but filtered through his heritage. That is, his Neo-platonism derived from the Hispanic Jewish community, especially the works of Solomon ibn Gabirol and Maimonides. A disciple of these renowned Jewish scholars, Abravanel was also influenced by the Hellenic spirit of the Renaissance. Platonic notions of reaching towards a nearly impossible ideal of beauty, wisdom, and perfection encompass the whole of the work. Dialoghi d'amore The Dialoghi was an exceedingly popular book that enjoyed at least five editions in twenty years. First published in Italian, it was translated into French by Tyard, as well as into Hebrew and into Latin by Sarasin. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega made one of its three translations into Spanish. Abravanel’s Dialoghi is notably one of the first original philosophical compositions to be published in the vernacular (as opposed to Latin). However, there is some controversy about the language in which it was originally written. According to Roth, although Abravenel had ample time to embrace and employ Italian, “the Dialogue read a little stiffly, [therefore] there is good reason to doubt whether [it] represents the original text” (xii). Also, the Hebrew text that remains was probably a translation, and while Spanish scholars also want to claim he wrote it in the language of the country from which he was exiled, it is possible that he wrote it in Judeo-Spanish, the language of many Spanish Jews and a mixture of Hebrew and Castilian. In the British Library, there is a manuscript (Or. Gaster 10688) of a Spanish translation written with Hebrew characters. This was once thought to have been the author's original, or a copy of it; this is no longer accepted, and the text corresponds very closely to the 1568 Spanish translation. This translation was likely produced in order reclaim Abravanel's Jewish identity and to encourage Spanish-speaking diaspora communities and as an appeal to the Spanish king to remember and reconsider the situation of the Sephardic exiles.<ref>Bacich, Damian. "Negotiating Renaissance Harmony: The First Spanish Translation of Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore". Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies ; 2005, Vol. 36, p114</ref> In his Dialoghi d'amore, Judah (Leon) Abravanel seeks to define love in philosophical terms. He structures his three dialogues as a conversation between two abstract and mostly undeveloped “characters”: Philo, representing love or appetite, and Sophia, representing science or wisdom, in other words, Philo+Sophia (philosophy). The first dialogue, titled, “Philo and Sophia