Afonso V died, and Dom Isaac was suspected of conspiring to enthrone the Duke of Braganza
Duke of Braganza
The title Duke of Braganza in the House of Braganza is one of the most important titles in the peerage of Portugal. Since the House of Braganza acceded to the throne of Portugal in 1640, the male heir of the Portuguese Crown was known as the Duke of Braganza and Prince of Brazil until 1822, or...
, whom he had befriended earlier, over the son of Afonso, João II. Consequently, he had to flee without his family from Portugal to Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
, Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
finally settling in Toledo
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
. Dom Isaac eventually took refuge from his financial and political dealings in his other love—literature—while living with his reunited family in Toledo.
Spain had recently seen the marriage of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragón
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, jure uxoris King of Castile and then regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of...
, the Catholic Monarchs
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
. Under their rule began the centralization of power in Spain, then fragmented by individual governance of its many regions. The monarchs desired to conquer the kingdom of Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
, which at that time was Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
. Dom Isaac Abravanel saw this as an opportunity and became a financier at the court. His son, Judah, joined him in service to the Catholic Monarchs in 1484 as personal doctor to the royal family.
The year 1492 brought a turbulent change to the Abravanel
Abravanel
The Abravanel family is one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish families of the Iberian peninsula; they trace their origin from the biblical King David...
family and to all Jews in Spain, as Isabel and Fernando ordered the conversion
Forced conversion
A forced conversion is the religious conversion or acceptance of a philosophy against the will of the subject, often with the threatened consequence of earthly penalties or harm. These consequences range from job loss and social isolation to incarceration, torture or death...
or expulsion
Population transfer
Population transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
of all Jews in Spain. Dom Isaac, in a desperate plea, threw himself at the feet of the Catholic Monarchs and begged them to revoke their decree, but to no avail. He made plans to move his family to Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. A plot was hatched to kidnap Judah’s son as an attempt to persuade the Abravanel family to convert to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and, ultimately, to remain in the service of the Catholic Monarchs. In an attempt to circumvent the plot, Judah sent his son to Portugal with a nurse, but by order of the king, the son was seized and baptized. This occurrence was a devastating insult to Judah and to his family, and was a source of bitterness throughout Judah’s life and the topic of his writings years later.
The Abravanel family chose exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
over conversion, although it was not an easy choice, considering that there were not many places in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
that Jews were welcomed and that living in exile required money, and the Jews were not allowed to take much with them. Originally intent on traveling to the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, Isaac and his family settled in Naples. There, Dom Isaac became a financial advisor to the King of Naples, Ferrante
Ferdinand I of Naples
Ferdinand I , also called Don Ferrante, was the King of Naples from 1458 to 1494. He was the natural son of Alfonso V of Aragon by Giraldona Carlino.-Biography:...
, and his son Alfonso. The Abravanel family enjoyed a position of prestige in the court of Naples until 1494 when Charles VIII
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...
, king of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, invaded Naples. The Neapolitan royal family then fled to Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, accompanied by Dom Isaac.
Judah, meanwhile, moved to Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, where he studied in an Italian humanist
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
milieu and probably wrote the first two of his Dialoghi. There is evidence that he moved from Genoa to Barletta
Barletta
Barletta is a city and comune located in the north of Apulia in south eastern Italy. Its current population is 94,140.It is famous for the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue, representing a Roman Emperor...
in 1501, where he became a servant of King Frederick
Frederick IV of Naples
Frederick IV , sometimes known as Frederick I or Federico d'Aragona, was the last King of Naples of the House of Trastámara, ruling from 1496 to 1501...
of Naples, leaving in 1503 for Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, where he rejoined his father Dom Isaac. Other sources say that he left Genoa for Naples in 1501 and remained there until 1506. While in Naples, Judah (apparently overlooking the injuries of the past) became the doctor of the Spanish viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
, Don Gonsalvo of Cordoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba known as The Great Captain, Duke of Terranova and Santangelo, Andria, Montalto and Sessa, also known as Gonzalo de Córdoba, Italian: Gonsalvo or Consalvo Ernandes di Cordova was a Spanish general fighting in the times of the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars...
, “The Great Captain.”
By 1506, the Neapolitan government was defeated, and Spain gained control of southern Italy. Judah left Naples for Venice, where he dedicated himself again to the study of philosophy until 1507. After this time, little is known about Judah’s life. His most famous work, Dialoghi d'amore, appears to have been written around 1501-02. In 1535, when his friend Mariano Lenzi discovered the manuscript and had it published in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, records indicate he had already died.
There are claims that Judah converted to Christianity at the end of his life; however, upon further investigation, these claims appear unfounded. One source states that allusions made to Saint John the Evangelist in the work indicate his Christian beliefs; however, the tendency of Jewish scholars to cite examples from both New Testament and the Classics was common during this time. However, the Venetian press that printed the second and third editions of his Dialoghi in 1541 and 1545 claimed on the first pages of the work that the author had converted to Christianity: “Dialoghi di Amore composti per Leone Medico, di Natione Hebreo, et di poi fatto Christiano” (Dialogues of Love, composed by Doctor Leon, of Hebrew heritage, and who later became Christian). This statement does not appear in the first edition, nor in later editions. Therefore, this “editorial note” was most likely included to promote the work and to persuade those who harbored hostilities against Jews at that time to purchase the book. Further evidence that Judah remained true to his Jewish faith can be found in Dialoghi, where Judah directly addresses his heritage and religion, stating that the book was written “according to Hebrew truth” and addresses “all of us who believe in the holy law of Moses.”
His Influences
Through his travels, Judah was well-acquainted with many Italian humanists and with the Neapolitan Court. Some say he may have met Giovanni Pico della MirandolaGiovanni Pico della Mirandola
Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian Renaissance philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers, for which he wrote the famous Oration on the Dignity of...
while in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and composed for him a discourse on the “Harmony of the Skies.” If so, he also probably associated with Elia de Medigo, teacher of Pico della Mirandola, Yohanan Alemanno
Yohanan Alemanno
Yohanan Alemanno was an Italian Jewish humanist philosopher and exegete, and teacher of the Hebrew language to Italian humanists including Pico della Mirandola...
(a Jewish writer influenced by the Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
court and mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
and author of Song of songs), Giovanni Pontano, Mario Equicola
Mario Equicola
Mario Equicola was an Italian Renaissance humanist: a neolatin author, a bibliophile, and a courtier of Isabella d'Este and Federico II Gonzaga. The National Gallery of Art describes him as "one of the Renaissance's most admired classical scholars".Born at Alvito in or around 1470, Equicola was...
and monk Egidio da Viterbo.
Leon was surrounded by humanists interested in the topic of Love. The Chancellor of Florence, Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
commented on Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
’s Symposium (1474–75), while Girolamo Benivieni
Girolamo Benivieni
Girolamo Benivieni was a Florentine poet who was an intimate of several great men of the Renaissance.-External links:*http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG2491...
composed his Canzone d’amore (1486), which Pico della Mirandola analyzed soon after. Equicola’s Libro della natura d’amore (1495), Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo was an Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist, and cardinal. He was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language, specifically Tuscan, as a literary medium, and his writings assisted in the 16th-century revival of interest in the works of Petrarch...
’s Asolani and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto’s De amore were published while Judah was writing. Abravanel’s Dialoghi is regarded as the finest of these works. Menéndez Pelayo describes it as the most monumental work of Platonic philosophy since Plotinus
Plotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
's Enneads.
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Similar to other humanist works, Dialoghi is strongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
. Menéndez Pelayo states that Abravanel employs Platonic ideals in his work, but filtered through his heritage. That is, his Neo-platonism derived from the Hispanic Jewish community, especially the works of Ben-Gabirol and Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
. A disciple of these renowned Jewish scholars, Abravanel was also influenced by the Hellenic
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
spirit of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Platonic notions of reaching towards a nearly impossible ideal of beauty, wisdom, and perfection encompass the whole of the work.
Dialoghi d'amore
The Dialoghi was an exceedingly popular book that enjoyed at least five editions in twenty years. First published in Italian, it was translated into French by Tyard, as well as into Hebrew and into Latin by SarasinSarasin
Sarasin is a surname.* Fritz Sarasin, full name Karl Friedrich Sarasin , a Swiss naturalist* Jean François Sarrazin , or Sarasin, a French author.* Paul Sarasin, full name Paul Benedict Sarasin , a Swiss naturalist...
. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega made one of its three translations into Spanish (México: Editorial Porrúa, 1985.) Abravanel’s Dialoghi is notably one of the first original philosophical compositions to be published in the vernacular (as opposed to Latin). However, there is some controversy about the language in which it was originally written. According to Roth, although Abravenel had ample time to embrace and employ Italian , “the Dialogue read a little stiffly, [therefore] there is good reason to doubt whether [it] represents the original text” (xii). Also, the Hebrew text that remains was probably a translation, and while Spanish scholars also want to claim he wrote it in the language of the country from which he was exiled, it is possible that he wrote it in Judeo-Spanish, the language of many Spanish Jews and a mixture of Hebrew and Castilian. In the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, there is a Ladino copy that may actually be the original work.
In his Dialoghi d'amore, Judah (Leon) Abravanel seeks to define love in philosophical terms. He structures his three dialogues as a conversation between two abstract and mostly undeveloped “characters”: Philo, representing love or appetite, and Sophia, representing science or wisdom, in other words, Philo+Sophia (philosophy).
The first dialogue, titled, “Philo and Sophia on Love and Desire” is a contemplation on the distinctions between love and desire, or the types of love and the true nature of love. In Sophia’s opinion, love and desire are exclusive; however, Philo argues that love and desire mix in things we find pleasurable. and that desire assumes knowledge of its object and, thus, its existence. Philo defines desire as that which seeks to become united with its object and love as that which, in union with its object, is enjoyed. When love and desire intersect, there are three different qualities of objects: useful, pleasant and good. Useful objects are not loved and desired together. Useful objects are those that are possessed. Meanwhile, love and desire of pleasant objects grows and perishes at the same time; pleasant objects exist because of privation. Good objects, on the other hand, exist when love and desire have no limit.
Sophia then asks Philo to distinguish love of God from love of friends. He posits that God is the fountainhead, reason and end of good in the world. However, as humans, we lack the knowledge to love God completely.
Happiness is the next topic of discussion, and the two determine that it exists not by gaining or enjoying a possession but rather in wisdom, when virtue is assumed. Wisdom is not omniscience, however, which is noted to be almost unreachable and can be found only in knowing God or communing with the Active Intellect.
From there, Sophia asks Philo to clarify knowledge and love of God. Wisdom is born out of the love of God, he explains, and is the source of human happiness. Sophia then asks Philo to give a definition of the love that he feels for her, according to their discussion. He attempts to win her affection by stating that union increases love because of the physical aspect of human love, while injury does not. He adds that love is born of Reason (though it is not subject to it directly, or at least not to its “ordinary” form; rather, “heroic Reason” motivates it to seek the beloved as its object). At this point, Philo tells her that the hour is drawing late and she must rest while “my mind keeps it usual anguished watch.” However, she is not satisfied to end the discussion yet.
The second dialogue, titled, “Philo and Sophia on the Universality of Love” postulates that love is the dominant principle of all life and describes how love operates in human beings’ lives.
Sophia asks Philo to expound on his ideas of love’s origin and universality. As the translation by F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes in The Philosophy of Love reads,
The third and most lengthy dialogue, “Philo and Sophia on the Origin of Love” is a discussion about God’s love and how it encompasses all of existence, from the lowest creatures to the heavens and is the “cohesion of the universe.” A discussion of beauty and the soul follows, with an analysis of Plato’s ideas. The third dialogue is considered the most important at the aesthetic level.
In this dialogue, Philo and Sophia meet unexpectedly. After Philo apologizes for not recognizing Sophia because he was struck by her beauteous image, he begins to discuss a comparison between the soul and intellect. As the translation by F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes in The Philosophy of Love reads, "The intellect is purely spiritual, whereas the soul is partly spiritual and partly corporeal, and is ever-moving to and fro between body and mind."
Philo [later] defines the essence of love:
Philo then turns to Sophia’s first question, and shows her that love must have been created and is subject to birth, because it presupposes both lover and beloved, from whom it takes its origin.
The answer to the second question—when was love first born?—must depend on yet another—when was the world first created? The first love and procreative cause of the universe is that of God for Himself as eternal lover and beloved, and whenever the universe was first created, then love was first born.
As to the birthplace of love, this must have been the angelic world, which is the most perfect of all created being and has, therefore, the most perfect knowledge of the divine beauty it lacks.
In answer to the fourth question—who were the parents of love?—Philo tells Sophia of the allegorical meaning of the birth of Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
, and that of the ancient and mythological figure, Androgynous, and of the creation of Adam and Eve and the fall of man. The universal father of all love is the beautiful, and the universal mother a knowledge of the beautiful together with privation. Beauty is the necessity a prior condition of all love, because it is upon the world. The supremely beautiful is God, the highest beauty is His intellect or wisdom, in the image of which the whole derives from the form that actuates their matter, and therefore all the forms or Ideas pre-exist in the eternal splendor. The end of all love is pleasure, and this is the same as the desire of the lover for union with the beloved, because pleasure consists in union with the pleasurable. The end of love of the universe is union with divine beauty, the final beatitude and highest perfection of all creation.
Philo, however is careful to point out that his love has no end but torment and grief, because Sophia is unwilling to grant him his desire and makes no return of his love. She persists in her refusal to recognize any save the love of the intellect, and finding that argument cannot avail her against the subtleties of Philo’s reasoning, reminds him of his promise to tell of the effects of love, for she would know further of the dangers into which he would lead her. And so the lovers part, and the tale of their promised meeting is as yet untold.
Dialoghi d'amore was an important work in Spanish culture as it brought Renaissance ideals to Spain. Otis Green argues in his España y la tradición occidental that in Abravanel's work human love is spiritualized, placing it in connection with divine love, by posing the necessity of going beyond physical union to merge minds and souls.