Philone e il suo doppio : la Tragedia della beata Caterina di Cinzio Laureli e i Dialoghi d'amore di Leone Ebreo

The article examines the impact of Leone Ebreo's Dialogues of Love (1535) on some dramatic and doctrinal aspects of the Tragedia della beata Caterina by the Florentine scholar and academic Cinzio Laureli (Amelia, 1515 ca. - Florence? post 1589). The Tragedia, written in vernacular prose and published in Orvieto in 1588, tells the story of the Christian martyr Catherine and her triumph over pagan and Jewish wisdom in the city of Alexandria.

While its rhetorical and ideological patterns are inspired by the religious program of the Counter-Reformation, the drama adopts the perspective of a prisca theologia first elaborated by Marsilio Ficino around 1470 and lather developed by his epigones in the first half of the 16th century. The portrayal of the Jew Philone, one of the characters of the play, and the discussion between Catherine and the Greek scholars about the nature of the original sin reveal the influence of the Dialogues of Love, whose popularity in Tuscan academic circles is well documented. [Publisher's text]