Reading Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’Amore: Pontus de Tyard, Louise Labé, and Olivier de Magny

Avec raison donq non seulement l'inferieur ayme et desire de se unir avec le superieur, mais encor le superieur ayme et desire de unir avec soy l'inferieur, a fin que chacun d'eux soit parfait en son degre sans default, et a celle fin que l'univers se unie et se lie successivement avec le lien d'amour qui unit le monde corporel avec le spirituel, et les inferieurs avec les superieurs, laquelle union est la fin principale de l'ouvrier souverain et Dieu tout puissant en la production de ce monde avec diversite ordonnee et pluralite unifiee. (1) Onde con ragione non solamente l'inferiore ama, e desidera unirsi col superiore, ma ancora il superiore ama, e desidera unir'seco l'inferiore, accio che ogn'uno di loro sia perfetto nel suo grado senza mancamento, e accio che l'universo s'unisca e si leghi successivamente, col legame de l'Amore che unisce il Mondo corporale col spirituale, e l'inferiori con li superiori, la qual Unione e principal'fine del sommo opifice, et Omnipotente Dio, ne la produttione del Mondo con diversita ordinata, e pluralita unificata. (2) ********** Leone Ebreo plays an important part in the making of the Lyon literary community. Like his contemporary Symphorien Champier, he participates in the tradition derived from the Ficinian commentary of the Banquet (1468-69). (3) At the same time, he changes medieval hierarchies by discussing Christian, Neoplatonic, and courtly love theories side by side. Printed for the first time in 1535, Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore develop a conversation over several days between the protagonists Philo and Sophia. As Sophia steadfastly refuses her lover Philo's persuasive rhetoric together with his amorous advances, she is presented with a wealth of theories concerning love and the world. This work becomes one of the texts that create the Lyon community and foster the cult of Venus, which is celebrated on the Colline Fourvieres, the so-called "Forum Veneris." (4) Due to Lyon's intellectual openness, syncretism, eclecticism, and religious tolerance are favored, as well as a rapidly growing Protestant community that is supported by Calvin. Lyon's print shops and book markets are well-known and liberal enough to be targeted by the Edict of Chateaubriant in 1551. (5) This is also the year in which two French translations of Ebreo's dialogues are published: Pontus de Tyard's version appears with the printer Jean de Tournes and Denys Sauvage has his text brought out by Roville & Payen. As Lyon is virtually bilingual at this moment, (6) Ebreo's text is important without doubt in its original as well as in its translations, although it is impossible to determine what influence Tyard's or Sauvage's translation respectively had on the poetic community. It will be helpful to briefly recapitulate the main topics of Ebreo's dialogues in order to gauge their importance for some Lyon writers. The first dialogue treats the nature of love (essenza), defining love and, or as, desire, describing those objects that are good and desirable. The second dialogue discusses the universality of love (communita). It cosmologically defines love as a world force and as a principle that fuses the cosmos into unity. The third dialogue deals with the origin of love (origine), determining love metaphysically as the basis and goal of the world. Here, love is the principle that governs the relationship between God and the world, because it strives to communicate God's highest wisdom to his most beautiful likeness, that is, the universe, which strives in its turn to come back to highest beauty; this dialogue also considers esthetics. A fourth dialogue on the effects (effetti) of love seems to have been planned by Ebreo. One important reason for the popularity of this work is without doubt that it presents various theories of love in the form of a manual. (7) I would like to show how the author might have contributed to the construction of a poetic or cultural community on the Colline Fourvieres by examining texts by Pontus de Tyard, Louise Labe, Olivier de Magny, and Claude de Taillemont. …