According to modern categorizations, the commentaries on the Holy Scriptures by Albert the Great are not philosophical works and therefore they have received minimal attention in the field of Albertine studies. Super Matthaeum, for example, is one of the least studied in existing research. As a result, the complexity of the relationships between biblical interpretation and the philosophical and theological disciplines are surprising to the researcher used to seeing in Albert a kind of two-headed Janus – either the natural philosopher (...) or the metaphysician, either the natural scientist or the theologian. Albert himself provided occasion for such a dichotomous view. He often held that theologica non conveniunt cum philosophicis in principiis. Nevertheless, some studies have already documented the clear presence of the “philosophical” Albert alongside Albert the “theologian” and “biblical interpreter.” The present contribution offers a particular case study by analyzing Albert’s exegesis of the words in somnis in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. This is a long passage in which the Dominican master makes extensive use of philosophical theories on divination through dreams, which he had already presented in De somno et vigilia. According to Albert’s exegesis, the visio prophetalis experienced by Joseph in Matthew’s Gospel is the same kind experienced by Socrates, the first prophet, and the natural philosopher described in De somno et vigilia. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of a passage from Eckhart’s commentary on the verse of the Genesis In principio creavit caelum et terram that has not received, in my opinion, sufficient attention so far. In this passage, Eckhart points out that the principium through which God created the world is the ideal model, i.e. the ratio essendi of a thing as well as its ratio cognoscendi. It is also the cause of the essence of the thing and, as (...) Aristotle says, of its definition and its scientific proof. Eckhart also quotes Averroes, according to whom philosophers have always searched for the quiddity of a sensible thing because it could lead to knowledge of the first cause of being. By this, Eckhart warns, Averroes does not mean God, as some erroneously think, but the ratio idealis of sensible things, which is expressed by their definition. Joseph Koch’s critical edition does not identify who the plerique erra... (shrink)

Based on unpublished texts of Estimaverunt Indi, Geomantia attributed to Willelm of Moerbeke and Breviloquium artis geomantie by Bartolomew of Parma, my contribution aims at presenting a general overview of the geomantic technique and its political applications. In order to achieve this aim, I will first offer a few preliminary considerations on the concept of natural divination.