Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s translation of Dialogues of love by Leone Ebreo. The language of Philosophy in the Renaissance

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the importance of the notion of divine knowledge in Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s translation of the same work, and Garcilaso’s The Royal Commentaries. The Neoplatonist theory of divine knowledge, rooted in Pauline, Aristotelian and Platonic thought, held that God had imparted his sacred secrets to mankind in textual form, but only a select few would be able to understand it fully. Elements of divine knowledge were also progressively lost, it was believed, as the knowledge was passed from person to person. This shouldered translators with the great responsibility of representing divine knowledge faithfully: they thus placed high importance on close translation, but also felt it right to bend the translated text closer to their particular conception of divine truth. We will also see indications that Neoplatonist ideas of knowledge were the foundation of a political theology.*