LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide students with the tools that allow them to refine their knowledge of history and textual criticism, with specific reference to medieval and humanistic Latin texts, both at a theoretical and practical level through the explanation and analysis of concrete cases related to particular texts and kinds of text. The aims of the course, more specifically, are the following: develop the ability to analyze and evaluate the tradition of the texts and to relate it to the different historical and cultural contexts in which it has been formed; put the student in contact with criticism, with the methodologies of medieval and humanistic philology, with scientific literature and with the tools of literary and philological research.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Attendance and active participation in the proposed training activities and individual study will allow the student to:

• know the fundamental elements of philology and, more specifically, of medieval and humanistic Latin philology;

• know how to read any critical edition;

• know the main issues related to the critical edition of a medieval or humanistic commentary on other texts;

• know the manuscript tradition of some specific texts composed in the Middle Ages or in Humanism;

• know how to insert these texts in the correct historical-cultural context;

• know the main bibliographic tools that can be of support during the preparation of a critical edition;

• acquire a sufficient knowledge of the philological vocabulary.

PREREQUISITES

Knowledge (even basic) of Latin language and good knowledge of Latin and Italian literature of the Middle Ages and Humanism.

TEACHING METHODS

Lessons will be held in presence only. Attendance, although not compulsory, is recommended. It is possible that some lectures will be held in seminar form by experts in the subject.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

1. Principles of philology. The essential aspects of philology will be illustrated (what is philology? The manuscript and the printed book; Latin in the Middle Ages and Humanism – and the relationship with the vernacular; textual criticism), with particular attention to texts and cases typical of the Middle Ages and Humanism;

2. the critical edition of medieval and humanistic commentaries. The general aspects will be exposed and the specific cases of the commentaries on the Poetria nova by Goffredo de Vino Salvo and the Rhetorica ad Herennium will be explained, with particular attention to the tradition of the texts and the solution of particularly significant textual problems.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Notes that will be available in the specific reserved area of the University website;
• Guizzardo da Bologna, Recollecte super Poetria magistri Gualfredi, Fiorini, Verona 2013;
• D. Losappio, Un nuovo testimone (frammentario) del commento di Guizzardo da Bologna alla Poetria nova, «Spolia», n.s., 6/1 (2020), pp. 110-128;
• D. Losappio, Il commento di Bartolomeo da San Concordio alla Poetria nova: alcuni appunti, in Le poetriae del medioevo latino: modelli, fortuna, commenti, a cura di G.C. Alessio – D. Losappio, Edizioni Ca' Foscari, Venezia 2018, pp. 129-163;
• D. Losappio, La recitatio nella Poetria nova. Prime indagini sull'antica esegesi italiana, «Maia», 73 (2021), pp. 632-650;
• D. Losappio, Ancient Rhetoric and the Early "Italian" Commentaries on the Poetria nova, in Brill's Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric, edited by S. Papaioannou - A. Serafim - M. Edwards, Brill, Leiden-Boston 2022, pp. 247-268;
• D. Losappio, Sul commento alla Rhetorica ad Herennium del Codice Sforza, «Rhetorica», 34 (2016), pp. 55-77;
• slides and other bibliographic material provided during the lessons.

Non-attending students must add to the bibliography described above the reading of M. Berté-M. Petoletti, La filologia medievale e umanistica, il Mulino, Bologna 2017. However, non-attending students are required to contact the teacher in time to better define the exam program.