This essay aims to examine the philosophic sources behind the representation of passions in Boccaccio’s tale of the scholar and the widow (Decameron VIII 7). If the definition of anger is attributable to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I believe that it is possible to assume that the description of compassion, only mentioned in the moral treatise, derives instead from the Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where compassion is seen as a passion opposed to a kind of wrath, that is, indignation. The paper also investigates Boccaccio’s reception of the Latin translation of Aristotle’ Rhetoric. Did Boccaccio have direct knowledge of the Aristotelian text? Or had it been mediated to him by Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae?
University of Basilicata, Italy
Chapter Title
Ira e compassione. Fonti aristotelico-tomiste di Decameron VIII 7
Authors
Miriam Pascale
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-236-2.07
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Intorno a Boccaccio / Boccaccio e dintorni 2019
Book Subtitle
Atti del Seminario internazionale di studi (Certaldo Alta, Casa di Giovanni Boccaccio, 12-13 settembre 2019)
Editors
Giovanna Frosini
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
294
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-236-2
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-235-5
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-236-2
eISBN (epub)
978-88-5518-237-9
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919