Hercules furens and war: on Abravanel’s courtly context

Scholarship on Abravanel has largely ignored the courtly context and milieu to which Abravanel himself regularly draws attention. The logic seems to that the court is the contrary to the spiritual or simple life, and, indeed, the vast majority of the approximately two to three hundred essays and other works devoted to Abravanel concentrate almost exclusively on the intellectual themes found in Abravanel’s Hebrew writings. In his epistles, however, the courtly context is clearly evident, as this essay will now show, pointing to how this milieu affected, or intertwined with, Abravanel’s cultural outlook. It will also discuss the relationship between this context and ideas, as well as the forms Abravanel elected in which to present them in writing.