Abstract

According to Robert Grosseteste, bodily nature (corporeitas) is first form and light, capable (by its infinite auto-multiplication) of engendering dimensions in the matter. This thesis is a pivotal one of Grosseteste’s philosophical treatises, nonetheless, it is absent from his main theological works which, as well, deal with the structure of physical bodies. Indeed, these last works consider the first form as the simple and separated “exemplar” of every thing in the divine mind. The study discusses the philosophical and theological implications of this significant doctrinal evolution, assuming that the correspondence of corporeity and light is fundamental to link Platonic mathematics with Aristotelian physics, a problem no (more) faced in Grosseteste’s theological works of maturity