Intersezioni | 2019 | N. 1

The principal aim of the article is to demonstrate the authorship of the “Duecento Novelle” II.84, 85 and secondly to reconstruct the connections between Malespini’s novelle and “Women Beware Women”. The analysis of the novelle in the context of the typical features of Malespini’s work – chronicle and autobiography –, supported by archive records, shows the originality of the tales. Further, the connection with Middleton’s play would be examined not only in relation to the aforesaid novelle, but also in relation to a potential new source, novella II.24.

The article aims to highlight how the polygraph Delisle de Sales treats the literary form of the entretien in his work “La Philosophie de la nature”. A new alliance between natural history and entretien emerges through the analysis of a particular text, titled “Drame raisonnable”. This is a short Socratic dialogue, full of irony, which describes the imaginary adventures of Newton – emblem of the empiricism of the Enlightenment – in Senegal. Newton, presented as a vegetarian, arrived in Africa to check its calculations on the tides. Here he has a conversation with an oyster, a merman, and a native African albino about whether or not they should eat each other. In this case, the entretien is not trivially a simplified illustration of the issues addressed in the theoretical sections of the book, but rather a genuine application of the philosophy, which brings out the truth through the dialogical practice. In this perspective, the literary form of the entretien allows Delisle de Sales to implicitly articulate his personal conception of philosophical practice and give cohesion – through the strength of the textual frame – to a work characterized by the fragility of its argumentation.

This essay is a critical and historical analysis of the notion of restlessness – and its opposite, calm – in Leopardi’s works, with a particular emphasis on the early poem “Appressamento della morte”, the “Zibaldone” and the “Operette morali”. The article will start explaining the complex meaning of the two terms and concepts in different phases of the poet’s thought. Then, it will show how calm in Leopardi can
be understood not only as a state of quiet and tranquillity but also as pernicious inactivity and death in life. Similarly, restlessness can be intended as anxiety and impatience as well as enlivening activity and distraction. In so doing, the paper also aims to analyse the concept of restlessness pointing out similarities and difference between Leopardi and his philosophical and literary influences, both attested (e.g. Pascal, Rousseau) and uncertain (e.g. Montaigne).

Natural philosophy, based on the neutral monism of the theory of elements, has a fundamental role in the scientific research and Ernst Mach’s epistemological reflection. It is a sort of «metatheory» that intervenes to solve problems regarding the relations between different fields of scientific knowledge, in particular, in the study of the relations between physical and psychic phenomena. However, the theory of elements also
interacts with some theories of Mach’s epistemology and, specifically, it is at the base of the critics of «metaphysical» causality notion, to which Mach opposes the theory of scientific explanation as functional dependence between variable elements.

This essay presents a comparative study between J.L. Borges and Dante Alighieri. Borges’ “Aleph” will be linked to Dante’s “Paradise” in order to show some conceptual and narratological connections, such as the temporal eternity merged in a point like space; the linguistic-cognitive ineffability of the contemplative ecstasy; and the semiotic nature of the visionary images.

Literary Publishing in Puglia, on first observation, bears a glaring historical contradiction. On the one hand it plays host to a southern publishing house by the name of Laterza, which is of critical importance to the nation. This contrasts
with the large number of other publishers also within Puglia’s network, who have yet to make any significant cross-regional impact. Puglia however remains a hub of great publishing activity with over 170 active brands along with a plethora of fairs, festivals and events devoted to reading and literature. The purpose of this essay is to provide both an update as well as a critical analysis on the present state of publishing within Puglia. The essay will also provide some general reflection on the complex nature of the concept of publishing itself.

The exhibition organized by Germano Celant titled “Post-Zang Tumb Tuum. Art life politics. Italy 1918-1943” in Milan embraces a historical period from the end of the Great War to the end of the Fascist regime. Important is the role recognized to photography as an anthropological proof of
the arts and of the artist’s production as it has allowed the many reconstructions of the places of origin where the works were exhibited. The article reviews the different exhibitions held in Italy and not during this period, from trade union exhibition, through the biennale of Venice, the triennale of Milan and the quadriennale of Rome, until the last one of the E42 a few months before the end of fascism.

The article analyzes Cesare Luporini’s studies of the work of Giacomo Leopardi, underlining how over the years he reinterpreted the same thematic nuclei in different ways. A method of reading texts emerges that assumes the form of an untiring operation of reprocessing, in a continuous dialogue with other intellectuals devoted to the study of the poet from Recanati. In the face of many interpretative changes, we wished to emphasize that a constant in Luporini’s study of Leopardi’s work – as well as in his study of Leonardo da Vinci – is the investigation of the relationship between philosophy and other forms of knowledge.

The notion of «madness», at least as far as nineteenth-century French intellectual history is concerned, has been taken into consideration by different disciplines and perspectives. Placed at the intersection of medicine, psychiatry and philosophy, this disease received in the first part of the nineteenth century several descriptions and conceptualisations. In the path of discovery and understanding of madness, French spiritualist philosophy seems to play a pivotal role. In this essay, I analyse the brotherhood between philosophy and psychiatry, by relying on an unpublished manuscript of Felix Ravaisson about Maine de Biran’s conception of madness (translated at the end of this article). The main problem faced by Ravaisson is whether madness entails the complete disappearing of an individual’s self and personality. Ravaisson intends, indeed, to overcome Biranian solution and demonstrate the persistency of the self in madness and delirium.