Teorie e immagini del governo "misto" nel Cinquecento: i casi di Gasparo Contarini, Donato Giannotti, Paolo Paruta e Traiano Boccalini

This doctoral dissertation faces the debated topic of the traditions of Republicanism in the Modern Age assuming, as a point of view, the problem of the "mixed" government. The research therefore dwells upon the use of this model in Sixteenth-Century Italy, also in connection with the historical events of two standard Republics such as Florence and Venice. The work focuses on Donato Giannotti (1492-1573), Gasparo Contarini (1483-1542) and Paolo Paruta (1540-1598), as the main figures in order to reconstruct the debate on "mixed" constitution: in them, decisive in the attention paid to the peculiar structure of the Venetian Republic, the only of a certain dimension and power to survive after 1530. The research takes into account also the writings of Traiano Boccalini (1556-1613): he himself, though being involved in the same topics of debate, sets for some aspects his considerations in the framework of a new theme, that of Reason of State.

I sensi spirituali nel Liber di Angela da Foligno. La metafora del "gusto" nel Liber di Angela da Foligno e nella mistica femminile francescana tra XIII e XIV secolo.

Angela da Foligno’s Liber is a fundamental text for the scholar of Women Mystics between the XIIIth and the XIVth century in Italy and all over Europe, and it has been chosen in my research because of its originality, with refer of its feminine and franciscan essence. Angela teaches to the italian hagiographic tradition the internal point of view of the holy woman, who becomes the teller of her both ordinary and extraordinary experiences. After giving references about the religious and social historical universe in evolution during the XIIth century, my research proceeds with a linguistic and rhetorical analysis based upon the Liber. I have been searching in Angela’s text and in contemporary italian feminine hagiography the sensory metaphor of “tasting”. That kind of metaphor has an ancient memory and, thanks to the Origene’s studies - the Christian Father of the IIIrd century - we can easily recognize it already in the Bible; Origene identifies the sensory metaphor as a rhetoric system, able to exemplify the God learning process of soul. Theory of “spiritual senses”, theory of vision and rhetoric, evolving from the IIIrd to the XIIIth century, are the theological and linguistic heritage of our feminine and franciscan literature. Inside of that, the metaphor of “tasting” moves and changes, therefore becoming the favourite way of mystics to represent the contact of their souls with God.