italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear Colleagues,
I'm not sure whether it is the "done thing" to advertise books on this list,
but I feel that the publication of the following tome should be made known.
It is a fine book.
With best regards,
Ed Emery
***
Il volo della mente. Falconeria e Sofia nel mondo mediterraneo: Islam,
Federico II, Dante. Ravenna, Longo Editore, 2003, pp. 558, 56 illus.,
45.00 euros.
ISBN 88-8063-380-5
IL VOLO DELLA MENTE deals with falconry. It examines the philosophical,
literary and artistic implications of falconry in the Mediterranean world in
the medieval period. Along with major European literary works of the time,
it takes into account the highest cultural achievements of medieval Islamic
civilization. Rather than suggest the dependence of any one of these
cultures on the other, the author seeks to find the particular features that
animate and inform each one, albeit in unitary fashion. The research favors
the notion of a conscious exchange - whether as dialogue or conflict,
encounter or clash of interests and/or world views.
The book's eight chapters tackle diverse and complementary aspects of the
medieval history of ideas, social practices, political symbolism, literature
and visual arts, all in relation to falconry. Falconry in this book means
the culturally-rooted practice of taming the wild mind of nature, rather
than merely a favorite sport of the nobility.
From late antiquity to the times of Frederick II, Dante, Ibn Arabī and Rumī,
one and the same taming technique led to many and diverse symbolic
representations. Behind all of them is the idea, or the potential, of
realizing earthly existence immanently and transcendently.
At the core of the book is the still-relevant, unresolved, triple relation
between Frederick II and the Islamic world; between the Islamic world and
Dante; and between Dante and Frederick II. The underlying commonality is
Avicennism (and therefore Neoplatonism) in the Mediterranean region. Norman
kings and Swabian sovereigns, who inherited and transformed the Greek-Arabic
-Persian tradition of Sicily, may well have made a decisive contribution to
the dissemination of Avicennism in Medieval Europe.
The number of images included in the iconographic section is unusually high
for a book not specifically focussed on art history. All are analyzed and
discussed in the text. Besides providing a visual support for the topic at
hand, their use is to illustrate the extent to which images and words,
painting and poetry are the inseparable faces of all cultural activities -
pertaining in this case to Mediterranean societies that flourished between
the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.
Daniela Boccassini is Professor of French and Italian Middle Ages and
Renaissance at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).
If you would like to order the book, please contact the publisher at
www.longo-editore.it
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join italian-studies YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave italian-studies
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/italian-studies.html
|