Diliges proximum tuum sicut te ipsum: Nature and Love as Foundations of Human Society in the Preaching of Giordano de Pisa (14th Century)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse how nature and love were presented and employed as foundations of human society by the Dominican friar Giordano de Pisa (c. 1260- 1311) in his preaching in the early fourteenth-century Florence, Italy. It will be analysed the reportationes of three of his sermons preached on the same liturgical date (Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday), between 1303 and 1305, which adopts as thema the verse Diliges proximum tuum sicut te ipsum (Love your neighbour as yourself); a model-sermon of the same liturgical date (c. 1267-1286) by the also Dominican Iacopo de Varazze (1228-1298); and a homily of Augustine of Hippo (354-430) from the early fifth century. Thus, it is stressed that Giordano approached the subject both by the use of an Aristotelian-naturalist theory as well as by an Augustinian-voluntarist conception, and it is concluded that the greater emphasis given to the first line of thought is due to its more positive character as regards the city, which allowed a treatment more consistent with the preaching thema and with its internal composition mechanisms.