L’articolo si concentra sull’analisi dell’estesa comparazione tra filosofia e amicizia proposta da Dante in Convivio III, xi, interpretandola come una consapevole analogia. A partire da un’attenta esegesi del capitolo, letto come un peculiare accessus ad philosophiam dantesco, l’articolo ripercorre le tappe dell’analogia evidenziandone i principali contenuti teorici. In questo modo, diventa possibile mostrare la rilevanza del tema dell’amicizia (in particolare di quella tra maestro e allievo) per una corretta comprensione di uno degli aspetti fondamentali (e anche più dibattuti) della pratica filosofica così come concepita da Dante, ovvero il suo carattere intrinsecamente collettivo. Inoltre, l’articolo sottolinea come l’amicizia costituisca per Dante uno degli strumenti essenziali per l’allargamento del sapere filosofico al di fuori dei circoli universitari, obiettivo a cui il Convivio dichiaratamente mira.
The article focuses on the analysis of the extended comparison between philosophy and friendship advanced by Dante in Convivio III, xi, interpreting it as a conscious analogy. Starting from a careful exegesis of the chapter, read as Dante’s peculiar accessus ad philosophiam, the article goes through the stages of the analogy, and it highlights its main theoretical contents. In this way, it becomes possible to show the relevance of the topic of friendship (especially that between master and student) for a correct understanding of one of the fundamental (and most debated) aspects of philosophical practice as conceived by Dante, i.e., its intrinsically collective character. Moreover, the article underlines that friendship constitutes for Dante one of the essential instruments in order to broaden philosophical knowledge outside of university circles, something that the Convivio explicitly purports to do.
The volume collects the Italian translation of ten essays by Ruedi Imbach, already published or in way of publication at the time of printing (but all revised for the occasion), complemented by a bibliography of primary and secondary sources and an index of names. A good starting point to understand the purpose of the collection is its title. While "Minima Mediaevalia" is an obvious reminiscence of Adorno's "Minima Moralia" (explicitly acknowledged on p. 9), this expression is best understood as a declaration of modesty on the part of Imbach, one not dissimilar to that uttered by Dante at the beginning of his otherworldly journey: "Io non Enëa, io non Paulo sono" (Inf. II, 32, a passage to which Imbach refers twice in the book, on pp. 37-38 and p. 216). As in the case of Dante, however, Imbach's journey through (a part of) the texts and authors he cultivated in decades of research is certainly much more significant than the title would allow.
The article reviews in an extended and critical way Roland Betancourt, Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2018. After putting the book in the context of contemporary scholarship on Byzantine theories of vision, the article sketches the structure and contents of the book (together with its methodology), before moving on to a critical discussion of the interpretation of some important Late Antique and Byzantine theories of vision advanced by Betancourt, especially that of Galen, together with its reception in Nemesios of Emesa and in the later Byzantine world (focusing on its relation with the Eucharistic theology and Christology of Nicholas Kabasilas). The article ends by stressing the value of Betancourt's book insofar as the wealth of material it collects will allow scholars to deepen and enrich the study of Byzantine theories of vision.
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