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Open Research Online The Speculum phisionomie by Michele
Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola Conference Item How to cite: Zuccolin, Gabriella (2012). The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola. In: Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies, 16-22 September 2007, Palermo, Italy. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2012 Officina di Studi Medievali Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://www.siepm.uni-freiburg.de/images/stories/toc palermo congress proceedings.pdf Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Tutte le collane editoriali dell’Officina di Studi Medievali sono sottoposte a valutazione da parte di revisori anonimi. Il contenuto di ogni volume è approvato da componenti del Comitato Scientifico ed editoriale dell’Officina o da altri specialisti che vengono scelti e periodicamente resi noti. All the editorial series of the Officina di Studi Medievali are peer-reviewed series. The content of the each volume is assessed by members of Advisory Board of the Officina or by other specialists who are chosen and whose names are periodically made know. BIBLIOTECA DELL’OFFICINA DI STUDI MEDIEVALI 14.II.2 Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale Presidenti onorari: Tullio Gregory, Rome Jacqueline Hamesse, Louvain-la-Neuve Raymond Klibansky, Montreal / Oxford (†) Wolfgang Kluxen, Bonn (†) David E. Luscombe, Sheffield John E. Murdoch, Harvard, Cambridge (USA) (†) Albert Zimmermann, Cologne Presidente: Josep Puig Montada, Madrid Vice-Presidenti: Alain de Libera, Geneva Timothy B. Noone, Washington, D.C. Loris Sturlese, Lecce Membri: Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Nijmegen Alfredo Culleton, São Leopoldo Elzbieta Jung, Lodz Constant Mews, Victoria (Australia) Pasquale Porro, Bari Thomas Ricklin, München Mário A. Santiago de Carvalho, Coïmbra Christopher Schabel, Cyprus Segretario generale: M. J. F. M. Hoenen, Freiburg i. Br. (D) Editore responsabile delle pubblicazioni: K. Emery Jr., Notre Dame (USA) Commissione del Programma / Commission du Programme / Program Commitee L. Sturlese, Lecce G. d’Onofrio, Salerno A. Musco, Palermo A. Maierù, Roma (†) P. Porro; Bari Commissione organizzatrice / Commission organisatrice / Organizing Commitee C. Martello, Catania A. Musco, Palermo L. Pepi, Palermo G. Roccaro, Palermo Segreteria / Secrétariat / Secretariat Officina di Studi Medievali, Palermo http://www.officinastudimedievali.it Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M.) Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle Filosofie nel Medioevo Universalité de la Raison. Pluralité des Philosophies au Moyen Âge Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages XII Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medievale Palermo, 17-22 settembre 2007 Volume II.2 Comunicazioni Latina a cura di Alessandro Musco e di Carla Compagno - Salvatore D’Agostino - Giuliana Musotto Indici di Giuliana Musotto 2012 Carla Compagno ha curato l’editing dei testi della sezione Lulliana; Salvatore D’Agostino ha curato l’editing della sezione Latina del vol. II.2; Giuliana Musotto ha curato l’uniformità redazionale dell’intero volume e gli Indici; Alessandro Musco ha curato la supervisione dell’editing redazionale del volume ed il coordinamento scientifico-editoriale. Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M) Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle Filosofie nel Medioevo = Universalité de la Raison. Pluralité des Philosophies au Moyen Âge = Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages : 12. Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medievale : Palermo, 17-22 settembre 2007. – Palermo : Officina di Studi Medievali, 2012. ISBN 978-88-6485-025-2 (Intera Opera) V. II.2 : Comunicazioni : Latina / a cura di Alessandro Musco … [et al.] ; indici di Giuliana Musotto. (Biblioteca dell’Officina di Studi Medievali ; 14.II.2) I. Musco, Alessandro II. Compagno, Carla III. D’Agostino, Salvatore IV. Musotto, Giuliana 1. Filosofia – Medioevo – Atti – Palermo 180 CDD-21 ISBN 978-88-6485-051-1 (vol. II.2) Cip: Biblioteca dell’Officina di Studi Medievali I saggi qui pubblicati sono stati sottoposti a “Peer Review” / The essays published here have been “Peer Reviewed” Collana diretta da: Armando Bisanti, Olivier Boulnois, José Martinez Gasquez, Alessandro Musco, Luca Parisoli, Salvador Rus Rufino, Christian Trottmann, Pere Villalba i Varneda. Copyright © 2012 by Officina di Studi Medievali Via del Parlamento, 32 – 90133 Palermo e-mail: [email protected] www.officinastudimedievali.it - www.medioevo-shop.net Ogni diritto di copyright di questa edizione e di adattamento, totale o parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo è riservato per tutti i Paesi del mondo. È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, compresa la fotocopia, anche ad uso interno o didattico, non autorizzata dall’editore. Prima edizione, Palermo, luglio 2012 Stampa: FOTOGRAF – Palermo Grafica editoriale: Alberto Musco Indice table des matiÈres table of contents Volume I Sessioni Plenarie P. Gaspare La Barbera (OFMConv.), Saluto inaugurale XIX Josep Puig Montada, IntroductionXXIII Jacqueline Hamesse, PréfaceXXV Alessandro Musco, Il XII Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medievale a Palermo XXVII Alessandro Musco, Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle filosofie nel Medievo/ Universalité de la Raison. Pluralité des philosophies au Moyen Âge/ Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages XXXI Loris Sturlese, Universality of Reason and Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages. Geography of Readers and Isograph of Text Diffusion before the Invention of Printing 1 Olivier Boulnois, Pourquoi la théologie? La raison dans la religion 23 Richard Cross, Aristotle and Augustine: Two Philosophical Ancestors of Duns Scotus’s Cognitive Psychology 47 Cristina D’Ancona, Le traduzioni in latino e in arabo. Continuità e trasformazioni della tradizione filosofica greca fra tarda antichità e Medioevo 73 Giulio d’Onofrio, Filosofi e teologi a Roma. Ascesa e declino dell’universalismo speculativo medievale 105 Stephen Gersh, Through the Rational to the Supra-Rational. Four Criteria of NonDiscursive Thinking in Medieval Platonism 125 Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Latin Averroes Translations of the First Half of the Thirteenth Century 149 Georgi Kapriev, Die Verurteilung von Konstantinopel 1368 – Universalansprüche und Provinzialisierung 179 Paolo Lucentini, Ermetismo e pensiero cristiano 195 VIII Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Charles H. Manekin, The Ambiguous Impact of Christian Scholasticism on Jewish Philosophy in the Late Middle Ages 215 Constant Mews, The Harmony of the Spheres: Musica in Pythagorean and Aristotelian Traditions in Thirteenth-Century Paris 231 Pasquale Porro, Individual Events, Universal Reasons. The Quest for Universality (and its Limits) in 13th Century Theology 251 Marwan Rashed, Lumières Abbassides 273 Thomas Ricklin, Les voies de l’invention. Les langues vernaculaires de la Méditerranée latine comme berceau du premier humanisme 291 Irène Rosier-Catach, Sur l’unité et la diversité linguistique: Roger Bacon, Boèce de Dacie et Dante 309 Josep-Ignasi Saranyana, Filosofie regionali e regionalizzazione della filosofia nel Medioevo 333 Tullio Gregory, Per una storia delle filosofie medievali 347 Indice dei nomi 361 Indice dei manoscritti 379 Curricula dei curatori 381 Comitato Scientifico / Advisory Board dell’Officina di Studi Medievali 383 Volume II.1 Alessandro Musco, Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle filosofie nel Medievo/ Universalité de la Raison. Pluralité des philosophies au Moyen Âge/ Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages XIX Latina Juan Carlos Alby, Martyrium verum, sententiam eorum. La crítica de San Ireneo a la concepción gnóstica del martirio 1 Roberto Schiavolin, Mysterium magnum: l’anima come secunda trinitas nel pensiero di Mario Vittorino 11 Paula Oliveira e Silva, Visio Dei ineffabilis. La vision de Dieu comme expérience de communion chez saint Augustin 19 Renato de Filippis, La retorica al servizio della “filosofia” nell’alto Medioevo 29 Ignacio Verdú Berganza, Humildad y verdad en Agustín de Hipona37 Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents IX Chiara Militello, Il rapporto fra oggetti geometrici, generi e specie in Alessandro di Afrodisia e Boezio 45 Juvenal Savian-Filho, Qualitas singularis et qualitas communis chez Boèce: une convergence de philosophies 53 Armando Bisogno, Ragione e fede nel paradigma teologico dell’età carolingia 65 José Luis Cantón Alonso, El hombre como lugar del universal en Escoto Eriúgena 73 Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi, Scottorum pultes. Per una rivisitazione della questione irlandese nell’alto medioevo latino 83 Ilaria Parri, L’ermetismo nella Cosmographia di Bernardo Silvestre 91 Carlo Chiurco, Ganymede versus natura. Philosophical implications of Three Twelfth-Century works on homosexuality 99 Giacinta Spinosa, Traduzioni e neologismi medievali per un’antropologia teologica:cognitivus e cognoscitivus 107 John A. Demetracopoulos, The stoic background to the universality of Anselm’s definition of “God” in Proslogion 2: Boethius’ Second Commentary on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione ad 16a7-11 121 Sergio Paolo Bonanni, Anselmo e Abelardo. Alle radici della theologia tra argomenti certissimi e ragioni verosimili 139 Christian Brouwer, L’intellection des essences. Anselme et Augustin 151 Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm in dialogue with the other 159 Pietro Palmeri, Razionalità e libertà della creatura in Anselmo d’Aosta 169 Concetto Martello, Sull’uso della filosofia antica nella theologia di Pietro Abelardo 182 Giuseppe Allegro, An plura vel pauciora facere possit deus quam faciat et contra. La questione dell’onnipotenza divina al tempo di Pietro Abelardo 187 Vera Rodrigues, Universalis dicitur quod communicabilis: raison et foi chez Thierry de Chartres 195 Jussi Varkemaa, Justification of private property: a case for natural reason 203 István P. Bejczy, Vertus infuses et vertus acquises dans la théologie de la première moitié du xiiie siècle 211 Riccardo Saccenti, La définition de la vertu chez les théologiens de la première moitié du xiiie siècle 219 Paola Bernardini, La teoria dei media tra anima e corpo nel XIII secolo. Una riflessione sulla fisiologia umana nell’aristotelismo 227 X Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Irene Zavattero, L’acquisition de la vertu morale dans les premiers commentaires latins de l’Éthique à Nicomaque235 Marcello Pacifico, La Coronatio hierosolymitana del 1229: lo speculum dignitatis regis di Federico II. Un viaggio da Gerusalemme alla Sicilia nell’arcipelago mediterraneo della conoscenza 245 Massimiliano Lenzi, John Blund, Giovanni Filopono e le radici tardoantiche dell’Aristotele medievale 261 R. James Long, The anonymous De Anima of Assisi, biblioteca comunale cod. 138 271 Valeria A. Buffon, Fronesis: connaissance et dilection du souverain bien chez les maîtres ès Arts de Paris vers 1250 281 Cecilia Panti, Il trattato De luce di Roberto Grossatesta. Una rilettura sulla base della nuova edizione del testo 289 Adriano Oliva, Typologie, interprétation et datation de quelques marginalia au commentaire des Sentences de Thomas d’Aquin 301 Juan Fernando Sellés Daudere, La razón humana es universal porque el acto de ser humano es trascendental 311 Ignacio A. Silva, Indeterminismo natural y acción divina en De Potentia Dei de santo tomás de aquino 321 Silvana Filippi, Cuatro “filosofías del Éxodo” y la crítica heideggeriana a la onto-teo-logía 329 Andrea Di Maio, “Ragioni dimostrative e probabili”o “potenza della testimonianza e dei miracoli”: due approcci dialogali ai non cristiani in tommaso d’aquino e in bonaventura 339 Barbara Faes, La violenza nel raptus secondo rolando di cremona e tommaso d’aquino 349 Rosa Errico, Ragione umana e verità. Il problema ontologico del senso dell’essere in edith stein interprete di tommaso d’aquino 357 Francisco León Florido, La condena universitaria de 1277: ¿ la ortodoxia religiosa contra la filosofía? Problemas de interpretación 367 José Ángel García Cuadrado, Lógica universal y gramática particular: la distinción nombre-verbo en la paráfrasis al Peri Hermeneias de alberto magno 377 Antonella Sannino, La questione della magia e dell’ermetismo nel de mirabilibus mundi387 Andrea Vella, Universali ed eternità della specie nel de aeternitate mundi di sigieri di brabante 395 Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents XI Guido Alliney, L’acrasia nel pensiero di enrico di gand 401 Catherine König-Pralong, L’expertise théologique par henri de gand: raisonner avec des cas 411 Mikołaj Olszewski, Contemplation as via media between praxis and theory. A study of the prologue to the Commentary on the Sentences by augustine of ancona 419 Marcin Bukała, Reason and rationality in the scholastic outlook on business activity 427 Delphine Carron, Représentations médiévales du sage stoïcien à travers la figure de Caton (xiie-xive siècles) 433 Michael Dunne, Richard fitzRalph on the human mind as a trinity of memory, understanding and will 443 Marco Toste, Specula principum lusitaniae. The importance of aristotle’s practical works451 Salvador Rus Rufino, La política de aristóteles en la edad media 459 Monica B. Calma, Jean de mirecourt et les échos de la philosophie anglaise à l’Université de Paris au XIVe siècle 471 Claude Panaccio, Le nominalisme du xive siècle et l’universalité des concepts 481 Christian Trottmann, Pluralité philosophique dans le traité de Guiral Ot sur la vision de Dieu 489 Federica Caldera, Croire et savoir: science philosophique et sagesse théologique chez godefroid de fontaines 501 Jaume Mensa i Valls, Dall’informació espiritual di arnaldo da villanova ai capitula regni siciliae di federico di sicilia: proposte sui neofiti saraceni, ebrei e servi greci 509 Alexander Fidora, Concepts of philosophical rationality in inter-religious dialogue: crispin, abelard, aquinas, llull 519 Josep Manuel Udina, La universalidad de la razón medieval es cuestionable 529 Pedro Roche Arnas, Desde San Agustín al agustinismo político en el De Ecclesiastica Potestate de Egidio Romano 539 Francisco Bertelloni, La misma causa no puede producir efectos contrarios (Modelos causales en las teorías políticas de Egidio Romano y Marsilio de Padua) 549 David Piché, Les débats au sujet de l’espèce intelligible et du verbe mental dans les quodlibeta de Gerard de Bologne (c. 1240/50 - 1317) 557 Gianfranco Pellegrino, Meister Eckhart e Dietrich di Freiberg sulla dottrina dell’imago565 XII Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Lydia Wegener, Meister Eckharts unbekannte Erben: der Traktat Von dem anefluzze des vater als Beispiel für die Rezeption und Transformation eckhartischen Denkens in anonymen volkssprachlichen Texten des 14. Jahrhunderts 573 Alessandra Beccarisi, Der hœhste under den meister. Il De anima di Aristotele nell’opera di Meister Eckhart 587 Tamar Tsopurashvili, Negatio negationis als paradigma in der Eckhartschen Dialektik 595 Volume II.2 Latina Fiorella Retucci, Eckhart, Proclo e il Liber de Causis 603 Elisa Rubino, Pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita in Eckhart 613 Nadia Bray, Meister Eckhart lettore di Seneca 621 Alessandro Palazzo, Le citazioni avicenniane nell’opera di Meister Eckhart 631 Guy Guldentops, Durandus of st. Pourçain’s legitimization of religious (in)tolerance 639 Ubaldo Villani Lubelli, Intelligere est perfectio simpliciter dicta. Henry’s of Lübeck second quodlibet 651 Marta Vittorini, Some notes about the metaphysical composition of individuals in Walter Burley 659 William J. Courtenay, Avenues of intellectual exchange between England and the continent, 1320-1345 669 Christian Rode, Divine and human reason in Ockham 677 Leonardo Capelletti, Veritas dubitabilis: la polemica tra Wodeham e Chatton sulla Q. II del Prologo alle Sentenze di Ockham 685 José María Soto Rábanos, Aristoteles en la obra De Concordantia legis Dei de Juan de Valladolid 691 Rolf Darge, Neues in der spätmittelalterlichen Lehre vom transzendentalen Guten 703 Fabrizio Amerini, Paul of Venice on the nature of the Possible Intellect 713 Riccardo Strobino, Paul of Venice and Peter of Mantua on obligations 721 Alessandro D. Conti, Some notes on Paul of Venice’s theory of cognition 731 Mario Bertagna, Paul of Venice’s commentary on the Posterior Analytics739 Gabriele Galluzzo, Averroes re-interpreted: Paul of Venice on the essence and defi- Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents nition of sensible substances XIII 747 Marta Borgo, Paul of Venice on the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics: some considerations about the Conclusiones Ethicorum 753 Kazuhiko Yamaki, Universalität der Vernunft und Pluralität der Philosophie in De pace fidei des Nikolaus von Kues 763 Paula Pico Estrada, Perfección unitrina del amor y libertad en De visione Dei de Nicolás de Cusa 771 José González Ríos, La pluralidad de discursos y nombres divinos en el pensamiento de Nicolás de Cusa a la luz de sus primeras prédicas 779 Jesús de Garay, La recepción de Proclo en Nicolás de Cusa 789 Gregorio Piaia, Pericolo turco, universalità del vero e pluralità delle filosofie nel De Pace Fidei di Nicolò Cusano 797 Davide Monaco, La visione di Dio e la pace nella fede 805 Lorenza Tromboni, Il «De doctrina Platonicorum»: note per un platonismo savonaroliano 811 Paolo Edoardo Fornaciari, Ipotesi sulla composizione della Apologia conclusionum suarum di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 819 Mª Socorro Fernández-García, Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), precursor del diálogo intercultural en las 900 tesis de omni re scibili 825 Fosca Mariani Zini, Remarques sur l’argumentation topique dans le premier humanisme italien 831 José Luis Fuertes Herreros, Estoicismo y escolástica en Salamanca a finales del siglo XVI 839 Daniel Heider, Suárez and Javelli on transcendentals and divisions of being 849 David Svoboda, F. Suárez on transcendental unity in his Disputationes Metaphysicae - the addition of the one to being and the priority of the one over the many 861 Gabriella Zuccolin, The Speculum Phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 873 Luigi Della Monica, «That one cognoscitive power of the soul […] is a potential omniformity». Platonismo e aristotelismo nella gnoseologia di Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) 887 Franciscana P. Stéphane Oppes, Presentazione897 XIV Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents P. Barnaba Hechich, OFM, Spunti e riflessioni basilari suggerite dal libro III della Lectura e dell’Ordinatio Del B. Giovanni Duns Scoto edite negli anni 20032007 dalla Commissione Scotista 901 Charles Bolyard, John Duns Scotus on Accidents 911 Antoine Côté, The Theological Metaphysics of Odo Rigaldi 923 Luis Alberto De Boni, Catholici te laudant omnipotentem - A noção de onipotência segundo Duns Scotus 935 Cruz González-Ayesta, Voluntad natural y voluntad libre según Duns Escoto 943 Manuel Lázaro Pulido, La categoría «Pobreza» en la Metafísica de la expresión de San Buenaventura 953 Gerhard Leibold, Intentionalität bei Petrus Johannis Olivi 963 Giuliana Musotto, La seconda questione disputata De dilectione Dei di Nicola di Ockham 969 Stéphane Oppes, La filosofia del linguaggio come filosofia prima nel sistema di Bonaventura. Oltre la questione bonaventuriana 975 Luca Parisoli, Paraconsistenza scotista: Pseudo-Scoto e Duns Scoto 989 Roberto Hofmeister Pich, Duns Scotus on the credibility of Christian doctrines 997 António Rocha Martins, Teologia e Metáfora em São Boaventura 1013 Tiziana Suarez-Nani, Un’altra critica alla noetica averroista:Francesco della Marca e l’unicità dell’intelletto 1025 Juhana Toivanen, Peter Olivi on Practical Reasoning 1033 Lulliana Antonio Bordoy, Notes sur récupération du Psd.-Denys dans la cosmologie lullienne: questions sur la création du monde 1049 Julia Butiñá Jiménez, Alrededor del concepto de la divinidad y del hombre en el Llibre de meravelles:de Llull al Humanismo 1059 Marcia L. Colish, The Book of the Gentile and the Three Sages: Ramon Lull as Anselm Redivivus? 1077 Carla Compagno, La combinatoria degli elementi nelle opere mediche di Raimondo Lullo 1089 Cándida Ferrero Hernández-José Martínez Gázquez, Ramón Llull y el Liber de Angelis1099 XV Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Francesco Fiorentino, Credere et intelligere dans les œuvres latines tardives de Lulle 1109 Núria Gómez Llauger, Aproximaciones al Liber de potentia, obiecto et actu de Ramon Llull 1119 Esteve Jaulent, El Ars generalis última de Ramon Llull: Presupuestos metafísicos y éticos 1129 Marta M. M. Romano, Aspetti della strumentativa in Raimondo Lullo 1153 Josep E. Rubio Albarracín, Ramon Llull: Le langage et la raison 1163 María Asunción Sánchez Manzano, Ramón Llull: Quattuor libri principiorum y la filosofía de su tiempo 1169 Jorge Uscatescu Barrón, La relación entre el Ars inventiva veritatis y el Ars amativa (1290) 1181 John Dudley, A revised interpretation of the mediaeval reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 1197 Fernando Domínguez Reboiras, Postfazione XXXV Indice dei nomi antichi e medievali 1203 Indice dei nomi moderni1215 Indice dei manoscritti1239 Curricula dei curatori 1243 Comitato Scientifico / Advisory Board dell’Officina di Studi Medievali 1245 VOLUME III Orientalia Alessandro Musco, Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle filosofie nel Medievo/ Universalité de la Raison. Pluralité des philosophies au Moyen Âge/ Universality of Reason. Plurality of Philosophies in the Middle Ages XIX Arabica Catarina Belo, Some Notes on Averroes’ Appraisal of non-Islamic Religions, with a Focus on Christianity and Judaism Emily Cottrel, Trivium and Quadrivium: East of Baghdad 1 11 XVI Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Alfredo Culleton, Alfarabi y Maimonides: la misión trascultural de la filosofia. Alfarabi and Maimonides: the transcultural mission of philosophy 27 Paola D’Aiello, La speculazione islamo-iraniana tra Sohravardī e Mollā Ÿadrā Šīrāzī 33 Daniel De Smet, La perfection de l’intellect et de l’âme selon le Kit…b al-Anwār alla¥†fa de Mu|ammad b. ¦…hir al-ð…rit† (m. 1188). Recherches de noétique ismaélienne 39 Rosalie Helena de Souza Pereira, L’universalità della Šar†‘a e le leggi particolari (nómoi) nel pensiero politico di Averroè 49 Matteo Di Giovanni, Averroes’ Notion of Primary Substance 55 Demetrio Giordani, Conoscenza e visio beatifica. Il Punto di vista di Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindî 67 Hans Kraml, Ibn Ruschds Hermeneutik der Religion 75 Celina A. Lértora Mendoza, Tres versiones del Concordismo Medieval: Averroes, Maimónides y Tomás De Aquino 83 José Francisco Meirinhos, Was there a Portuguese Averroism in the 14th Century? Alphonsus Dionisii and Thomas Scotus 93 Ivana Panzeca, Il Partau Nāmah di Sohravardī: elementi filosofici e teologici 109 Ines Peta, Il cuore come organo della conoscenza divina nel Kit…b šar| ağ…’ib al-qalb di Ab™ ð…mid al-Ýaz…l† Rafael Ramón Guerrero, Un caso de diálogo religioso en el siglo X: Las respuestas del filósofo cristiano Yahyâ b. ‛Adî al judío ‛Irs b. ‛Utmân 123 Giuseppe Roccaro, Universalità e analogia: metafisica e logica nel pensiero islamico 131 Angelo Scarabel, Sufismo e conoscenza. A proposito degli •l™ ’l-alb…b nei versetti coranici 141 Pinella Travaglia, Considerazioni sulla magia nel medioevo. Il Libro dell’agricoltura nabatea 153 Elvira Wakelnig, Proclus in Aristotelian disguise. Notes on the Arabic transmission of Proclus’ Elements of Theology165 Indica Margherita Serena Saccone, Il Buddha come fonte di retta conoscenza nella Pramānasiddhi del Pramānavārttika di Dharmakī 179 Maria Vassallo, Il femminile nelle filosofie tantriche Śaiva del Kaśmīr 193 Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents XVII Judaica Jorge M. Ayala, La polémica judeo-cristiana de Pedro Alfonso de Huesca 205 Marienza Benedetto, La divisione delle scienze nell’enciclopedismo ebraico medievale: filosofia naturale, scienze matematiche e scienza divina nell’introduzione al Midrash ha-ḥokmah di Yehudah ha-Cohen 209 Roberto Gatti, The Jews And The Irrational: Gersonides’ treatment of dreams, divination and prophecy 217 Luciana Pepi, Il termine sekel (intelletto-ragione) nel Malmad hatalmidim di Jaqov Anatoli 229 Jozef Matula, Thomas Aquinas and his Reading of Isaac ben Solomon Israeli 239 Josep Puig Montada, Hasday ha-Sefardi and the Maimonidean Apocrypha 247 José María Soto Rábanos, Aristóteles en la obra De concordantia legis Dei de Juan de Valladolid 257 Gabi Weber, The Esoteric Character of Jacob Anatoli’s Malmad ha-Talmidim 269 Byzantina Sessione speciale: Symbol and Image in the Middle Age Maria Bettetini, Presentazione281 Stefania Bonfiglioli, L’immagine, il suo oltre. Eikōn e agalma nel neoplatonismo 285 Rosanna Gambino, Icona, natura e persona nel secondo concilio niceno 297 Francesco Paparella, Natura e valore dell’immagine. La relazione tra segno iconico e significazione traslata nella cultura carolingia: il caso dei Libri carolini309 Anca Vasiliu, Image de personne: l’eikôn chez Basile de Césarée 317 **** George Arabatzis, “Mos Geometricus” in Theodoros II Lascaris 329 Alberto del Campo Echevarría, Combinación de los paradigmas henológico y ontológico en Juan Damasceno 337 Valerio Napoli, Le peripezie della ragione. Debolezza e potenza del lógos protologico in Damascio 345 Michele Trizio, Un ammiratore bizantino di Proclo. La dottrina dell’intelletto di Eustrazio di Nicea 359 XVIII Indice dei contenuti / Table de contenu / Table of contents Indice dei nomi367 Curricula dei curatori 383 Comitato Scientifico / Advisory Board dell’Officina di Studi Medievali 385 Gabriella Zuccolin The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola The relevance of the environment of the late medieval and Renaissance court, not only as a social and political context but also as an important hermeneutic criterion, is central for the understanding of a number of fifteenth-century scientific-philosophical texts. This central significance of the court environment is especially evident from the perspective of an examination of both speculative and practical results of developments in physiognomy during this period that are reflected in Michele Savonarola’s Speculum phisionomie (1442).1 1 The production of this physician changes in quantity and quality when he moves from Padua to Ferrara and from a strictly academic context to a courtly one. Latin academic medical treatises only are written in Padua; Latin, in double redaction (Latin and vernacular), or just vernacular works in Ferrara, works which deal not only with medical but also with historical, ethical-political and religious subjects. On Savonarola’s life and work, A. SEGARIZZI, Della vita e delle opere di Michele Savonarola, medico padovano del secolo XV, Padova 1900; L. THORNDIKE, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. IV, New York-London 1934, pp. 183-214; A. SAMARITANI, Michele Savonarola riformatore cattolico nella Corte Estense a metà del secolo XV, «Atti e memorie della deputazione provinciale ferrarese di storia patria», s. 3a, 22 (1976), pp. 44-85; T. PESENTI MARANGON, Michele Savonarola a Padova: l’ambiente, le opere, la cultura medica, in «Quaderni per la storia dell’università di Padova» 9-10 (1977), pp. 45-102. On the Speculum phisionomie (of which I am preparing a critical edition), extant in three manuscripts (Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, lat. VI, 156 (2672), cc. 41r-112v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 7357, cc. 1r-67r; Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, 3472 (Haenel), cc. 2r-82v), A. DENIEUL CORMIER, Le Speculum phisionomie de Michel Savonarole et ses sources, Thèse de l’École nationale des Chartes, 1953; EAD., La très ancienne Physiognomie de Michel Savonarole, in «La Biologie Médicale» 45 (1956), pp. 1107; J. T. THOMANN, Studien zum Speculum physionomie des Michele Savonarola, Zürich 1997; G. ZUCCOLIN, Michele Savonarola medico humano. Lo Speculum phisionomie, 2 voll., tesi di Dottorato, Università di Salerno, a.a. 2005-2006; G. FEDERICI VESCOVINI, Michele Savonarola e lo Speculum physiognomiae, in R. G. KECKS (Hrsg.), Musagetes. Festschrift für Wolfram Prinz zu seinem 60, Berlin 1991, pp. 167-178; EAD., La medicina astrologica dello “Speculum physiognomiae” di Michele Savonarola, in «Keiron» 8 (2001), pp. 110-115; EAD., L'individuale nella medicina tra medioevo e umanesimo: la fisiognomica di Michele Savonarola, in R. CARDINIM. REGOLIOSI (a cura di), Umanesimo e medicina. Il problema dell’ “individuale”, Roma 1996, pp. 63-87. References to this work are also in the physiognomic studies by J. AGRIMI (now collected in Ingeniosa scientia nature. Studi sulla fisiognomica medievale, Firenze 2002, pp. 11-12, 56, 60-65; D. JACQUART, Médecine et alchimie chez Michel Savonarole (1385-1466), in J.-C. MARGOLIN-S. MATTON (Eds.), Alchimie et philosophie à la Renaissance, Paris 1993, pp. 109-122; EAD., La fisiognomica: il trattato di Michele Scoto, in P. TOUBERT-A. PARAVICINI BAGLIANI (a cura di), Federico II e le scienze, Palermo 1994, pp. 338-353; EAD., La physiognomie à l’époque de Frédéric II: le traité de Michel Scot, in «Micrologus», 2 (1994), pp. 19-37; J. ZIEGLER, Text and Context: On the Rise of Physiognomic Thought in the Later Middle Ages, in Y. HEN (Ed.), De Sion Exibit Lex et Verbum Domini de Hierusalem: Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy, and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder, Turnhout 2001, pp. 159-182; ID., Médicine et physiognomonie du XIVe au début du XVIe siècle, in «Médiévales» 45 (2004), pp. 87105; ID., Skin and Character in Medieval and Early Renaissance Physiognomy, in «Micrologus» 13 (2005), pp. 874 Gabriella Zuccolin Among these developments there was a shift from the genre of commentary on the most important text of the discipline (that is, the Pseudo-Aristotelian physiognomy)2 to that of a compendium with medical, astrological and ethical digressions. A compendium of this type aimed at giving prominence to the social potential of physiognomy, both as a branch of knowledge that offered rules of civil life and as an art of welliving. Thus, this genre of physiognomic writing contributed to the redefinition of anthropological thought about the unity of the human being and on the harmonious relation of individual and society in the late Middle Ages.3 This new prominence given to the predominantly practical purposes of the discipline, resulted in the different reception of Savonarola’s work, which – unlike that of some of his predecessors - is not exclusively academic. At the same time, the practical emphasis corresponded to a minor deepening of those logical-epistemological foundations necessary for the scientific legitimation of physiognomy in the XIIIth century. These have been well described by the physiognomic authors that commented on the Pseudo-Aristotelian physiognomy studied by Agrimi.4 The general plan of the causal foundation of physiognomy as a science - which Savonarola, like Michael Scot and Peter of Abano before him, explained by the relation between natural and astral causality and in the modus agendi of medicine itself - is no more in discussion in the Quattrocento. It is no longer necessary to justify the claim to interpret the natural inclination of the soul from the signa of the body, nor to defend oneself against attacks by supporters of ethical rationalism and theologians. Rather, it is instead a matter of proving once more, through the application of the rules to particular cases, the indubitable value of the discipline of physiognomy in its infinite potential for practical effectiveness and in its capacity to convey the interlocking series of types of knowledge ne511-535; ID., Sexuality and the Sexual Organs in Latin Physiognomy 1200-1500, in «Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History», Third Series vol. II (2005), pp. 83-107; ID., Philosophers and Physicians on the Scientific Validity of Latin Phisiognomy, in «Early Science and Medicine» 12.3 (2007), pp. 285-312; P. GETREVI, Le scritture del volto. Fisiognomica e modelli culturali dal Medioevo ad oggi, Milano 1994, pp. 31-32; M. PORTER, Windows of the soul. Physiognomy in European Culture 1470-1780, Oxford 2005, pp. 73-74. 2 Pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomics is accessible (with an English translation) in W. S. HETT (Ed.), Minor Works. Aristotle vol. XIV, London-Cambridge Mass. 1936. 3 Besides the close connection of this discipline with court environments, the same contexts in which the Secretum secretorum, with its idea of practical and active knowledge, is circulating, the rebirth of physiognomy, and its later institutionalisation as an academic discipline and science, is parallel to a number of processes that are of the uttermost importance to understand the future development of physiognomy in the late Middle Ages. Namely: the relation of this knowledge with newly rediscovered medical texts which offer to physiognomy a strong theoretical context through the relationship with the medical humoral and complexional theory of temperaments; the neutralization of physiognomy as a divinatory art (it has nothing to do with phisionomantia) and at the same time its connection with the Arabic astrological tradition, which states a close link between illnesses, somatic structure, psychological inclinations and planetary influence on individual nativities. These relationships with medicine and astrology, on the one side, and ethics on the other, lead medieval physiognomy to neglect that zoological methodology that has been so prominent in Greek physiognomy. On these developments, J. AGRIMI, Ingeniosa scientia nature, cit.; J. ZIEGLER, Text and Context, cit., pp. 159-182; ID., Médicine et physiognomonie, cit., pp. 87-105; P. GETREVI, Le scritture del volto, cit. 4 J. AGRIMI, Ingeniosa scientia nature, cit., Academic commentaries to the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomics are, for example, the physiognomic works composed by William of Spain or of Aragon (around 1300), by John Buridan (around 1340) and by William of Mirica (1342-52). Also the Compilatio phisionomie (1295) by Peter of Abano, despite its formal dedication to the military governor of Mantua Bardellone Bonaccolsi, can be considered a strictly academic-scholastic text. The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 875 cessary for its ethical and political aims. Thus, Savonarola’s Speculum transmits a branch of knowledge which already enjoyed ample recognition in the academic context. Owing to that recognition, his work can take the form of a compendium and a manual and can enlarge the scope for recognition of physiognomy, testing its teaching and operating method in other political-social contexts. The court physician and pedagogue Michele is not confronted only by the organic individual, made of body and soul, with his involuntary and natural passions. He has also, and especially, to consider the individual caught in a thick web of human and social relations that tie him to his wife, his family, his children, his friends, colleagues, servants. And such relationships can and should be disciplined by an education to a responsible and useful pleasure (a solatium fructuosum, to use the author’s words) which is one of the principal aims of the Speculum.5 Especially those who have leading roles in society, princes, teachers, officials and heads of families – in other words the recipients of Savonarola’s work, which is formally dedicated to Leonello d’Este, Duke of Ferrara – can look into this mirror. From it, they can learn that ars bene vivendi et bene moriendi, that mastery and self-care – which assumes the mastery and control of others – that is the natural goal of the pedagogic project for the court modelled by Savonarola in all his Ferrara works.6 It is a goal inspired by the popular and powerful pattern of the philosopher-counselor proposed by the PseudoAristotelian Secretum secretorum, that is present in the whole physiognomic literature from Michael Scotus up to this Michele. Not by chance does the physician in the Speculum several times quote this popular work.7 Thorndike had already pointed out the importance of the unpublished Speculum in his short reconstruction of Savonarola’s medical thought.8 Even though Agrimi chose early writings for detailed analysis in her reconstruction of the fortune of physiognomy in Latin West, she, too, defined Savonarola’s Speculum as an «osservatorio importante» that helps to reconstruct the context in which a new idea of human nature and self-conscience could be born.9 In addition, other scholars have given some attention to this work (Jacquart, Ziegler, Federici-Vescovini). But there are only two monographic studies on this treatise, for 5 This is an expression often used by Savonarola himself, for example at c. 64ra of his physiognomic work. (Hereafter I quote the Speculum phisionomie according to the manuscript Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, lat. VI, 156-2672). 6 On this peculiar aspect see C. CRISCIANI, Michele Savonarola medico: tra Università e corte, tra latino e volgare, in N. BRAY-L. STURLESE (a cura di), Filosofia in volgare nel medioevo. Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (S. I. S. P. M.), Lecce, 27-29 Settembre 2002, Louvain la Neuve 2003, pp. 433-449. 7 «Nam […] in De secretis secretorum legitur», c. 42ra; «[…] de quibus in De secretis secretorum: Fuge ab homine livido flavo, quoniam declivis est ad vitia», c. 46rb-va; «Hanc autem mediocritatem in De secretis secretorum, commendat Aristoteles: Equior et temperacior creatura est que convenit mediocritate stature cum nigredine oculorum et capillorum et rotunditate vultus», c. 49rb; «Hocque volebat Aristoteles in De secretis secretorum ad Alexandrum: cave et precave ab homine informato et diminuto in aliquo membro sicut cavendum est ab inimico», c. 82ra; «Ideoque De secretis secretorum: Equior et temperatior creatura est que convenit mediocritate stature», c. 99rb; «Unde De secretis ad Alexandrum: Cum videris aliquem visu in te frequentantem, cumque inspicis eum terretur inde et erubescit et precipue si invitus suspirat et lacrimabilis dispositio in eo appareat, hic te diligit et timet. Cuius contrarium si contingerit invidus est ac te contempnens», (c. 103va). 8 See note 1 for this author’s and the following mentioned scholars’ contributions. 9 J. AGRIMI, Ingeniosa scientia nature, cit., p. 65. 876 Gabriella Zuccolin which we are indebted, respectively, to Denieul-Cormier and Thomann. The first dates back to 1956 and is a kind of preliminary survey of the work’s content. Thomann’s study, published in 1997, accurately investigates some parts of the work (of which he provides a transcription, but not a collation between the Lipsia manuscript, which Thomann himself firstly signaled, and the two other testimonies), particularly those that define the criteria of proportion and symmetry of the human body and the paragraph on chiromancy. But the explicit interest that directed Thomann’s choice of fragments for detailed analysis is professedly art historical.10 Hence, the question that moves this author’s research is totally unrelated to the research perspective that I intend to deepen: a contextual analysis of the Speculum within the articulated pedagogical project of the physician for the Estense court. I plan to consider the whole of Savonarola’s Ferrarese production, setting aside the distinction between medical and non-medical writings, and between Latin and vernacular works. I propose to analyse the relationship between different contexts of the use of the two languages Latin and Italian, the links between scientific expectations, ethical-pedagogical proposals and religious vocation, between values of truth, effectiveness and salvation. Outside and independently from this specific context we can then consider the Speculum from a diachronic point of view as a stage of the rebirth of physiognomy that had begun in the XIIth and XIIIth centuries. From this perspective there are numerous distinctive contributions of the Speculum as compared to the earlier tradition of the discipline. In summary: 1. First of all, the continuation to the furthest extent possible of that process of «medicalization of physiognomy» started by Michael Scot and Peter of Abano. Savonarola tries to offer a detailed physiological explanation in complexional-humoral terms of bodily characteristics to corroborate the physiognomic meaning given to them by the disciplinary tradition. According to the physician/physiognomist Savonarola the physiognomists describe the «how» of the bodily accidents without going into the mined ground of the «why». Only medicine will be able to provide the necessary causal explanation to guarantee the scientific character of physiognomy. The most striking and unmistakable sign of this chaining of physiognomy to medical theory and practice is the insertion in the Speculum of five paragraphs on the complexio of the principal internal organs of the human body: brain, heart, liver, testicles, and stomach.11 Ample extracts from book 2 of Galen’s Ars medica and of Avicenna’s Canon have been plundered by the author of this «medicalized physiognomy» to establish a better epistemological foundation for the discipline, thus disrupting its traditional Greek scheme.12 2. The even more radical assertion of the practical aim of physiognomy, already stated 10 The author seeks for a correlation between the rebirth of physiognomic studies after the second half of XIIth century and the growing interest in individual portrait expressed in late medieval sculpture and painting. In the introduction of his Studien, Thomann clearly underlines the difficulties in employing the complex physiognomic literature for art historical purposes. J. T. THOMANN, Studien zum Speculum, cit., Vorwort, pp. vii-viii. 11 I. 54 De phisionomia capitis sive cerebri; I. 55 De signis complexionis calide cordis; I. 56 De complexione epatis calida; I. 57 De signis testiculorum; I. 58 Rubrica de signis stomaci (Speculum phisionomie, cc. 96rb-98va). 12 Besides the aforementioned and few other paragraphs (for which see below), the development of book 1 of the Speculum can be considered traditional, dealing mostly with the detailed physiognomic description of all the human bodily parts; and - towards the end - with the different bodily signs of a specific moral and psychological behaviour. Book 2 is instead mainly astrological and contains a detailed theory of human generation. The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 877 by Michael Scotus and Peter of Abano, following in the footsteps of the pseudoAristotelian Secretum secretorum. Physiognomy is now presented as a kind of knowledge that is not only useful as an «art of good government» but also as philosophical and civic ethics, as a science of human passions in their complex relationship between vice and virtue. And here again we find the social role of the physician so well described by Galen, and all those suggestions that Savonarola gives to the prince pertaining to the raising of children, the choice of ministers and faithful counsellors, good servants and sober maids.13 This practical aim includes also all those suggestions definable as eugenic: the choice of the best wife to guarantee a healthy and possibly male offspring;14 sexual advice on the best time and methods of coitus;15 how to model the newborn’s cranium in case of deformity so as to improve the infant’s intellectual capacities.16 Thus the short paragraph on membrorum generatio by Peter of Abano quoted by Savonarola is included in what becomes a real monograph on sexual intercourse and on education for responsible coitus, defined by the author himself ars in coitu.17 In the same practical perspective, the Speculum is interesting not 13 For example Michele advises the prince to choose servants in whom blood, and not melancholy, is the predominant humor: «Ideoque cum sanguineis conveniendum seque associandum est: hii enim sunt de quibus magis confidendum est, ideoque principes sanguineos diligant eosque in servitores ducant et a melancolicis naturaliter talibus sibi caveant», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 56ra.) In another passage the author states the necessity for the prince to surround himself with counselors provided with a good estimative virtue (and thus with prudence) and not to trust men just provided with cogitative virtues, good speech and literary culture, for the latter will not be able to make the right choices, as Michele can personally testify «[…] Huius autem virtutis officium (scil. virtus extimativa) est discernere quid conveniens, quidque inconveniens, quid fugendum, quidque prosequendum existat, et hec virtus est que prudentie deservire videtur, cuius domicilium parte in posteriori ipsius ventris existit. Et qui hac sic vigent virtute homines sunt qui magno pollent consilio, quos principes apud se habere magno cum studio curare deberent, neque loquacibus tantum favere, quales sunt qui virtute cogitativa non extimativa alios excellere videntur: multos enim litteris proficere ac peritissimos esse solertesque ingenio conspicimus, qui bona tamen extimativa carentes sunt. Unde in disceptacionibus subtiles et prompti habentur et posteaque in electione deficiunt. Et ego meo tempore duos medicos novi qui in casibus infirmorum omnia discurrebant et posteaque male eligebant, et in rebus agibilibus pessime se habentes erant, que res bone extimative carentia contingebant, que prudentie naturali maxime subservit. Et sicuti de medici actum est, ita in nobilibus iurisque peritis contingere credatur, qui consiliis principum continue assistunt. Et ego ex hiis et famosissimos plures cognovi. Hoc autem bene discernere principi et aliis quam maxime utile est, cuius rei notitia facilis habebitur cum de complexione cerebri actum erit», Ibid., c.48rab. Again, the physician is plenty of suggestions also for the moral conduct of courtly women, that is for the sisters or wives of the men of the court «Hec (sc. after detailed information about the sexual insatiability of young girls) scio tuis domicellis placere que non nisi ob doctrinam conscripsi ut et ipsi proprias sorores custodiant atque uxores qui querunt alienas», (Ibid. c. 93vb). 14 «Habeturque deinde cum principes procere stature esse debeant parvis uxoribus copulari non debent», Speculum phisionomie, (Ibid., c. 102vb). 15 «Tu itaque, mi illustrissime Domine, cum ad actum accedes coniugalem, cura ut malis animi accidentibus te expoliatum invenias», (Ibid., c. 94ra). 16 «Itaque semper orta est circumstantia ut in talibus distincte considerentur ut de magnitudine et parvitate capitis agetur. Hic tamen unum commemorabo quod postergandum esse non arbitror, quod summa cum diligentia curare debes ut obstetrix, que non raro capiti noviter natorum formam aliam preter nature intentum conficit, tuis in filiis studiosa atque diligens sit ut quodque melius fieri possit, sic caput ad rotunditatem cum levitate ducat laterum compressione moderata. Nam compositio est veluti complexionis sociale instrumentum», (Ibid., c. 49ra-rb). Joseph Ziegler has already stressed the importance of this passage in Médicine et physiognomonie, cit., n. 26. 17 «Postremo ut tibi ceterisque complaceam magis eum subiungam modum quo in coytu quis natos cupiens se obtemperare debet. Coytus autem generationi congruus post menstruorum purgationem fieri debet, virumque decet 878 Gabriella Zuccolin only for the major attention given to women but also for the ethnological and anthropological notes, e.g. on the differences between the citizens of Padua and Ferrara,18 and, more generally, for the extensive use of exempla, anecdotes, clinical cases regarding contemporary people, proverbs and lines from poems, that together define a kind of «epistemology of particulars».19 3. The development of the mathematical notion of proportion and its application to almost contemporary pictorial canons (the reference is to Giotto) compared with sculptural canons of classic Greece. This extremely important topic has been thoroughly analysed by Thomann. 4. Another novelty in the work especially pertaining to the court is the inclusion of a long paragraph dedicated to equine physiognomy (I. 28), that enables the prince to gather round himself not only faithful counsellors but even reliable horses, that is those that are strong, agile, and long-lived.20 Particular attention is also dedicated to hunting dogs and companion dogs (dogs trained by jesters are also mentioned), all those animals definable as par excellence belonging to the court.21 ita osculis tactibus amplexibusque mulierem commovere, ut ambo uno et tempore eodem emittant genituram. Nam ipsam preparatam cognoscet cum oculos rubere, hanelitum elevari, vocemque ac verba intersecare comprehendes; cumque sperma emiserit uir pectus elevet super ipsam que iaceat, donec hanelitus eius quietus fiat, ex postea vero elevatis posterioribus et sic cooperta supine iaceat dormireque studeat. Et quoniam hec ars in coytu non servatur plurimum sterilis redditur […]; et si ad masculum est expectatio super dextrum latus ut actum est decubitus fiat», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 94rb-va). On medieval sexuality and embriology, D. JACQUART-C. THOMASSET, Sexualité et savoir médical au Moyen-Age, Paris 1985; C. THOMASSET, La natura della donna, in G. DUBY-M. PERROT (a cura di), Storia delle donne in Occidente, vol. 2, Il Medioevo, Bari 1990, pp. 56-87; R. MARTORELLI VICO, Medicina e Filosofia. Per una storia dell’embriologia medievale nel XIII e XIV secolo, Napoli 2002. 18 I refer to an important passage where Savonarola, being a Paduan and considering the Paduans by nature more prudent than the citizens of Ferrara (although the latter have better intellectual capacities), implicitly assumes for himself a good counselling ability: «Hiis itaque inducitur Ferrarienses ipsis Patavis operationes habere intellectivas meliores, […]. Ideoque eos in sermonibus promptiores, Patavis autem melioris sunt estimationis, quoniam spirituus ita mobiles non habent. Ideoque prudentiores dici possunt, quoniam extimativa prudentie deservit», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 55rb). In another passage the physician offers a physiological explanation of the major promptness on genuflexion attributed to the Ferrarienses, thus alluding to the servile attitude of the Ferrara courtly men, being the genu flexibilis a characteristic included in the list of the sign of servile nature: «Verum quia fetus in inferioribus collocari debeat hiis in partibus viris ampliores (scil. mulieres) natura formavit quiaque ponderis tanti substentative esse debeant tibias ac coxas grossiores brevioresque natura eis condonavit. Lignum equidem breve et grossum paribus aliis longiori et subtiliori maioris ponderis est substentativum. Virga etenim longa et gracilis ipsa brevi et grossa facilius flectitur. Et propterea promptiores ad se genuflectendum ipsis Patavis Ferrarienses sunt que, ut plurimum, in earum tibiis Patavis sunt graciliores», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 102va). On De signis servilis see paragraph I.70, (Ibid., c. 103va). 19 On this epistemology of particularia, Supra, n. 27. 20 «Cum de pilis et eorum significacionibus usquemodo ample satis dictum esse putem, maxime de hiis que hominis sunt, quia tamen et ad principes et ad eos qui militiam sequuntur pertinere videtur non tantum hominum sed equorum phisionomie cognicio, hinc statui hiis que de equis communia dicuntur quedam subiungere racionibus et causis suffulta, que scio tue dominationi non parum grata esse etsi paulisper a nostro videar deviare proposito» (Speculum phisionomie, c. 63va). 21 In the paragraph I. 38, De phisionomia dentium, the physician inserts few literary anecdotes on dogs and tells the case of the faithful dog of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, whoich was so intelligent as seemed to be «guided by a rational spirit»: «Quoniam canes ad quos sepe supra et infra homines in phisionomia referuntur tibi quam maxime iocundi sunt, hinc de eis cum Ysidoro dicam nullum aliud animal brutum sagatius est cane, plus enim sensus ceteris animalibus habent: nam ut liquet nomina propria ac dominorum recognoscunt, pro do- The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 879 5. In the Speculum we note for the very first time the physiognomic description of Christ as the universal representative of the morally and physically perfect human being. Savonarola’s explicit source is the letter that Publius Lentulus, alleged predecessor of Pontius Pilate governor of Judea, addressed to the Roman Emperor, in which the physical aspect of Christ is described (the letter is a blatant late medieval fake). As Ziegler has already pointed out, the link between the concept of a perfectly temperate individual and the physiognomic description of Christ is of the uttermost importance in this work.22 In Savonarola’s analysis all the classic characteristics of the ideal prototype are Christianised and offered to the Latin West. Savonarola goes back to the well known differentia 18 of Peter of Abano’s Conciliator, which describes Christ as perfectly temperate. But unlike Peter or, for example, Roger Bacon and Cecco d’Ascoli, Savonarola does not investigate the dangerous consequences of a theory that obviously could lead to questioning the relationship between astral casuality, which rules human birth and complexion, and Christ as a human being.23 Given these five points, we can easily understand the many ways in which the Speculum, even though it follows the synthetic physiognomic model of Peter of Abano, nonetheless differs substantially from Peter’s physiognomic treatise.24 We can then note that in the Speculum all the analysis in the physiognomic paragraphs de signis of the different bodily characteristics can be considered as a profound commentary on, and on a double level an integration of, the purely descriptive physiognomic precepts of Peter’s Compilatio. On the first level, Michele links the physiognomic axioms on the compositio of the bodily part to the causal theory of complexio; and on a second level he adds the «experimental evidence» for the truth of such axioms, that is statements intended to root physiognomic rules in concrete experience. This experiential level does not always corroborate the validity of the rule under examination, but the contradiction is always explicable in medical terms of interac- minis pugnant, seque morti exponunt et mortuos non derelinquunt, humanum consortium diligunt, sine hominibus esse non possunt, de quibus Plinius VIII de animalibus que nobiscum degunt fidelissimi sunt canes. Pugnasse autem pro dominis suis contra latrones accepimus; legimus autem Celium senatorem egrum Placencie ab armatis oppressum nec prius vulneratum quam cane interempto, sic canis Titii Sabini ipsum in carcere nec in morte derelinquit, sed mestus edens ululatus cum mortuo remansit, cuicum quidam cibum obiecisset, ad os defuncti cibum tulit. Ne vetusta tantum commemorans id in presentiarum dicam quod de cane illustrissimis principis Iohannis Galeacii ducis Mediolani senioris fideli fama vulgatur. Hic tanti sensus fuit ut nonnulli hunc non canem sed dampnatum quemadmodum spiritum esse putaverunt. Nam ei verbo tantum Princeps indicebat “vade Franciscumque Barbavara ad me voca”, hic illico quasi spiritu rationali ductus ad eum proficiscebatur pedibus ululatuque de vocatione eius ad dominum signa Dominus sicque de ceteris domus familiaribus domesticis agebat. Videamus autem et ystrionum canes quasi miranda opera nature perficere» (Speculum phisionomie, cc. 79vb-80ra). 22 Part of Publius Lentulus’ letter can be found at paragraph I.59 of the Speculum phisionomie (De phisionomia partium singularium, cc. 98vb-99ra). The significance of this insertion is remarked by Ziegler in his already mentioned studies. On Christ’s physiognomy, H. BELTING, In Search of Christ’s Body. Image or Imprint, in H. L. KESSLER G. WOLF (Eds.), The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation (Villa Spelman Colloquia, 6), Bologna 1998, pp. 1-11; M. BACCI, La fisionomia di Cristo nelle testimonianze letterarie del Medioevo, in G. MORELLO-G. WOLF (a cura di), Il volto di Cristo, Milano 2000, pp. 33-35. 23 For the analysis of the different theories circulating in the central centuries of the Middle Ages (1100-1350) on extraordinary generation, including the birth of Christ, M. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, le démon et la Vierge. Les théories médiévales de la génération extraordinaire, Paris 2004. 24 For a schematic comparison between the Speculum phisionomie and Compiliatio phisionomiae by Peter of Abano (1295) see the synoptic table in G. ZUCCOLIN, Michele Savonarola , cit., pp. 135-144. 880 Gabriella Zuccolin tion of causes, thus becoming an exception to the rule, which remains true. This is the case of the brave Niccolò III of Este, father of Leonello, strangely provided with a hairless chest (sign of lack of courage),25 or of the nobleman Gioacchino, who despite his huge testicles a sign of stupidity – was virtuous and bright.26 Before looking more deeply into the «epistemology of particulars» of the Speculum, it must be noted that relatively recently a new historiographic approach has emerged, one devoted to the role of corporality and the various forms of knowledge of the human body in medieval culture (astrology, alchemy, physiognomy, magic). Such an approach underlines on the one side the growing interest of XVth century physicians in the level of the individual and of experience, on the other the relation between the environment of the court and disciplines united by common interest in practical means and in the promotion of particularia to an increasing philosophical and epistemological dignity. These studies (for example, among others, by Danielle Jacquart, Nancy Siraisi and the researches published by «Micrologus»)27 also deepen the link between passions, ethics and social behaviour, calling 25 The first line of the following and the next examples is the exact quotation excerpted from Peter of Abano’s treatise; then a kind of commentary in medical terms and the «experimental evidence» of the initial statement follow: «Cum autem pectus pilosum fuerit audacem et hominem bene mobilem significant. Ideoque, ut Tegni secundo, audacia et ad actionem non pigrum pilosum eius pectus et que circa ypocundria et hiis proxima. Et ut de hiis completus sermo fiet, eorum dempsitas sive spissitudo et crispitudo et ad latus sinistrum declinatio addi debent, quoniam mores complexionem corporis sequuntur, a caliditate cordis virilitas, festinantia et reliqua que de moribus dixit. Et multitudo pilorum materie multitudinem consequens est, que sic a caliditate elevatur. Et sicuti pilositas audaciam, ita nuditas timiditatem, pusillanimitates et solitudinem annuntiat. Verum ut que dicta ac dicenda sunt redargutione vacent membrorum adinvicem contra operantia semper animadvertenda est, quoniam cor quandoque calidum erit homoque audacissimus et liberalissimus inde fiet, in eo tamen nuditas pilorum pectoris erit, ut in semper recolende memorie Illustri principe genitore tuo contingebat. Hanc autem contraoperacionem sua humiditate adustionem prohibentem epar faciebat», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 62rb-va). A detailed “complexional” portrait of Niccolò III of Este is included by Savonarola in his De Gotta and recently analysed by S. CRACOLICI, Michele Savonarola e le bizzarrie di corte, in C. CRISCIANI, G. ZUCCOLIN (a cura di), Michele Savonarola, medicina e cultura di corte, Firenze 2010, pp. 23-58. 26 «Testiculi vehementer magni cum virga existentes inhertem et stolidum virum portendunt […]. Hic scio Dominationem tuam expectare quid de virtuoso viro Domino Ioachino nostro dixerim, cui natura ultra commune mensure modum magnitudinem in testibus suis condonavit. Quid autem hoc in loco de eo dicendum sit ex habitis iam claruit: nam, ut in secundo agebatur capitulo, non uni non duobus tantum signis credendum esse, sed omnia adinvicem congregare oportebat potentioribusque victoriam dare. Cum itaque complexionis colerice sit, licet colera flegmati sit admixta, mutantur pro parte in eo que dicta sunt a sua contrarietate iuncta, unde contraoperantiam membrorum bene attendere oportet», (Ibid., cc. 92vb-93ra). 27 All these trends, which on the whole follow the hints of the well-known studies by Michel Foucault (especially of Naissance de la clinique. Une archéologie du régard médical, Paris 1963 and of Le souci de soi, Paris 1984) can be exemplified by the appareance in 1993 of a journal like «Micrologus», in which the subtitle (Nature, sciences and medieval societies) is explained by the intention of linking «scienze della natura e storia sociale, storia del pensiero scientifico e antropologia culturale». A. PARAVICINI BAGLIANI, Perché Micrologus?, Introduction to «Micrologus» 1 (1993), without page numbers. The bibliography on particularia, experience etc. in medieval medicine is too extensive to pretend to be exhaustive here: A. GRAFTON-N. G. SIRAISI (Eds.), Natural Particulars. Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, Cambridge 1999, especially the Introduction, pp. 1-21; the contributions of R. CARDINI-M. REGOLIOSI (a cura di), Umanesimo e medicina. Il problema dell’ “individuale”, Roma 1996; D. JACQUART, Theory, Everyday Practice, and Three Fifteenth-Century Physicians, in M. MCVAUGH-N. G. SIRAISI (Eds.), Renaissance Medical Learning: Evolution of a Tradition, in «Osiris» 6 (1990), pp. 140-160; C. CRISCIANI, Fatti, teorie, “narratio” e i malati a corte. Note su empirismo in medicina nel tardo-medioevo, in S. CERUTTI-G. POMATA The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 881 attention to the social context, and not only the intellectual context, of scientific knowledge. According to Daston and Park, consideration of assertions or beliefs about not immediately comprehensible phenomena, for example regarding monsters or illiterate people speaking in tongues, offers a way of looking into an «aristocracy of phenomena» that played a leading role both in the process of reorganization of disciplines and professions between the Middle Ages and the early modern period and in the education of court elite.28 The hidden pattern of Savonarola’s physiognomy – a discipline that by definition deals with bodily particulars and the interaction between internal and external (soul and body but also human body and social body) – is rooted in the principle of the «useful courtly pleasure», the already mentioned solatium fructuosum.29 This kind of pleasure is not primarily conceived as fun, but mostly as the pursuit of the happiness that comes both from wellbeing and self-care of body and soul and from happily living with others. We can thus see that apart from the evident purpose of persuading and entertaining readers, exemplum, anecdote, poetic digression, etc. also become a style of communication and interpretation, serving as the means of a scientific and rhetorical pedagogy. The double value of this work (pedagogical and epistemological) reveals itself in multiple levels of writing, comprehension, and intended readership, using the communication strategies considered case by case more effective. Among these strategies the physician prefers poetic quotations, whether classical or modern, Latin or vernacular (Horace, Virgil, Dante, Albertino Mussato, but also the extravagant vernacular sonnets by Burchiello, or ascribed to this author and composed by someone whom Savonarola termed a friend),30 in particular those from the Acerba by (a cura di), Fatti: storie dell’evidenza empirica, «Quaderni storici» 108, XXXVI (2001), pp. 685-705; J. AGRIMI-C. CRISCIANI, La medicina scolastica: studi e ricerche (1981-1991), in L. BIANCHI (a cura di), Filosofia e Teologia nel Trecento. Studi in ricordo di Eugenio Randi, Louvain-la-Neuve 1994. 28 L. DASTON-K. PARK (Eds.), Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750, New York 1998. Despite the substantial difference between a work as the Speculum phsionomie and those books of secrets, so widespread in particular from the XVIth century onward, that have contributed to the gradual shift of what has been defined as the «moral economy of science», I think that in Savonarola’s work can be found some trends similar to the categories that structure the genre of the book of secrets analysed - among others - by Eamon: the stress on the practical utilitas of knowledge both for the well-being of the individual with himself, his body and his soul, and the health of human relationships and civil coexistence; the will to offer such knowledge to a broader public, which does not coincide anymore with the narrow academic sphere, although configuring still with an elite; the revalutation of the role of experience. On the topic, L. DASTON, The Moral Economy of Science, «Osiris» 10 (1995), pp. 3-24; W. EAMON, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Princeton 1994, pp. 269-300; ID., From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge: The Origins of the Concept of Openness in Science, in «Minerva» 23.3 (1985), pp. 321-347; P. J. BAGLEY, On the Practice of Esotericism, in «Journal of the History of Ideas» 53 (1992), pp. 231-247. 29 Supra, n. 5. 30 Among classics we find Orace: «Unde Oracius: Inberbis iuvenis tandem custode remoto gaudet equis canibus», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 108vb); «Et Oracius: Multa circumveniunt senem incomoda», (Ibid., c. 109ra) (Ars poetica, vv.161-162; v. 169); Virgil: «Unde Virgilius: Tristisque senectus», (Ibid., c. 109ra) (Aeneid, VI, v. 275). Among moderns Dante: «Unde poeta vulgaris: Quando me vidi zonto in quella parte dela mia etade ove zascuno derebe, etc.», (Ibid., cc. 108vb-109ra) (Inferno, XXVII, vv. 79-80); Albertino Mussato: «Iuxta illud Mussati patavi poete: Rebus in humanis o nimis amabile vinum, precipue Patavis, vite pars maxima nostre», (Ibid., c. 69rb) (De obsidione domini Canis Grandis de Verona ante civitatem Paduanam, lib. I, vv. 453-454); Burchiello: «de quibus quedam in soneto cantabit amicus: Nasce rubini super le soe bande, ambre, balassi germinando fruti, 882 Gabriella Zuccolin Cecco d’Ascoli, a book that the author could find in the library of Nicolò III of Este.31 The use of this last vernacular source by Michele deserves much more analysis. Here, I shall confine myself to noting that Savonarola used Cecco’s poetry in a way not dissimilar from the way he used Avicenna, Galen, Peter of Abano and other philosophical, medical and physiognomical auctoritates.32 The characters of these particularia always are (1) real people,33 (2) categories of people or phenomena known to everyone who lives in a XVth century urban context.34 In the same group we can collect superstitious beliefs, proverbs and sayings, condensed forms of ciriege, sorbe, zizole cum glyande», (Ibid., c. 69rb) (sonnet CCXI, Se tutti e nasi avessin tanto cuore). 31 The 1436 book inventory of the Estense library already has this entry: «Livro uno chiamado Cecho de Ascoli in vulgare, in membrana, coverto de chore roso». The inventory was first edited by A. CAPPELLI, «Giornale Storico di Letteratura Italiana» XIV (1889), pp. 1-30, then re-edited by G. BERTONI-E. P. VICINI, Il castello di Ferrara ai tempi di Nicolò III, Bologna 1906. The same book appears in the Studium of Ercole I of Este around 1475 and is present in the 1495 inventory edited by G. BERTONI, La Biblioteca Estense e la coltura ferrarese ai tempi di Ercole I, Torino 1903, appendix II, p. 238. Many thanks to Professor Tissoni Benvenuti for her help and suggestions. 32 Savonarola avails himself of all those passages of chapters II and III of the second book of the Acerba dealing respectively with the human generation theory and the planetary influence on the foetus, and with physiognomy. Sometimes these vernacular quotations are extremely hard to understand, thus necessitating an explanatory commentary. For example the verse «monstrasse audace chi ha li denti rari» (Acerba, II.3, De phisionomia, v. 935 ), that literally means «who has sparse teeth shows himself as audacious» could be misleading and calls for attention: it is the bones’ density (and thus the teeth’s) that demonstrates the boldness of the subject, not its opposite! Being this compactness responsible for the lack of brain transpiration, and thus for its excessive heating, and being the refrigeration of the heart one of the brain’s functions, this condition implicates an incidental overheating of the heart. And a warm heart means courage. Therefore Cecco means that who has sparse teeth pretends to be brave, because by nature he is not: «Post que sic expedita reliquum est ut versus poete nostri causam assignemus Monstrasse audace chi ha li denti rari, que tamen ex dictis intelligenti aperta esse debet; densitate enim cranei cerebrum ex tercia mensura quia elevatione vaporum calidorum ad ipsum aquirit, calidum redditur, eoque calidius fit, cum transpirationem debitam non habeat. Unde caliditas hec etiam supercalefactionis cordis causa est, quod, cum a frigiditate capitis refrigerium recipere deberet, sic caliditatem recipit. Quare horum duorum membrorum inflammatio precipue cordis sic causa existit audatie, que cordis caliditatem natura ipsa consequitur, dictumque est monstrasse cum tales natura audaces non sint» (Speculum phisionomie, c. 79rb). 33 For example (on the shrewd nature of hunchback men, already stressed by Micheal Scot in his physiognomic treatise): «Ego autem que ex philosophis scripta inveni sic verificare enixus sum. Verum multos scrumosos subtiles ingenio compari qui et ceteros in prudentia superarunt astutiisque pleni fuerunt, ut de eorum aliquo vulgatum sit l’è un furbo gobo, ut de Domino Prosdocimo comite patavino nostro meo in tempore divulgatur», (Ibid., c. 85va); or again on the dermatological consequences of wine abuse (red cheeks and eyes): «Faciem talem habuit recolende memorie Albericus comes Ladislay regis apulie magnus comestabilis, qui suo in tempore ita in armis floruit ut dum a duce Fauentino captiuus teneretur a Iohanne Galeazo duce Mediolani seniori ducatis .xxx .duobus milibus redemptus sit, quem cum Pepona novem annorum puella mirandi ingenii ducis maximum oblectamentum quondam miro modo conspexisset, interrogata quid de viro hoc concipiebat, respondit: virum vinosum nimis magno pretio emptum!» (Ibid. c. 69rb). 34 «Ideoque architecti turres rotundas constituunt ut minus a machinis et bombardis ledi possint: est quidem oculus ut corporis speculator, propterea eum natura in alto situavit ut civitatum speculatores in turribus collocantur», (Ibid., c. 66ra); «Magnus autem parvo est deterior, que res de capite contraria pronunciata est, quoniam in parvo melius visivi spiritus uniuntur et in magno disperguntur: unione autem melius quam dispersione visio fit, quam rem sagittantes designant cum oculos semiclausos tenent ut signum melius comprehendant et ab extrinsecis quia ab illorum obiectorum inpressione nimis divertantur» (Ibid., c. 66vb); «Et existimo faciem veluti plateam in civitate corporis et anime respectu sic se habere: nam quemadmodum in platea quecumque aguntur in civitate relucent, sic et que in corpore et anima fiunt in facie denotantur» (Ibid., c. 81vb). The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 883 popular wisdom expressed into aphoristic style.35 Savonarola cannot avoid dealing with monsters, leading examples of that «aristocracy of phenomena» described by Daston and Park and dear to the taste of the court. His rhetorical strategy is emblematic: he puts the digression on monstrous births in the paragraph on physiognomy of the ear, since the prince will surely remember the cruel Attila, called the scourge of God – flagellum dei – and the traditional description of this individual as having pointed ears and sharp canines.36 Thus, in this particular case, the exemplarity of an historical character offers the author a technique of association that allows him to introduce one of his longest medical-philosophical digressions. In reality, two works used as privileged sources in the Speculum deal with monstrous births and extraordinary generation: Albert the Great’s De animalibus and the pseudoAristotelian Problemata. Both insist on the observational level and on curiosity about man and nature. The constant use of these sources by Savonarola witnesses on one side the longue durée of the Aristotelian natural-philosophical tradition in the Renaissance; on the other it is the sign of a special recovery and new significance of this very tradition, which in the XVth and XVIth century assumes new functions and forms of diffusion. Regarding the Aristotelian books De animalibus,37 recent studies underline both a lack and discontinuity of commentaries on this work by the artistae since the XIIIth century and large employment of the same books in medical works, especially in commentaries on Galenic texts.38 This lack and discontinuity has been ascribed mostly to the huge amount of particular information and factual descriptions in the Aristotelian zoological works, characteristics of a weaker epistemology compared to the pattern of the Aristotelian Analytics. 35 E.g. on the importance of signs of the forehead, the author reports that «vulgares, cum se dolosos non existimant neque aliud opprobrio dignum se intelligunt perpetrasse ayunt ego quippe fronte nuda incedo». On the contrary, who has a bad behaviour is told to have a «frontem meretriculam» (Ibid., c. 70rb). Few examples of proverbs reminded are: «Risus habundat in ore stultorum» (c. 83ra); «absque Cerere et Bacco friget Venus» (c. 71va); «Zugno, luyo, augusto, femena mia non te cognosco» (c. 93rb); «a Deo signato in eternum non confidas», (c. 106rb). 36 «Fortassis hoc in loco ad memoriam revocabis que de Atila principe et rege Ungariorum scripta fuere, cui asininas aures monstruose natura concessit, quidque ex hiis phisionomizare habeamus etiam non parva cum expectatione cupies. Scio equidem te scire huic homini caninos dentes naturam condonasse, que omnia preter humane speciei cursum hoc in loco congenita leguntur, qua ex re et hominem simul et feram naturam produxisse videtur. Quare in eo commixtas inhumanasque passiones congeneravit, ut adusque etatem nostram flagellum dei nuncupatur. Et ut res tibi planior gratiorque fiat […]) et ut que sic scripta sunt planius capiantur, accipiendum monstrum duabus ex causis prodire posse […]», (Ibid., cc. 74rb-75va). 37 Sylloge in XIX books of Historia, De partibus and De generatione animalium, first accessible to the Latin West with the Arabic-Latin translation of Michael Scot. Between 1220 and 1232, at the court of Fredrick II, the same author also Latinised the Abbreviatio de animalibus by Avicenna and, perhaps, the paraphrase to De partibus and De generatione animalium by Averroes. B. VAN DEN ABEELE, Le “De animalibus” d’Aristote dans le monde latin: modalités de sa réception médiévale, in «Frühmittelalterliche Studien» 33 (1999), pp. 287-318. 38 Even if we have no attestation of direct commentaries to these books by medical authors, with the exception of the Quaestiones super libro de Animalibus by Peter of Spain, Jacquart assumes «un sort de transfert, à Paris du moin, entre la Faculé des Arts et la Faculté de médicine, quant à la lecture du De animalibus». This observation is quoted by S. PERFETTI, I libri “de animalibus” di Aristotele e i saperi sugli animali nel XIII secolo, in C. CRISCIANI-R. LAMBERTINI-R. MARTORELLI VICO (a cura di), Parva naturalia. Saperi medievali, natura e vita, Pisa-Roma 2004, pp. 143-170 (p. 147); ID., Introduction to Pietro Pomponazzi, Expositio super primo et secundo De partibus animalium, Firenze 2004, pp. 7-62; M. DE ASÚA El comentario de Pedro Hispano sobre el De animalibus. Transcripcion de las questiones sobre la controversia entre medicos y filosofos, in «Patristica et Mediaevalia» 16 (1995), pp. 45-66. 884 Gabriella Zuccolin The absence of commentary is so striking that the De animalibus by Albert the Great can be considered an exception.39 As for the tradition of Problemata40 in general, Blair explains the increasing interest in writings of this kind and their diffusion both in Latin and in the vernacular as a sign of the emergence of a form of «popular science».41 Savonarola’s treatise makes ample use of the Aristotelian works on animals and of those of the pseudoAristotelian problemata that were especially likely to rouse the curiosity of the court reader.42 It is indeed a clear example of the late medieval tendency to exploit the biological books of Aristotle as an erudite source of factual scientific information for the compilation of medical-encyclopaedic works.43 Starting from Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian zoology, the animals in Savonarola’s Speculum are described in a way radically different from that of either the earlier physiognomic zoological tradition or the Physiologus tradition of moralised bestiaries dear to the theological and patristic culture of the early Middle Ages.44 They become objects of scientific observation that is rigorously «lay». The same animals 39 M. DE ASÚA, El “De animali bus” de Alberto Magno y la organización del discurso sobre los animales en el siglo XIII, «Patristica et Mediaevalia» 15 (1994), pp. 3-26. 40 On the intricate tradition of this text, first translated from Greek into Latin by Batholomew of Messina and its overlap to others Problemata defined pseudo-Aristotelian (incipit: omnes homines) or composed by different authors (pseudo-Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plutarch, Cassius), B. LAWN, The Salernitan Questions: An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature, Oxford 1963; A. BLAIR, The Problemata as a Natural Philosophical Genre, in Natural Particulars, cit., pp. 171-204; EAD., Autorship in the popular Problemata Aristotelis, in «Early Science and Medicine» 4.3 (1999), pp. 189-227; J. MONFASANI, The Pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata and Aristotle’s De animalibus in the Renaissance, in Natural Particulars, cit., pp. 205-247; N. G. SIRAISI, The Expositio Problematum Aristotelis of Peter of Abano, in «Isis», 61 (1970), pp. 321-339; Z. KUKSEWICZ, Les Problemata de Pietro d’Abano et leur “redaction” par Jean de Jandun, in «Medioevo» 11 (1985), pp. 113-121; G. COUCKE - T. SWAENEPOEL, The Relation between Bartholomew of Messina's Translation of the Problemata and Peter of Abano's Expositio Problematum, in P. DE LEEMANS-C. STEEL (Eds.), The Aristoteles Latinus: Past, Present, Future, Brussels (forthcoming); M. VAN DER LUGT, L’Expositio Problematum de Pietro d’Abano et sa postérité. Les Problèmes d’Aristote entre philosophie, médécine et literature encyclopédique, paper presented at the International Conference on Médécine, astrologie et magie entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance: atour de Pietro d’Abano (Paris, 29-30 settembre 2006, forthcoming). 41 A. BLAIR, The Problemata as a Natural Philosophical Genre, in Natural Particulars, cit., pp. 171-204. The author reconstructs the double history of the «low» and «high» fortune, popular and erudite, not only of the pseudo-Aristotelian text but also of the Problemata by the pseudo-Alexander of Aphrodisias and of the anonymous Problems beginning with the incipit omnes homines. 42 Savonarola avails himself of the the most of the problems of section IV of the pseudo-Aristotelian text, dealing with sexual questions (erection; relation between brain/eyes/genitals; best times and methods of coitus; relation between melancholy and lust; spontaneous generation). Even more exploited is section X (variety of human psychological dispositions responsible for the lack of resemblance between parents and children; times of gestation and differences of development of male and female embryos; monstrous births; body proportions in relation with longevity; eunuchs; men and animals’ bodily hair; dermathological illnesses; teeth colour; chiromancy); problem 13 of section XI on voice tonality; few problems of section XXXI on optics, and problem 14, section XIV on the dark eyes of southern populations. In my transcription of the Speculum these cross-references are indicated in the footnotes (G. ZUCCOLIN, Michele Savonarola, cit., vol. II). 43 On the use of the «Aristotelian animals», not as an object of paraphrase or questiones but as a source of scientifical information into other literary genres, C. STEEL-P. BEULLENS-G. GULDENTOPS (Eds.), Aristotle’s Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Leuven 1999. 44 The literature on bestiaries and on the Physiologus fortune, a spiritual and didascalic text composed between the IInd and the IVth century by an anonimous Greek author, is too extensive. I refer to the bibliography mentioned by S. PERFETTI, I libri “De animalibus” di Aristotele, cit., pp. 148-149, note 15. The Speculum phisionomie by Michele Savonarola 885 that had been marginalized by medieval physiognomy because useless to the outline of human nature appear in the Speculum taking on a completely different meaning. With their new «biological neutrality» they help to underline the irreducibility of mankind to moralising allegories that link him to animals. The comparison between men and animals is useful, on the contrary - as we can see in the paragraph on the physiognomy of genitals - to point out physiological differences between species. Yet it is the same principle of the courtly solatium fructuosum that induces the author to insert in his work the already mentioned long paragraph on horses and the anecdotal notes on dogs. Let us finally look at just one example to demonstrate the complexity of the linguistic interaction between Latin and vernacular in Savonarola’s medical-scientific works and the series of parallel uses that the two languages have in this period. Taking into account three sections of different Savonarola’s works though dealing with the same subject, that is human generation and the theory of planetary influence on the foetus, we note how Cecco d’Ascoli’s vernacular render of this theory contained in his Acerba is (1)- used in the Speculum to comply with both the scientific and literary taste of court readers, and preceded by a complete Latin explanation of its significance;45 (2) – not included at all in the Practica maior (in Latin), Savonarola’s major academic medical handbook;46 (3)- in his vernacular De regimine pregnantium (a specialized regimen on pregnancy and pediatrics), Michele did not insert the original vernacular Cecco’s version nor name this author, but rather paraphrase the theory of the planetary influence on the foetus in vernacular, this time not to please the reader but for «greater completeness of the doctrine of pregnancy».47 In 45 «Neque in postremis poetam nostrum postergabo, sed que de hiis ab eo scripta sunt ad tui iocunditatem subicio», (Speculum phisionomie, c. 108ra). According to the verses of the Acerba (book II, chapter II, De formatione humane creature, vv. 775-846) extensively quoted in his Speculum, the author faces the topic of the «double seed» necessary to conception and of the respective roles (masculine and feminine) in the shaping of the foetus («De doplo seme se fa il corpo humano»); of the progressive embryonal formation of heart first, and then of brain and liver («Primo lo cuore nel concepto nasse. L’altre duoe primo sie aspecto/Ma pur nel core il spirito se passe»); the feeding method and the position of the foetus into the mother’s womb («Per lo belico va ziò che nutricha/ Stando ligata sichè le vene thoca./Or scolta come sta il corpo in plica/Sta genuflexu cum l’arcatho dosso/ Le mane thiene a le gote infra le cosse/Sopra chalchagni, si cum vider posso/Verso da nui son le spale volte/ Cussì natura in forma le mosse/Per più salute tien le membre ricolte»); the origin of maternal milk from the mother bodily superfluities («In questo tempo non macula spechio/La dona che soverchio se divide:/L’una nutrica assando lo vechio/ Natura lathea l’altra manda ale mamille/Per le doe vene che di ziò fo guide/Nel tempo in biancha forma si distilla»). The theories of planetary influence on the foetus and of the existence of seven cells in the womb follow: «Sette recepti per zaschun planeta/Son nela madre però sette nati/E anco per li segni geminati/Quando li lumi se iungeno insieme./Nel nono meze viene nel mondo lustro/Per la virtù che segnoriza Iove/Perchè de sette vive ziò te mostro:/La luna in questo mese ha segnoria/Benignitade in creatura pone/Natura confortando tutavia./Ma nel’octavo chechè nasse more/Chel segnoreza quella stela trista/Che per fredeza tra’ l’anema del core». Savonarola thinks it is not possibile to understand these verses without an extensive Latin explanation, which teaches how the bad impression of Saturn is responsible for the death of babies born in the eighth month of pregnancy, and how Jupiter, hot and moist, the qualities of life itself, in the ninth month makes the survival of the newborn possible. 46 MICHELE SAVONAROLA, Practica de egritudinibus a capite usque ad pedes or Practica maior, Venetiis, apud Juntas 1559 (compsed between 1440 and 1446). 47 «E per mazuore integrità di la doctrina de la impregnatione, seguitendo pure il ciello, diremo quello che dicono i philosophi, specialiter Alexandro Affrodiseos, di la impressione de le stelle erratrice nella formatione del feto, cussì concurrendo in zaschuno mexe una di quelle», MICHELE SAVONAROLA, Il trattato ginecologicopediatrico in volgare. Ad Mulieres ferrarienses de regimine pregnantium et noviter natorum usque ad septennium 886 Gabriella Zuccolin this last work, though, there are numerous Latin quotations of medical auctoritates to prove once again that vernacular writing does not always imply simplification of contents.48 My analysis of the Speculum, which is based at this point on a first complete restitution of the text and on the identification of the main sources, needs further in depth study. First of all I will concentrate on the critical edition of the text, comparing in detail the three witness manuscripts and then it will be necessary to place my analysis of Savonarola’s work side by side with other contemporary physiognomic texts produced in a courtly environment. By so doing I expect to deepen my knowledge of the practical results of XVth century physiognomy and to explore the relation between works of this kind and the rearrangement of ethical-political perspectives, but also religious perspectives, that takes place in Italian Humanism49. di Michele Savonarola, a cura di L. Belloni, Milano 1952, pp. 37-39. On this complex work, G. ZUCCOLIN, Nascere in latino e in volgare: tra la Practica maior e il De regimine, in C. CRISCIANI, G. ZUCCOLIN (a cura di), Michele Savonarola, cit., pp. 137-210. 48 On vernacularization of philosophy and science in the Middle Ages see at least the contributions in «Early Science and Medicine» 3.2 (1998), special number on The Vernacularization of Science, Medicine and Technology in Late Medieval Europe; N. BRAY-L. STURLESE (a cura di), Filosofia in volgare, cit.; R. GUALDO (a cura di), Le parole della scienza. Scritture tecniche e scientifiche in volgare (secoli XIII-XV), Galatina 2001; R. LIBRANDIR. PIRO (a cura di), Lo scaffale della biblioteca scientifica in volgare (secoli XIII-XVI), Firenze 2006; M. GOYENSP. DE LEEMANS-A. SMETS (Eds.), Science Translated. Latin and Vernacular Translations of Scientific Treatises in Medieval Europe, Leuven 2008. 49 One example of a work with which such a comparison might be fruitful could be the Liber de homine, called Il perchè, by Girolamo Manfredi (around 1430-1493), which is both a physiognomic work and a regimen sanitatis written – just like the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata - in question and answer form. GIROLAMO MANFREDI, Liber de homine. Il Perché, a cura di A. L. TROMBETTI BUDRIESI-F. FORESTI, Bologna 1988. See also the Introduction by A. Carré of the edition of a Catalan version of the text: GIROLAMO MANFREDI, Quesits o perquens, ed. A. Carré, Barcelona 2004, pp. 9-73.
