rsa meeting, berlin 2015 - Lirias

"The Florentine Women Are Philosophers": Reading
Aristotle in a Quattrocento Vernacular Dialogue
Alexander Nikolayevich Veselovsky (1838-1906)
Manuscripts:
Florence, Bibl. Riccardiana, Ms. Riccardiano
1280, cc. 19-113. (1410-1440 ca)
Editions:
GIOVANNI GHERARDI DA PRATO, Il Paradiso degli
Alberti, ed. Antonio Lanza, Rome 1975.
Il Paradiso degli Alberti, ritrovi e ragionamenti del
1389, romanzo di Giovanni da Prato dal codice
autografo e anonimo della Riccardiana, a cura di
Alessandro Wesselofsky, Bologna 1867, vol. 1 (t.
I & II; Introduction and appendices), vol. 2 vol. 3
(edition of the text).
Veselovsky (1867); Gaeta (1955; unpub.); Lanza
(1975).
The "Paradiso degli Alberti" is a fascinating and scantly known
text, which dates from the early Quattrocento and has been
attributed to Giovanni Gherardi da Prato (d. ca. 1446). The work
is an hybrid writing which hardly belongs to any single literary
genre. A collection of short stories, composed after Boccaccio’s
glorious model, the Paradiso is also a political dialogue that
anticipates a few motives of Castiglione’s Courtier; it stands as
a document of 15th century Scholasticism, but it is also a
celebration of story-telling as the essential asset of civic
rhetoric. My paper aims to provide a detailed survey of the
presence of Aristotelian elements in it. The debate on ‘Whether
mothers love their children more than fathers’ (a topic
discussed by Aristotle in Book IX of his Nicomachean Ethics) is
one of the longest and more intriguing parts of the Paradiso’s
third Book, and I intend to reflect upon some of its unexpected
implications.
HANS BARON, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance,
Princeton – Chicago 1966, Ch. 15 (“Florentine Humanism
and the volgare in the Quattrocento”), pp. 332-353;
PIOTR SALWA, Alla ricerca di un compromesso nel Paradiso degli
Alberti, in Id., La narrativa tardogotica Toscana, Florence
2004, pp. 97-105;
ANTONIO LANZA, Il giardino tardogotico del Paradiso degli Alberti,
«Italies», 8 (2004), pp. 135-150;
ELISABETTA GUERRIERI, Preliminari sul Paradiso degli Alberti. Il
genere, la struttura, le novella, «Interpres», 26 (2007), pp.
40-76 ;
EAD., L’enciclopedismo nel Paradiso degli Alberti di Giovanni
Gherardi da Prato, in F. Mehltretter (ed.), Allegorie und
Wissensordnung Volkssprachliche enzyklopädische Literatur
des Trecento, «Münchener Italienstudien», I (2014), S. 97138.
RSA MEETING, BERLIN
2015
ARISTOTLE IN THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY III:
HEARING AND READING,
TELLING AND WRITING
Andrea A. Robiglio (KU Leuven)
[email protected]
Explicit references to Aristotle = 16
(Book I: 2; Book II: 0; Book III: 0; Book IV: 14;
Book V : 0 )
Aristotelian writings explicitly referred to:
Nicomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia, Politics, On
the Generation of Animals (cf. IV, 21).
MAIN CHARACTERS :
Blasius of Parma (Biagio Pelecani da Parma;
1345 ca. - 1416), natural philosopher,
mathematician, and astrologer; professor at the
Universities of Padua, Pavia, and Bologna.
Luigi Marsili (1342-1394); Austin friar,
Humanist and Theologian; friend ad admirer of
Petrarch (cf. Sen. xv 6).
Antonio degli Alberti (1363-1415), Esq.,
independent wealthy knight, sponsor of arts and
letters, poet himself, politician, devotee of
mathematics and astrology.
Ginevra of Nicholas Alberti, sister of Antonio.
Cosa, gentle and literate Lady of aristocratic
lineage, familiar with Ginevra Alberti.
Francesco Landini (1335 ca.-1397), musician
and poet, author of a Latin poetic invective
against the critics of Ockham.
Grazia de’ Castellani (1350 ca. – 1401) Austin
Friar, theologian and mathematician.
Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), Humanist and
Florentine chancellor.
Biagio of Ser Nello (1365 ca. – 1398), notions
store owner and jester on demand.
Giovanni de’ Ricci (1330-1400), high
magistrate and diplomat, author of a love
canzone.
With a merry company of knights, gentlemen
and noblewomen.
[Blasius of Parma] “O my very, very good
mistresses! Very, very good mistresses of mine”
– the bald-headed senile Blasius bows his head
down to the ground: he blushes and looks like an
addled old man, short, aged, unintentionally pert.
The ladies, seeing him on his knees, repeating the
same refrain like a broken record, are alarmed
and taken aback. But one of the ladies, whose
name is Ginevra, the daughter of the
distinguished father Sir Nicholas, showing her
bold and prompt confidence, approaches the old
master, gives him her hand and helps him to
stand up, while saying: “We all should thank you
so much, master Blasius, for your words, since
you called us, as it seems, my-ladies (madonne);
indeed, we should like to be your daughters and
pupils in order to deserve your learned
company” (III,59-61).
[Blasius of Parma] “Madonna! For the sake of our
Lady the Virgin Mary! I truly did not believe that
the women of Florence were scholars, both
moral and natural philosophers, and that they
mastered rhetoric as well as logic, which they are
ready to use so pertinently!”
[Cosa] “Master, the Florentine women manage to
do and to say according to what they may; they
just want to avoid being deceived. But you, who
know, and whom we trust, tell us, please, the true
solution of the above disputed question. By
doing so, you’ll make everybody happy”.
Bibliography :
TIZIANA PESENTI, Marsilio Santasofia tra Corti e
Università. La carriera di un ‘monarcha
Medicinae’ del Trecento, Treviso 2003
(Contributi alla Storia dell’Università di
Padova, 35).
ANDREA A. ROBIGLIO, La latitudine della nobiltà.
Una questione filosofica nel Commento di
Giovanni da Serravalle alla Divina
Commedia (1416), «Rassegna Europea di
Letteratura Italiana», 33 (2009), pp. 3149.
On late the 14th century debate on
“certitude”, cf. Summa logicae et
philosophiae naturalis (i, cc. 29-31) by
John Dumbleton, fellow of Merton College,
Oxford. See J. A. WEISHEIPL, The Place of
John Dumbleton in the Merton School,
«Isis», l (1959), at p. 451 :
« Throughout the Summa Dumbleton was
particularly concerned with intention and
remission of all such motions [i.e.
alterations] ; he even raises the same
questions with regard to the increase of
certitude and doubt, light and darkness ».