El artículo estudia la obra "De sancta uirginitate" desde un punto de vista eclesiológico, superando así la opinión según la cual sólo las mujeres consagradas a Dios son destinatarias de ella. Comenta también la polémica sobre la uirginitas a finales del siglo IV y principios del siglo V, y cómo presenta la virginidad el pensamiento agustiniano.

Quietism brought the individual to a state of “holy indifference” where nothing mattered; particularities of Christian belief and practice, pleasures of the senses, personal desires, all vanished in the utter self-abandonment of the soul in the presence of God. The “resigned” soul simply left everything to God. This was a mode of spirituality but also a challenge to the Church and the need for its sacraments. Ecclesiastical authorities of various colors, both protestant and Roman Catholic, found this unacceptable in its (...) earlier manifestations in the later Middle Ages and again in its heydey in the late seventeenth century. Meanwhile in the sixteenth century, adiaphora had become controversial. These were matters of Christian belief and practice about which Christian opinion could legitimately vary and which were therefore “indifferent.” This paper explores the ways in which both these controversies rose from the same underground stream of medieval dissidence, discussing the contributions of the leading characters in the story and seeking to describe the common ground of idea and ideology which unites the history and which suggests that Quietism represents an archetype among the great “positions” of Christendom. (shrink)

This essay explores the history of the concept of _monstrum_ from Francis Bacon’s _Novum Organum_ to Athanasius Kircher’s _Mundus Subterraneaus_ (1664), as well as its relationship with the origins of science; as in the early modern age, the term _monstra_ is considered as a synonym for _mirabilia naturae_. The introductory part focuses on the difficult definition of “monster”, starting from Aristotle’s famous sentence in _De generatione animalium_: whoever does not looks like his parents, or whatever happens in a different way (...) from the “generality of cases”, is included within the category of the “monstrous”. Monster is a being, whose anomaly represents a warning; therefore, monsters may be considered as signs, susceptible of an allegorical, moral and even political interpretation. In another acceptation of the term, monsters may be considered as the privileged witnesses of the richness and fecundity of nature. In the second part, Bacon’s theory of monsters is exposed: they are classified as _instantiae deviantes_, within that interpretation of nature, through which the Lord Chancellor lays the epistemological foundations of the modern science. In the third, fourth and fifth parts, a taxonomy of monsters is given: at first, by means of the _cabinets des curiosités_, which flourished in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy, from Naples to Rome, from Bologna to Milan, with famous collectors such as Ferrante Imperato, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Manfredo Settala, Athanasius Kircher; then, through the “books of secrets”, which are at the same time a new, successful literary genre and a way of thinking nature, an aspect of natural history. Among the “professors of secrets”, there are Giovan Battista Della Porta, Ambroise Paré, Leonardo Fioravanti, Jean Fernel, Pierre Borel, Kenelm Digby, and Athanasius Kircher, again, with some disciples of his, such as Kaspar Schott. Secrets of nature and _mirabilia naturae_ are finally compared: the classical list of _mirabilia_, from Pliny the Elder to Kircher, completes the taxonomy of monsters. The sixth and last part of this essay offers an explicative theory of monsters and prodigies: the marvels of nature are magnetic phenomena, which seem to imply a mysterious action at a distance. Such magnetic action can be accounted for on the basis of the Renaissance, Ficinian and Neoplatonic concept of spirit – conceived as the universal vehicle of occult sympathies and antipathies - and then through the seventeenth concepts of corpuscular effluvia, introduced by Pierre Gassendi in his _Physica_ (1658), and _sphaera activitatis_, produced by the effluvia which each body emits, and surrounding it. This sphere is the place when most of marvelous phenomena happen. (shrink)

Santa Birgitta di Svezia (1303-1373), una delle più importanti visionarie del tardo Medioevo, fu celebrata come profetessa e sibilla fino a tutto il XVII secolo. È opinione comune che lo status di profetessa di Birgitta sia stato costruito dai suoi sostenitori dopo la sua morte. Di contro, la mia tesi è che la costruzione dell'immagine di profetessa sia stata il risultato di una strategia scientemente elaborata fin dall'inizio della sua esperienza profetica e alla quale hanno contribuito con attenzione sia i (...) suoi sostenitori sia lei stessa. Le tracce di questa costruzione possono essere rinvenute nei primi resoconti degli agiografi, nel vivo appoggio dei confessori e dei numerosi testimoni al processo di canonizzazione. Tuttavia, le testimonianze più forti dell'aspirazione profetica di Birgitta si trovano nelle sue stesse rivelazioni, che sono al centro di questo saggio. (shrink)

Die Frühe Neuzeit hat in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften ein eigenes Profil gewonnen. Die Buchreihe Frühe Neuzeit dient der Grundlagenforschung in Gestalt von Editionen, Monographien und Sammelbänden. Sie strebt nicht die großräumige Überschau an, die vorschnelle Synthese oder prätentiöse Konstruktion, sondern nimmt den Umweg über die Arbeit am Detail und die Erkundung verschütteter Traditionszusammenhänge. Ein besonderer Akzent liegt auf Untersuchungen, welche die Grenzen der Fachdisziplin überschreiten.

El presente articulo pretende poner de manifiesto el interés que tienen los libros penitenciales en la Alta Edad Media para informar sobre las costumbres y la vida cotidiana, tanto en lo que se ajusta como en lo que no se ajusta a las normas de conducta.

Summary A brief state of the art for Phlegon of Tralles’ De Mirabilia 3 anti-Roman prophecies is followed by a reassessment of four of its components: the historical identification of the Roman protagonist “Publius”, Naupaktos as the main stage for the prophecies, the multiple meanings of the Red Wolf as well as the Oak Tree, and the Roman military retreat. By analyzing these specific elements, it will be argued that these presages were not only associated with events during the (...) Antiochean and Mithridatic Wars, but were also related with historical experiences from the First Macedonian Conflict. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 92 Heft: 2 Seiten: 442-467.