Letters: Edition, Translation and Introduction
Almost five hundred years after his death, Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) remains a legendary figure of Sephardic history, and above all of the Expulsion of 1492. There are numerous “portraits” that have been painted of him by pre-modern and modern scholars. And still we hesitate and cannot discern which is the true one. This first critical edition of Abravanel’s Portuguese and Hebrew letters opens a unique window on a complex cultural process of assimilation and dissimulation of humanism among the fifteenth-century Jewish elite. On the one hand, it establishes Abravanel’s assimilation of Iberian humanism and of major aspects of the Petrarchian consolatio; on the other hand, it points at the strategies used by him to dissimulate and adapt humanism to Jewish leadership. The duality of Jewish humanists like Don Isaac was obviously a great richness, but it indicated as well their difficulty in expressing themselves coherently and comprehensively in one of the two agoras - Jewish or Christian – in which they were involved as literati and writers. The present edition and study of Abravanel’s Portuguese and Hebrew letters sheds a new light on the complexity of this new figure of the Jewish humanist.
"1124110272"
Letters: Edition, Translation and Introduction
Almost five hundred years after his death, Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) remains a legendary figure of Sephardic history, and above all of the Expulsion of 1492. There are numerous “portraits” that have been painted of him by pre-modern and modern scholars. And still we hesitate and cannot discern which is the true one. This first critical edition of Abravanel’s Portuguese and Hebrew letters opens a unique window on a complex cultural process of assimilation and dissimulation of humanism among the fifteenth-century Jewish elite. On the one hand, it establishes Abravanel’s assimilation of Iberian humanism and of major aspects of the Petrarchian consolatio; on the other hand, it points at the strategies used by him to dissimulate and adapt humanism to Jewish leadership. The duality of Jewish humanists like Don Isaac was obviously a great richness, but it indicated as well their difficulty in expressing themselves coherently and comprehensively in one of the two agoras - Jewish or Christian – in which they were involved as literati and writers. The present edition and study of Abravanel’s Portuguese and Hebrew letters sheds a new light on the complexity of this new figure of the Jewish humanist.
154.0
In Stock
5
1
Letters: Edition, Translation and Introduction
208Letters: Edition, Translation and Introduction
208Hardcover(Reprint 2012)
$154.00
154.0
In Stock
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9783110194920 |
---|---|
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Publication date: | 08/20/2007 |
Series: | Studia Judaica , #40 |
Edition description: | Reprint 2012 |
Pages: | 208 |
Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d) |
Language: | Hebrew |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
From the B&N Reads Blog