Compitum

Marco Bardini, Il cinema mediavaloide 1965-1976, Pise, 2023.

Éditeur : Edizioni ETS
292 pages
ISBN : 9788846766489
26 €

Il volume narra vita morte e miracoli (soprattutto al botteghino) di quella commedia cinematografica in costume che tra il 1965 e il 1976, rifacendosi principalmente alla novellistica del XIV-XVI secolo, ottenne uno straordinario successo popolare. Ma non di critica. Fu un filone polimorfo e onnivoro, a vocazione trash, che ebbe la spavalderia di mettere in competizione accreditati registi come Lattuada, Scola e Monicelli, e onesti artigiani di lungo corso come Festa Campanile, Amendola e Corbucci; fuoriclasse instabilmente talentuosi del cinema bis come Aristide Massaccesi, Antonio Margheriti e Mariano Laurenti, e malestrosi travèt della celluloide come Luigi Batzella, Enrico Bomba e Marino Girolami (per citarne alcuni). A non dire delle schegge impazzite. Nella faccenda, inoltre, finirono coinvolti intellettuali come Pasolini (con l'intera sua Trilogia della vita) e lo scrittore Luigi Malerba; nonché gente di teatro come Zeffirelli, Garinei & Giovannini, Gianfranco De Bosio. Nomi illustri o spregevoli che vollero trascinare in platea le vecchie storie di Machiavelli e Boccaccio, di Ruzante e Aretino, assieme a quelle di Bandello, Masuccio, Bibbiena, Sacchetti, Vasari e tanti altri. Con in più un'eccentrica considerazione per Le mille e una notte, Chaucer e il Kamasutra, il marchese de Sade, Cenerentola e Balzac. A un certo punto si volle denominare tutto ciò “decamerotico”, più nel male che nel bene. Col senno di poi, è suggerito qui di ribattezzarlo “cinema medievaloide”.

Marina Smyth, The Liber de ordine creaturarum, Turnhout, 2023.

Éditeur : Brepols
Collection : Brepols Library of Christian Sources, 5
191 pages
ISBN : 978-2-503-59678-5
45 €

The Liber de ordine creaturarum is an anonymous Latin work with an Irish provenance that dates back to the seventh century. It presents the creation as the divine handiwork and is notable for serving as both a commentary on the Hexaemeron (Six-day Work) in Genesis and as one of the earliest works of systematic theology. Although previously attributed to Isidore of Seville, the Liber de ordine creaturarum is far more than a mere compilation of 'authorities.' Instead, it emphasizes the inherent order that exists within the creation itself.

Source : Brepols

Bessarion, Liber Defensionum contra Obiectiones in Platonem. Cardinal Bessarion's Own Latin Translation of His Greek Defense of Plato against George of Trebizond. Edited by John Monfasani, Berlin-Boston, MA, 2023.

Éditeur : De Gruyter
Collection : Byzantinisches Archiv – Series Philosophica, 6
XXVII- 242 pages
ISBN : 9783111246352
129,95 €

In 1458 George of Trebizond transferred the Plato-Aristotle controversy from the Byzantine world to the Latin by publishing his Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis et Praestantia Aristotelis, a full-scale attack on Plato and the Platonic tradition from antiquity to the present day, ending with a violent diatribe on the dangers posed by the influence of Cardinal Bessarion's recently deceased teacher, George Gemistus Pletho. To respond, Bessarion knew that he would have to do so in Latin, but in actuality, he composed his response in Greek and then translated it into Latin. The result was the Liber Defensionum contra Obiectiones in Platonem, which was ready for publication by 1466. At that point, however, he withdrew it from publication in order to expand its content as well as to refine its Latinity. Bessarion's response finally appeared in 1469 as the In Calumniatorem Platonis. But it was in the Liber Defensionum that Bessarion made his major decisions on what to include as well as what to exclude from his original Greek text and exactly how he would render the Greek into Latin. Thus, to understand the language and structure of the In Calumniatorem Platonis one must turn first to the Liber Defensionum.

Source : De Gruyter

Amalia Cerrito, Albert the Great (c. 1193-1280) and the Configuration of the Embryo. Virtus Formativa, Cham, 2023.

Éditeur : Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature Switzerland
Collection : Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine
XI-171 pages
ISBN : 978-3-031-24022-5
116,04 €

This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of Albert the Great's (c. 1193–1280) notion of virtus formativa, a shaping force responsible for crucial dynamics in the formation of living beings. Crossing the boundaries between theology and philosophy, the notion of virtus formativa, or formative power, was central in explaining genetic inheritance and the configuration of the embryo. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this book reconstructs how Albert the Great, motivated by theological open issues, reorganised the natural-philosophical and medical theories on embryonic development, creatively drawing upon Greek, Patristic, and Arabic sources. A valuable contribution to research, this book offers essential insights for those studying the history of embryology, medicine, and science in the medieval and renaissance periods.

Source : Springer Nature

Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (éd.), Le metafore dell'amicizia, dell'amore e della pace (secoli XI-XII). In ricordo di Peter Dronke, Florence, 2023.

Éditeur : Sismel - Edizioni del Galluzzo
Collection : mediEVI, 37
X-137 pages
ISBN : 978-88-9290-239-8
30 €

Premessa di A. Paravicini Bagliani. LE METAFORE DELL'AMICIZIA, DELL'AMORE E DELLA PACE (SECOLI XI-XII). IN RICORDO DI PETER DRONKE. P. Boitani, La teologia come poetessa: Peter Dronke e il Medioevo – C. Burnett, Love and Friendship in Astrology and Astral Magic – J. C. Santos Paz, Exégesis, metáfora y profecía en la red de amistad de Hildegarde – M. Pereira, Le virtù amiche dell'anima in Ildegarda di Bingen – J. M. Ziolkowski, Peter Dronke and Ernst Robert Curtius: Loving the Latin Middle Ages? – J. Marenbon, Metaphor as a Way of Philosophizing in the Twelfth Century – J.-Y. Tilliette, Érotisme et cosmologie: un monologue amoureux en vers léonins du XIIe siècle

Source : Sismel - Edizioni del Galluzzo

Albrecht Classen (éd.), Globalism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Innovative Approaches and Perspectives, Berlin, 2023.

Éditeur : De Gruyter
Collection : Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 27
643 pages
ISBN : 9783111190228
139,95 €

Although it is fashionable among modernists to claim that globalism emerged only since ca. 1800, the opposite can well be documented through careful comparative and transdisciplinary studies, as this volume demonstrates, offering a wide range of innovative perspectives on often neglected literary, philosophical, historical, or medical documents. Texts, images, ideas, knowledge, and objects migrated throughout the world already in the pre-modern world, even if the quantitative level compared to the modern world might have been different. In fact, by means of translations and trade, for instance, global connections were established and maintained over the centuries. Archetypal motifs developed in many literatures indicate how much pre-modern people actually shared. But we also discover hard-core facts of global economic exchange, import of exotic medicine, and, on another level, intensive intellectual debates on religious issues. Literary evidence serves best to expose the extent to which contacts with people in foreign countries were imaginable, often desirable, and at times feared, of course. The pre-modern world was much more on the move and reached out to distant lands out of curiosity, economic interests, and political and military concerns. Diplomats crisscrossed the continents, and artists, poets, and craftsmen traveled widely. We can identify, for instance, both the Vikings and the Arabs as global players long before the rise of modern globalism, so this volume promises to rewrite many of our traditional notions about pre-modern worldviews, economic conditions, and the literary sharing on a global level, as perhaps best expressed by the genre of the fable.