| Saggi e testimonianze | |
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Lorenzo Geri, Il De seculo et religione di Coluccio Salutati e le opere in «stile monastico» di Francesco Petrarca |
3 |
| Abstract. – This essay provides a critical analysis of Coluccio Salutati’s De seculo et religione in order to make a comparison between Salutati’s religious writings and Petrarch’s works written in a «monastic style» (i.e. De vita solitaria, De otio religioso, Sen. X and the letters to Gherardo). After an overview of the critical reception of De seculo et religione, the essay examines sources, structure and style of the treatise and studies Salutati’s relationship with contemporary preaching through the analysis of the chapter «Quod mundus est temptationum palestra». Finally, the essay discusses the possibility that Petrarch’s religious writings could be a relevant source for the De seculo et religione. | |
| Giovanni Maria Fara, La ‘città ideale’ di Albrecht Dürer. Fonti e fortuna fra XVI e XVII secolo | 37 |
| Abstract. – In this essay the author proposes an overall reconsideration of Albrecht Dürer’s plan for a quadrate town published in his Treatise on Fortification (Nuremberg 1527), paying constant attention to the surviving sources. In particular, the author demonstrates that it is likely that Dürer drew formal inspiration for his quadrate town plan, and for its accurate external defensive system from earlier Italian architectural models – drawings by Leonardo and some parts of the Libro dell’arte della guerra by Machiavelli. For these reasons, it is dismissed any dependence on Dürer’s quadrate town plan from utopian or different models, such as Thomas More’s Amauroto or the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. Furthermore, the author investigates also the significant reception of Dürer’s treatise in Italy, wellknown thanks to the Latin version (Paris 1535). | |
| Michele Ciliberto, Per un ritratto: Machiavelli riformatore e utopista | 57 |
| Abstract. – This paper aims to develop an exhaustive introduction to Niccolò Machiavelli’s personality and thought, showing the continuity between his ethical and political doctrines and his literary works. Machiavelli’s figure will be analyzed in its historical and cultural context by highlighting the close connection between politics and religion in his thought. A fundamental issue is the concept of «Vita», which elaboration allows to understand the centrality of the notions of conflict as well as the role of Fortune. Furthermore, this essay will investigate a topic of growing interest in recent years: the similarities between Machiavelli’s and Giordano Bruno’s intellectual experiences. | |
| Francesco Ferretti, «Picenus hospes». Scipione Gentili interprete europeo della Gerusalemme liberata | 105 |
| Abstract. – This study aims to shed light on an important example of Italian culture promoted by religious refugees at the Elizabethan court. I will focus on the youthful years of Scipione Gentili (1563-1616), the younger brother of the most famous Alberico (1552-1608). Scipione, as well as Alberico, after escaping from his native San Ginesio (near Macerata), fleeing the Inquisition, sought to impose himself at the Elizabethan court. But contrary to Alberico, who successfully focused on his legal career, Scipione (also a future law professor, in Germany) tried a parallel literary career, publishing in London two series of Latin hexameter translations of David’s Psalms (1581 and 1584) and, likewise in hexameters, a partial Latin translation of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (books I-II and a IV book fragment, 1584). I try to analyse, in particular, the reasons and the ambitions that led Scipione, as Neo-Latin poet, to translate Tasso’s epic poem so early (Liberata first appeared in 1581) and even to become, shortly afterwards (1586), author of the first humanist commentary to the same epic poem | |
| Testi e commenti | |
| David Speranzi, Scritture, libri e uomini all’ombra di Bessarione. I. Appunti sulle lettere del Marc. Gr. Z. 527 (coll. 679) | 137 |
| Abstract. – The attention is focused on the collection of six letters by Bessarion preserved in ms. Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. Z. 527 (coll. 679), ff. 240r-244v, which «throw much light on the Cardinal’s methods in building up his library» (Labowsky). Ludwig Mohler assumed that these letters were addressed to Michael Apostolis; Aubrey Diller to Theodorus Gazes. The last two are actually directed to Gazes, but Bessarion sent the third and the fourth to George Trapezuntius. The article provides a thorough analysis of the epistle collection and a new edition of the letters to Trapezuntius, with Italian translation and full commentary. | |
| Note e varietà | |
| Lucia Pappalardo, Credere alle streghe per credere a Dio. A margine della Strix sive de ludificatione daemonum di Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola | 201 |
| Abstract. – This essay proposes an interpretation of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s dialogue Strix sive de ludificatione daemonum as the last part of Pico’s apologetic strategy in defense of Christianity from ‘contamination’ with pagan philosophy. This strategy was directed against the syncretistic attitude adopted by Ficino and other renowned humanists. In the first part of the essay it is argued that, on one side, the Strix, following the logic of many Renaissance demonological treatises, uses the demonstration of the reality of witchcraft and demons to certify Christian truth; on the other, the dialogue clarifies Gianfrancesco Pico’s philosophical attitude. The main objective of the Strix – the intention to deny the fantastic and illusory character of witches’ night flights to the Sabbath – can be better understood in connection with Gianfrancesco’s close examination of the role of the imaginative faculty in human life (as it is explained in his De imaginatione) and with his belief that Christian faith does not depend on human imagination. In the last part of the essay it is analyzed the relation between the Strix and the skeptical position outlined in the Examen vanitatis in order to highlight some conceptual weaknesses in Pico’s demonstration of the reality of witchcraft. | |
| Daniele Conti, Religione naturale e salvezza universale. Appunti sulla fortuna di Ficino e una nota su Agrippa e Camillo Renato | 231 |
| Abstract. – This essay analyzes some aspects of the multi-faceted European reception of the notion of religio naturalis, developed by Marsilio Ficino in the De Christiana religione, in the Theologia Platonica, in his letters and in his commentaries on Plato. In addition it aims to clarify the ways in which Francesco Zorzi, Celio Secondo Curione, Francesco Pucci, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Sebastian Franck re-adapted this notion to the context of the sixteenth-century religious debate. The analysis of the (mis)fortunes of religio naturalis also sheds light on Ficino’s own texts, discovering previously unsuspected potentialities. The final part of the essay shows the influence of a chapter of Cornelius Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia, partly dependant on Ficino’s texts, on Camillo Renato’s doctrine of the deferred beatific vision. | |
| Elisabetta Scapparone, Tra antropologia e Scrittura. Giordano Bruno, Francesco Pucci e l’utopia dell’innocenza |
287 |
| Abstract. – This essay outlines a comparison between Francesco Pucci and Giordano Bruno, favouring an anthropological approach, at the boundary between philosophy and theology. The first part of the essay recalls the common encounters and the vivid affinities of the European peregrinatio of the two exiles, to the tragic illusion that will bring them both towards Rome and the Inquisition. The second part focuses on the fundamental thesis of Pucci’s theology: his faith in natural innocence of man and in the final fate of eternal salvation for the whole mankind. Both Bruno and Pucci are strongly influenced by the Erasmian theme of the infinite amplitude of God’s mercy. In Bruno, however, the legacy of Erasmus is constantly being transfigured on the basis of principles and central structures of his philosophy. So, he develops the theme of mercy in order to delve into the relationship between the cycle of time and the responsibility of every individual. Bruno’s sarcasm with regard to the biblical story and the very figure of Adam is in contrast with the more optimistic anthropology of Pucci, who inherits from Erasmus not only the concept of the immense goodness of God, but also his humanistic and anthropocentric vision. | |
| Simonetta Bassi, «Mi disse che gli piacevano assai le donne, et che non havea arivato ancora al numero di quelle de Salomone». Giordano Bruno e le donne | 311 |
| Abstract. – The article Giordano Bruno and the women analyzes those works from Candelaio to Furori in which Bruno deals with the subject of women. The originality of his interpretation emerges, separating women from the role of procreation, and revealing the creative power of infinite matter. Thus the female role embraces a complex dialectic between amorous attraction, in all its many aspects, and the elevation of knowledge, realized by real women that Bruno had met and loved during his life, in the interweaving of philosophy and autobiography that distinguishes his thought and his works. | |
| Ilenia Russo, Giordano Bruno all’Università di Wittenberg | 327 |
| Abstract. – Giordano Bruno spent almost two years in Wittenberg (from August 1586 to March 1588), where he taught as a private lecturer at the city university. The article offers a critical overview of the research project carried out by Bruno during his stay in Wittenberg, so as to show that, rather than being merely conditioned by the university cultural milieu, most of his choices were essentially dictated by some philosophical issues already outlined during his previous stay in Paris (from October 1585 to May 1586). According to this perspective, by addressing some preliminary problems and interpretative questions, the article casts a new light on Libri Physicorum Aristotelis explanati, Bruno’s Latin commentary on Physics (books I-V), On Generation and Corruption, and Meteorology (book IV). | |
| Mario Biagioni, Scetticismo religioso e Controriforma: il Dolium Diogenis di Christian Francken | 361 |
| Abstract. – The late sixteenth-century case of Christian Francken, an exLutheran, ex-Jesuit, and ex-Socinian, seems to confirm Richard Popkin’s hypothesis that fideism was the main consequence of modern religious skepticism. However, a comparative analysis of three of Francken’s works, Epistola Nicolai Regi Germani (1583), Dolium Diogenis (1594), and Analysis rixae Christianae (1595), in which he expresses contradictory points of view about the CounterReformation’s conception of Christendom, calls into question Popkin’s opinion. Francken’s thought was indeed so corrosive towards every religion as to bring him to a position very close to atheism. Probably Francken discovered Sextus Empiricus’ skepticism at the end of the 1580’s. However, unbelief was still a difficult choice in the sixteenth century, as it was a cause of loneliness, marginalization, and suffering. Francken feared such a doctrine in his own historical context of wars and persecutions, and thus ended up accepting the authority he knew best: the Catholic Church. | |
| Discussioni | |
| Fabrizio Meroi, Pico, l’Oratio e la ‘dignità dell’uomo’. Una recente interpretazione | 379 |
| Abstract. – In recent years there has been much general debate regarding the concept of ‘humanism’ and in particular, a renewed interest in the figure and work of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Brian Copenhaver’s studies emerge from this context. They stand out for their undoubted originality and focus on several highly important themes regarding Pico: the use of magic and cabalistic sources, the relationship between philosophy and theology, and the content of the so-called Oratio de hominis dignitate. In these studies, particular attention has been paid to the complex and often paradoxical Oratio’s reception throughout the centuries. | |
| Variazioni | |
| Michele Ciliberto, Per Nicoletta Tirinnanzi | 399 |
| Indice dei manoscritti | 407 |
| Indice dei nomi | 411 |
Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento – Firenze