In the course of the long debate on the nature and the classification of signs, from Boethius to Ockham, there are at least three lines of thought: the Stoic heritage, that influences Augustine, Abelard, Francis Bacon; the Aristotelian tradition, stemming from the commentaries on De Interpretatione; the discussion of the grammarians, from Priscian to the Modistae. Modern interpreters are frequently misled by the fact that the various authors regularly used the same terms. Such a homogeneous terminology, however, covers profound theoretical (...) differences. The aim of these essays is to show that the medieval theory of signs does not represent a unique body of semiotic notions: there are diverse and frequently alternative semiotic theories. This book thus represents an attempt to encourage further research on the still unrecognized variety of the semiotic approaches offered by the medieval philosophies of language. (shrink)

The notion of 'symbol' in Eriugena's writing is far from clear. It has an ambiguous semantic connection with other terms such as 'signification', 'figure', 'allegory', 'veil', 'agalma', 'form', 'shadow', 'mystery' and so on. This paper aims to explore into the origins of such a semantic ambiguity, already present in the texts of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus which Eriugena translated and commented upon. In the probable Neoplatonic sources of this corpus, the Greek term symbolon shares some aspects of its meaning with other (...) words inherited from the ancient tradition, such as synthēma , eikōn , homoiotēs. Some of them, such as eikōn and homoiotēs, belong to the field of images and are associated with linguistic semantics in the Neoplatonic commentaries not only to Plato but also to Aristotle's logical works. Among the late ancient Neoplatonists, particular attention is paid to Proclus and to his use of the term agalma. In fact, the textual history of this word seems to be a privileged perspective from which to reconstruct the Neoplatonic semantic blending of symbol and image, as well as the main role played by linguistic issues in this conflation. (shrink)

Giles of Rome developed his personal positions about signification in general and linguistic signification discussing contemporary and immediately preceding authors’ views, such as Robert Kilwardby’s, Albert the Great’s and probably various authors of the Modistic milieu. In this article, Giles’ positions on signs and linguistic signification will be shortly described, his discussions about homonymy will be linked to contemporary debates, and finally some of Giles’ positions that were discussed, criticized and sometimes misunderstood by later Modists, such as Simon of Faversham, (...) the Anonymous of Prague and Radulphus Brito, in their commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations around the end of XIIIth century, will be commented upon. (shrink)

L'A. esamina la teoria egidiana delle passioni, sviluppata in quattro declarationes in apertura del suo commento al II libro della Retorica. I temi analizzati sono la definizione di passio animae, la distinzione tra la facoltà irascibile e la concupiscibile, le passioni della facoltà concupiscibile e dell'irascibile. Fonte principale e punto costante di riferimento nella trattazione egidiana è la dottrina dell'Aquinate. L'A. mette costantemente a confronto le posizioni dei due filosofi evidenziando i tentativi di Egidio di staccarsi da Tommaso e criticarne (...) la dottrina, in particolare rispetto alla trattazione dell'ira. (shrink)

In his commentaries on Porphyry and Aristotle’s Organon and in his other works, John Duns Scotus shows his knowledge of both the modistic theory of language and the theory of supposition. My contribution sheds some light on the relationship between Scotus’ philosophy of language and the theory of supposition, collecting and commenting on all the passages in which he makes use of it or discusses some theoretical points. I take into special account the almost unknown commentary on the Topics, which (...) is preserved in a Vatican manuscript. (shrink)

Il genere della _medieval crime fiction_ ha preso il volo dall ’ inizio degli anni ’ 80 del secolo scorso, grazie ai romanzi di Ellis Peters e soprattutto di Umberto Eco. Da allora a oggi oltre 150 tra autrici e autori hanno proposto storie di indagine criminale ambientate nel Medioevo. In questo articolo saranno esaminati alcuni casi interessanti che stanno a cavallo tra romanzo storico medievale e _medieval crime fiction_, in cui le autrici o gli autori hanno fatto ricorso a (...) personaggi impegnati a vario titolo nella riflessione filosofica, teologica o medica medievale. Oggetto di analisi saranno in particolare sia le descrizioni del loro aspetto fisico che i rispettivi ruoli attanziali e narrativi. _The genre of _medieval crime fiction_ took off from the beginning of the 1980s, thanks to the novels of Ellis Peters and especially by Umberto Eco. Since then, more than 150 authors have proposed criminal investigation stories set in the Middle Ages. In this article we will examine some interesting cases that straddle medieval historical novel and _medieval crime fiction_, in which the authors have resorted to characters engaged in various capacities in philosophy, theology or medicine. In particular, both the descriptions of their physical aspect and their actantial and narrative roles will be analyzed_. (shrink)

Giles of Rome developed his personal positions about signification in general and linguistic signification discussing contemporary and immediately preceding authors’ views, such as Robert Kilwardby’s, Albert the Great’s and probably various authors of the Modistic milieu. In this article, Giles’ positions on signs and linguistic signification will be shortly described, his discussions about homonymy will be linked to contemporary debates, and finally some of Giles’ positions that were discussed, criticized and sometimes misunderstood by later Modists, such as Simon of Faversham, (...) the Anonymous of Prague and Radulphus Brito, in their commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations around the end of XIIIth century, will be commented upon. (shrink)

The article centres on Italian Neorealist cinema and its crucial role in negotiating the positioning of Italy in the transnational post-war scenario. Recent scholarship on the topic has come to challenge many deeply rooted assumptions about Neorealism, claiming that the disproportioned attention paid to this particular filmic trend has proven in the long term to be an hindrance to a full comprehension of the Italian visual culture of the period. I seek to contribute to such a renewed understanding of the (...) ideological and aesthetical issues at stake in the definition of Neorealism. It is indeed very important to underscore that the innovations brought about by Neorealist films (connected in particular to the diffusion of location shooting practices) must always be framed in the context of a lively relationship with popular genre cinema. The article thus focuses on the close reading of one specific filmic text, Sotto il sole di Roma (1948). Castellani’s film proposes an original blending of Neorealist techniques, melodramatic structures and comedic tones: an hybridization of genres representing in itself a most apt correlate to the moment of flux Italy and Italian cinema were experiencing at the time. The film’s use of Rome’s ‘Non-synchronous’ and ‘Heterotopic’ spaces can be read as an attempt to come to terms and overcome fascism’s agendas about history, community, and, last but not least, masculinity. While offering a very ironic interpretation of Italy’s deeply conflicted route to modernity, Castellani’s film also reflects on (personal as well as national) identity as the result of a performance: a performance in which loss and nostalgia play a major role. (shrink)

In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle contrasts demonstrations with syllogisms through signs. In the Prior Analytics he defines a sign as a demonstrative premise. One is thus led to ask: is a sign a demonstration? This book reconstructs the history of the notion of "demonstration through signs" from roughly the third through to the thirteenth century. It examines the work of Aristotle's Greek, Arabic, and Latin commentators, both within and outside the tradition of the Posterior Analytics.

Fra gli arredi marmorei di età romana si distingue un gruppo di sostegni realizzati in marmo Giallo antico, che presentano caratteristiche comuni di lavorazione e di decorazione, i cui esemplari sono stati ritrovati nel Mediterraneo occidentale (Sardegna, Francia meridionale, Spagna), con una concentrazione in alcuni centri antichi. Si propongono considerazioni su produzione, circolazione e riuso di questi oggetti di lusso.

Students of later medieval semantics are familiar with the controversy that developed at the end of the thirteenth century over the signification of names. The debate focused on the signification of common nouns such as ‘man’ and ‘animal’: Do they signify an extramental thing or a mental representation of an extramental thing?Some authors at the end of the thirteenth century also discussed another question concerning what names signify, that is, whether they signify the composite of matter and form or only (...) the form of the composite. This second debate will not be considered in this article. Duns Scotus is commonly recognized as having played an important role in this debate.See Costantino Marmo, “Ontology and Semantics in the Logic of Duns Scotus,” in Umberto Eco and Costantino Marmo, ed., On Medieval Theory of Signs, (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1989), pp. 161–63; and esp. Dominik Perler, “Duns Scotus on Signification,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 3 (1993): 97–120. On the topic in general, see Paul Vincent Spade, “The Semantics of Terms,” in N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1982), pp. 188–90; Jan Pinborg, “Bezeichnung in der Logik des XIII. Jahrhunderts,” in Albert Zimmermann, ed., Der Begriff der Repraesentatio im Mittelalter, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 8 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1971): 238–81; Elizabeth J. Ashworth, “Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: A Preface to Aquinas on Analogy,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991): 43–53; Claude Panaccio, “From Mental Word to Mental Language,” Philosophical Topics 20 (1992): 125–47. In his Ordinatio, he alludes to a magna altercatio among his contemporaries concerning signification.John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio 1.27.1–3 n.83, in Commissio Scotistica, ed, Opera omnia 6 (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis, 1963), p. 97. What is more, he gives, in his two commentaries on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias, a detailed and fair analysis of the two contrasting positions on this issue.John Duns Scotus, Super Peri hermeneias 1.2, and Super Peri hermeneias 2.1, in Opera omnia 1 (Paris: L. Vivès, 1891), pp. 540–44, 582–85. Scotus’s logical commentaries are usually thought to have been composed before his theological writings, in the last decade of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

The papers presented in this volume in honour of Alfonso Maieru cover some of the major topics of his research area. The institutional and intellectual life of university training in the Middle Ages, including the peculiar tradition of related works, is the focus of the papers by Louis Jacques Bataillon, William J. Courtenay, Jacqueline Hamesse, Zenon Kaluza, Loris Sturlese and Olga Weijers. Three papers, by Jacopo Costa, Pasquale Porro and Thomas Ricklin, deal with philosophical problems in Dante'sMonarchia and Convivio. The (...) complex interrelations between logic and the other main aspects of medieval philosophy, with a particular attention to theology, metaphysics and natural philosophy, are the core of the other papers by Stefano Caroti, Sten Ebbesen, Barbara Faes de Mottoni, Simo Knuuttila, Alain de Libera, Olga Lizzini, Costantino Marmo, Claude Panaccio, Ivan Bendwell, Irene Rosier-Catach, Lambert Marie de Rijk, Leonardo Sileo, Luisa Valente, and Albert Zimmermann. A larger number of friends and colleagues of Alfonso Maieru than those who appear as contributors and editors of this volume have warmly welcomed its publication. We could say, therefore, that it is absolutely contingent that the Editors are: Stefano Caroti (Universita degli Studi di Parma), Ruedi Imbach (Universite de Paris-Sorbonne), Zenon Kaluza (Centre d'Etudes des Religions du Livre, C.N.R.S), Loris Sturlese (Universita degli Studi di Lecce) and Giorgio Stabile(Universita degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"). (shrink)