Brepols

This book engages with Antwerp in the Renaissance. Bringing together several specialists of sixteenth-century Antwerp, it offers new research results and fresh perspectives on the economic, cultural and social history of the metropolis in the sixteenth century. Recurrent themes are the creative ways in which the Italian renaissance was translated in the Antwerp context. Imperfect imitation often resulted from the specific social context in which the renaissance was translated: Antwerp was a metropolis marked by a strong commercial ideology, a high level affluence and social inequality, but also by the presence of large and strong middling layers, which contributed to the city’s ‘bourgeois’ character. The growth of the Antwerp market was remarkable: in no time the city gained metropolitan status. This book does a good job in showing how quite a few of the Antwerp ‘achievements’ did result from the absence of ‘existing structures’ and ‘examples’. Moreover, the city and its culture were given shape by the many frictions, and uncertainties that came along with rapid urban growth and religious turmoil.

Au point de départ, le concept d’apocryphité suppose le concept de canonicité. C’est donc d’abord la constitution d’un corpus d’écrits dits canonisés qui génère ensuite de diverses manières une littérature définie comme apocryphe. Le concept d’apocryphité repose donc apparemment sur une simple équation - il est le produit d’un autre concept, celui de la canonicité. Même s’il convient de ne pas généraliser à tous les cas un tel paramètre, c’est, semble-t-il, une évidence. Ce phénomène a touché l’ensemble des religions dites du Livre au sens actuel de l’expression qui est bien large, mais aussi les religions grecques et romaines de l’Antiquité dans lesquelles la constitution de corpus a entraîné la formation d’une frange apocryphe. En la matière, ce qui se passe dans le christianisme provient évidemment du judaïsme, mais se déroule aussi, sous des formes plus ou moins similaires, dans le mazdéisme et le manichéisme.

Cet ouvrage, qui est le fruit d’un projet collectif du Centre d’études des religions du Livre (Unité mixte de recherche EPHE-CNRS), concerne non seulement les antiquisants et les médiévistes, mais aussi les modernistes. C’est aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, en effet, que certains corpus d’apocryphes chrétiens, non des moindres, ont pris forme.

Le Moyen Âge a vu naître les langues romanes. L’émergence progressive de ces nouveaux systèmes linguistiques, puis leur accession à l’écrit et à la littérature, n’a pourtant pas rendu caduc l’usage du latin. Témoignent de cette résistance du latin la diglossie de nombreux locuteurs, auteurs ou copistes médiévaux, ainsi que le bilinguisme courant de leurs énoncés et de leurs productions textuelles. Ces phénomènes ont été éclairés et illustrés par d’abondants travaux dont l’apport est régulièrement signalé par les auteurs de ce volume.

L’originalité du présent recueil tient au fait qu’y sont analysées les modalités de cohabitation du latin et de la langue d’oïl dans les textes du Moyen Âge central et tardif. Cette réflexion collective, adossée à un souci permanent de définition théorique, se montre attentive à l’évolution chronologique, depuis les Psautiers bilingues du xii e siècle jusqu’aux imprimés du xvi e siècle. Elle est sensible aussi à des enjeux variables, depuis l’enseignement élémentaire de la grammaire ou du vocabulaire jusqu’à la mise en œuvre de dispositifs esthétiques complexes. En s’appuyant sur les témoins — pour la plupart manuscrits — qu’a pu susciter la double compétence linguistique médiévale, les auteurs du volume interrogent la conception des textes bilingues, leurs conditions d’élaboration, leur transmission, leur réception. L’insertion souvent discrète de fragments latins au sein de textes français, tout comme la présence plus rare de la langue d’oïl au sein de manuscrits latins, se lit alors comme un mode d’expression aussi raffiné que spontané, susceptible d’enrichir les usages prévus pour le texte enchâssant. Au-delà, l’ensemble de ces études permet d’entrevoir la conscience linguistique des locuteurs du Moyen Âge.

This book presents a thorough re-examination of Apuleius’ Platonic philosophy, encompassing both his philosophical and literary works. Its primary concern lies in demonstrating how there is no significant gap between the Platonic philosophy of the Opuscula (De deo Socratis, De Platone et eius dogmate, De mundo) and the literary tastes of his rhetorical and most important output, such as the Apologia, the Florida, and foremost the Metamorphoses. Apuleius’ Middle-Platonism did not limit itself to technical works, but also influenced his literary interests.

Up to now, Apuleius’ Platonism has been very poorly investigated. It had attracted the attention of only a few - although prominent - scholars (Festugière, Dodds, Theiler), before being taken briefly into consideration in the monographs by John Dillon (The Middleplatonists, London 1977) and Stephen Gersh (Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. The Latin Tradition, Notre Dame 1986). Because of his multifaceted interests and brilliant style, which is reflected in his conferences, judicial orations and in the novel, Apuleius was mainly treated as a sophist. In the wake of a recent revival of interest in Greek Middle Platonism and in its predecessors (such as Philo of Alexandria or Plutarch), the rhetor of Madauros is worthy of a new examination. This book aims at considering Apuleius as a Philosophus Platonicus who, at the same time, is a Latin Sophist, showing how the two aspects are closely intertwined.

Examining only one aspect would be easy, but would not do justice to Apuleius’ personality. In particular, it is necessary to insert him into a philosophical line, which runs from the first to the third century AD, thus outlining the specifics of Latin Platonism. On the other hand, it is necessary to take into account the concerns of the Second Sophistic in philosophy, though in a somewhat trivialized and less systematic way.

The title of the book (Apuleius and the Metamorphoses of Platonism) indeed underlines how Apuleius’ chameleonic Platonism ‘transforms’ itself, both in his philosophical and his literary works. While challenging the current scholarly trend that overrates the philosophical presence in the Metamorphoses, this book suggests new outlooks, as well as providing a new perspective on many hypotheses previously considered as a given. In order to do this, it investigates the literary, religious and philosophical, Graeco-Roman / African milieu in which Apuleius lived from a literary, religious and philosophical point of view, while considering his influence on authors from Late Antiquity.

This volume, the third in the series MediTo, investigates the changing landscapes of Tuscany during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Through a selection of thematic case studies, presented initially during the second International workshop held in Paganico (Grosseto, Italy) in June 2019 and here further developed, the volume explores the concepts of settlement, economic, and societal changes in both Tuscany and its broader Mediterranean context over the course of several centuries. Together, the contributions gathered here showcase how cities and rural settlements, when studied in their archaeological and historical context, shed light on a dynamic landscape in which natural resources played a crucial role in defining the success or later abandonment of sites.