I libri di Maestro Leone. Note sulla recente edizione dei Dialoghi d'amore

This essay introduces the recent edition of Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore published in the series « Biblioteca Filosofica Laterza » (Rome, 2008). The edition is based on the critical text established in 1983 by Giacinto Manuppella, modified in several points on the basis of a stylistic comparison with the posthumous editio princeps of 1535. The editio princeps conserves the text in its most integral state, as it was subjected to a linguistic revision that aimed at purifying it of the many Latinisms, as well as the Spanish and Lusitanian inflections, scattered throughout the first draft. It is well known that the surviving manuscript of this work is limited to the third and last dialogue. The recovery of a text as close as possible to that produced by its author is necessarily conditioned by this state of affairs. In this essay the various editorial choices operated during the preparation of the new text are specified, and the criteria lying behind them explained, thus illustrating the changes introduced with respect to the text adopted as the basis for the new edition.