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Political Philosophy and Vernaculars in late Middl.. (PPVMA2)
Political Philosophy and Vernaculars in late Middle Ages (13th-14th c.)
(PPVMA2)
Start date: May 1, 2010,
End date: Apr 30, 2012
PROJECT
FINISHED
"The aim of the project is to investigate the changes in the political conceptual paradigm of the 13th and 14th century European Western culture. The research will focus, in particular, on the influence of national languages (vernaculars) in political theory, the meaning of the learned bilingualism of Latin and the use of vernaculars, translations, as well as new political genres, which radically change the reflection on politics and its ends. As a matter of fact, on the one hand, vernacular becomes increasingly refined in the translations of Latin texts, as in the case of Brunetto’s translations in French and Italian. On the other hand, vernacular becomes increasingly employed in autonomous political works and of new philosophical political genres. Particular aims: 1) The main aim of the project is the reconstruction of the context of the changes in the intellectual debate of 13th and 14th century France and Italy with a focus on linguistic and national identity through authors and texts such as for instance Brunetto, Dante, Rolandino, "Novellino", Giles of Rome's De Regimine, Raoul de Presles, Oresme, and through specific topics and case studies. 2) Specific and important aim of the project is to detect a “political lexicon” in Vernacular in Brunetto’s (1220-1295) works in French (langue d’oil) and Italian (Tuscan). Author of a dense Tresor in French, including free translations from the Latin versions of Aristotle’s Politcs, Ethics and Rhetorics, from Cicero, Isidore, and from John of Viterbo’s Liber de regimine civitatum, he also writes Rettorica, free translation of Cicero’s De inventione in Italian. 3) Lexical analysis of the anonymous Florentine translation of Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum (1280), which follows the French version by Henri de Gauchi constitutes a further aim. This will shed further light on the transition from Latin to Vernaculars, as well as on the effective change that the translation brings about from French to Italian"