The Myth of the Androgyne in Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love

In Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love (1535) a particular space is dedicated to the Androgyne’s Myth. This article elucidates how this Myth condenses in itself the Dialogues’ philosophical system. Having in mind Plato, Ficino, Pico, and the Spanish Kabbalah, with obvious references to the book of Zohar, Leone puts Love as the principle which governs the whole universe, and emphasizes that in the entire universe there is a radical polarity in terms of male and female symbols. This cosmological issue is connected to the creative force of language, which analogically reproduces reality. In fact, there must be a division between signifier and signified, between form and content, between fabula and historia, in order to have a world or a reality. The Dialogues’ two interlocutors, Sofia and Filone, represent, in fact, two halves of the androgyne whose names, when united, form the composite body that we call “philo-sophy.”