Dante and moral Exemplarism.

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Pasquale Porro
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2023/1 Language Italian
Pages 16 P. 40-55 File size 153 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2023-001004
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

In the Epistle to Cangrande Dante claims that the allegorical subject of his Commedia is "the human being insofar as, deserving and demeriting through her/his free will, is subjected to the justice of reward or punishment" (Epist. XIII, ix, 25). He also points out that the poem’s modus tractandi, in itself manifold, also includes the position of examples (Epist. XIII, ix, 27). The Comedy is thus presented as a work of ethics or moral philosophy that proceeds through the representation of persons or actions to be held as models and to be imitated. The foun dations of this exemplaristic attitude are traced back to the theory of nobility that Dante himself develops in the fourth treatise of the Banquet. Through an original approach that brings together physiology, embryology and physiognomy, Dante reinterprets nobility as a kind of natural root of all virtues, and as what ultimately characterises those who acquire the status of moral exemplars. The article finally addresses - precisely on the basis of Dante’s treatment of nobility - the issue of the historical determination of moral exemplars.

Keywords: Dante Alighieri, Moral Exemplarism, Nobility, Virtue Theory, Medieval Philosophy, Happiness.

  1. -­ [Anon.] Rhetorica ad Herennium 2020: Cornifici seu Incerti Auctoris Rhetorica ad C. Herennium, ed. Gualtiero Calboli, W. de Gruyter, Berlin-­Boston 2020.
  2. -­ Azzetta 2016: Luca Azzetta, Nota introduttiva, in Nuova Edizione Commentata delle Opere di Dante. Volume V: Epistole. Egloge. Questio de aqua et terra, a cura di Mar-­ co Baglio, Luca Azzetta, Marco Petoletti e Michele Rinaldi. Introduzione di Andrea Mazzucchi, Salerno Editrice, Roma 2016, pp. 273-­297.
  3. -­ Bell 2013: Macalester Bell, The Moral Psychology of Contempt, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013.
  4. -­ Boland 1996: Vivian Boland, Ideas in God according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Sources and Synthesis, Brill, Leiden-­New York-­Köln 1996.
  5. -­ Brémond, Le Goff, Schmitt 1982: Claude Brémond, Jacques Le Goff, Jean-­Claude Schmitt, L’“Exemplum” (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 40), Bre-­ pols, Turnhout 1982.
  6. -­ Chandelier, Robert 2013: Joël Chandelier, Aurélien Robert, Nature humaine et com-­ plexion du corps chez les médecins italiens de la fin du Moyen Âge, «Revue de Syn-­ thèse», 134 (2013), pp. 473-­510.
  7. -­ Doolan 2008: Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington D.C. 2008.
  8. -­ Gragnolati, Lombardi, Southern 2021: Manuele Gragnolati, Elena Lombardi, Francesca Southern (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dante, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2021.
  9. -­ Groebner 2004: Valentin Groebner, Complexio/Complexion: Categorizing Individual Natures, 1250-­1600, in Lorraine Daston, Fernando Vidal (eds.), The Moral Authority of Nature, University of Chicago Press, Chicago-­London 2004, pp. 361-­383.
  10. -­ Hugutio Pisanus 2004: Uguccione da Pisa, Derivationes. Edizione critica princeps a cura di Enzo Cecchini e di Guido Arbizzoni, Settimio Lanciotti, Giorgio Nonni, Maria Grazia Sassi, Alba Tontini, Sismel–Edizioni del Galluzzo, Firenze 2004.
  11. -­ Hunt 2001: Larry Eugene Hunt, Secrets of divine wisdom. The use of the figura and exemplum in Medieval Epistemology, University of Georgia, Athens 2001 (Doct. Diss.).
  12. -­ Johannes Anglicus [Giovanni di Garlandia] 1902: Poetria magistri Johannis Anglici de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica, ed. Giovanni Mari, «Romanische Forschungen», 13 (1902), pp. 883-­965.
  13. -­ Köhler 2008: Theodor Wolfram Köhler, “Homo animal nobilissimum”. Konturen des spezifisch Menschlichen in der naturphilosophischen Aristoteleskommentierung des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, Teilband 1, Brill, Leiden-­Boston 2008.
  14. -­ Louis 2013: Nicolas Louis, L’exemplum en pratiques: production, diffusion et usages des recueils d’exempla latins au XIIIe-­XVe siècles, Université de Namur, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Namur 2013 (diss. doct.).
  15. -­ Lyons 1989: John D. Lyons, Exemplum. The Rhetoric of Exemplum in early Modern France and Italy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1989.
  16. -­ Malato, Tateo 2005: Enrico Malato, Francesco Tateo, Esempio, in Enciclopedia Dan-­ tesca. Edizione speciale per la Biblioteca Treccani, Mondadori, Milano 2005, vol. VIII, pp. 536-­538.
  17. -­ Malgieri 2020: Maria Evelina Malgieri, Le idee divine nella Scolastica francescana del XIII e XIV secolo, «Archivum Franciscanum Historicum», 113 (2020), pp. 611-­ 628.
  18. -­ Minardi 2009: Enrico Minardi, Funzione e significato dell’exemplum nel Purgatorio di Dante, University of Wisconsin, Madison 2009.
  19. -­ Porro 2015: Pasquale Porro, Canto XIX. La condanna dei non credenti e la giustizia di Dio: il discorso dell’Aquila e la teodicea dantesca, in Enrico Malato, Andrea Maz-­ zucchi (a cura di), Cento canti per cento anni. III. Paradiso. 2. Canti XVII-­XXXIII, Sa-­ lerno Editrice, Roma 2015, pp. 558-­593.
  20. -­ Porro 2018: Pasquale Porro, Le nombre six est-­il Créateur ou créature ? Indifférence des essences et exemplarisme dans la doctrine thomasienne de la création, «Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques», 102 (2018), pp. 445-­466.
  21. -­ Porro 2019: Pasquale Porro, Nobiltà, complessione e durata della vita: le età dell’uo-­ mo nel Convivio di Dante, in Elisabetta Berardi, Massimo Manca (a cura di), Età del mondo, età dell’uomo. Nascita, vita, morte fra microcosmo e macrocosmo, Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria 2019, pp. 165-­184.
  22. -­ Porro 2021a: Pasquale Porro, Nobiltà e virtù tra il Convivio e la Monarchia, in Erminia Ardissino (a cura di), Dante: filosofia e poesia della giustizia. Dalla Monarchia alla Commedia, Mimesis, Milano-­Udine 2021, pp. 85-­106.
  23. -­ Porro 2021b: Pasquale Porro, Un’alterità accessibile. Qualche considerazione sulla funzione della storia della filosofia (e della storia della filosofia medievale in partico-­ lare), in Annalisa Caputo, Luca Illetterati (a cura di), Tra passato e presente. Studi in onore di Ferruccio De Natale, Mimesis, Milano-­Udine 2021 pp. 83-­99.
  24. -­ Ricklin (éd.) 2007 = Thomas Ricklin (éd.), Exempla docent. Les exemples des philosophes de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. Actes du colloque international 23-­25 octobre 2003, Université de Neuchâtel, Vrin, Paris 2007.
  25. -­ Scanlon 1994: Larry Scanlon, Narrative, Authority and Power: The Medieval Exem-­ plum and the Chaucerian Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-­New York 1994.
  26. -­ Trumbower 2001: Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead. The Posthumous Sal-­ vation of Non-­Christians in Early Christianity, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.
  27. -­ Vickers 1983: Nancy J. Vickers, Seeing is Believing: Gregory, Trajan, and Dante’s Art, «Dante Studies», 101 (1983), pp. 67-­85.
  28. -­ Welter 2017: Jean-­Thiébaut Welter, L’exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et di-­ dactique du Moyen Âge, Occitania, Paris-­Toulouse 1927.
  29. -­ Whatley 1984: Gordon Whatley, The Uses of Hagiography: The Legend of Pope Gregory and the Emperor Trajan in the Middle Ages, «Viator», 15 (1984), pp. 25-­63.
  30. -­ Wippel 1993: John F. Wippel, Thomas Aquinas on the Divine Ideas, Pontifical Insti-­ tute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto 1993.
  31. -­ Zagzebski 2017: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford-­New York 2017.
  32. -­ Zuccolin 2019: Gabriella Zuccolin, Tommaso d’Aquino sulla complessione corporea, «Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques», 103 (2019), pp. 625-­648.

Pasquale Porro, Santi, eroi, sapienti e nobili. Dante e l’esemplarismo morale in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 1/2023, pp 40-55, DOI: 10.3280/SF2023-001004