Medicine and Medieval Italian Lyric
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Matteo Pace
Organizer Affiliation
Columbia Univ.
Presider Name
Akash Kumar
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of California-Santa Cruz
Paper Title 1
On Fluid Memory: Aristotle's Heart in the Scuola Siciliana
Presenter 1 Name
Matteo Pace
Paper Title 2
Medieval Medical Thought and Dante's Poetry
Presenter 2 Name
Paola Ureni
Presenter 2 Affiliation
College of Staten Island and Graduate Center, CUNY
Paper Title 3
Formando Filosofiche Ragioni: Cecco d'Ascoli, Dante, and the Medical Foundation of Ethics
Presenter 3 Name
Seth Fabian
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Holy Family High School
Paper Title 4
Health Beliefs and Doctor-Patient Communication in Francesco Petrarca's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta
Presenter 4 Name
Caterina Agostini
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Rutgers Univ.
Start Date
11-5-2017 10:00 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 1040
Description
The exchanges between medical learning and the early Italian lyric tradition are rich and diverse, and can shed light on this fertile season in Medieval literature. With regard to the scientific and medical milieu of the 13th and 14th centuries, different lines of inquiry need to be addressed in order to better grasp the tendency of the coeval poetical production, which involved reception of Greek-Arabic scientific sources, translations and recuperation of texts, and original contributions in the vernacular.
The ongoing debate in the professional spheres of physicians and universities reached a point of intense production and reception of texts and ideas, while at the same time poets were not merely taking on these debates with a passive attitude, but were actively contributing to these discussions with their poetical means, often taking sides and producing new ideas and theoretical frames. Scholars in the field tend to separate these two aspects, with the underlying assumption that real science has to be found in treatises, and that poetry just used some of these concepts.
The session aims to bridge the gap between these two fields, to show how the history of science can benefit from the history of Medieval literature, and vice versa. The papers presented at this session will explore these exchanges in a broad chronological spectrum, and with attention to different authors and texts. From the Aristotelian frame of the poetic use of the heart in the Scuola Siciliana, through Dante’s own take on the medical issues of this time, and Cecco d’Ascoli’s critique of Dante’s understanding of free will by means of astrology and medicine, the session will close on Petrarca’s involvement in the question of body and soul in his Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.
Matteo Pace
Medicine and Medieval Italian Lyric
Fetzer 1040
The exchanges between medical learning and the early Italian lyric tradition are rich and diverse, and can shed light on this fertile season in Medieval literature. With regard to the scientific and medical milieu of the 13th and 14th centuries, different lines of inquiry need to be addressed in order to better grasp the tendency of the coeval poetical production, which involved reception of Greek-Arabic scientific sources, translations and recuperation of texts, and original contributions in the vernacular.
The ongoing debate in the professional spheres of physicians and universities reached a point of intense production and reception of texts and ideas, while at the same time poets were not merely taking on these debates with a passive attitude, but were actively contributing to these discussions with their poetical means, often taking sides and producing new ideas and theoretical frames. Scholars in the field tend to separate these two aspects, with the underlying assumption that real science has to be found in treatises, and that poetry just used some of these concepts.
The session aims to bridge the gap between these two fields, to show how the history of science can benefit from the history of Medieval literature, and vice versa. The papers presented at this session will explore these exchanges in a broad chronological spectrum, and with attention to different authors and texts. From the Aristotelian frame of the poetic use of the heart in the Scuola Siciliana, through Dante’s own take on the medical issues of this time, and Cecco d’Ascoli’s critique of Dante’s understanding of free will by means of astrology and medicine, the session will close on Petrarca’s involvement in the question of body and soul in his Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.
Matteo Pace