oa La Palaestra Progymnastica de Adam Gschwend

Adam Gschwend was one of a group of German professors who simplified and adapted Aftonio’s preceptive progymnasmatica to the social and cultural reality of his time and to the educational needs of the schools where he taught Rhetoric. The purpose of this article is to make a first study of his Palaestra Progymnastica, a brief manual intended for the teaching of the progymnasmata to students starting to study Rhetoric at the Gymnasium of Eisenberg. The Palaestra is not a mere summary of the Aphthonii Progymnasmata. On a formal level, the Palaestra is characterized by its schematic structure. The manual is essentially practical and includes instructions on style, formulas and advice. With regard to his examples, the themes are varied, although religious ones pre-dominated, which links him to the reformist pedagogical movement.