Federicomaria Muccioli (1965–2020)

2009

The book edited by the two distinguished scholars is the aftermath of the Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum, which was held at the Sapienza University of Rome in July 2004. The volume consists of eight papers, which are preceded by the Introduction written by the editors and completed by the chronological table and indexes (of passages of ancient writers and of ancient and modern names). In the Introduction, the authors explain, among other things, why it was decided to limit the chronological span of the book to the dates stated in the title. The first date is connected with the famous visit of three Greek philosophers in Rome; they represented three most influential Hellenistic philosophical schools, namely the Stoa, the Academy and the Peripatos. Their lectures, delivered to the audience of Roman intellectuals, begin " the great Roman love affair with philosophy ". In 86 BC, the siege of Athens took place and resulted in philosophers' escaping from that city, which irretrievably lost its significance as the leading centre of philosophical studies. J.-L. Ferrary's paper Les philosophes grecs à Rome (155–86 av. J.-C.) refers to the first of the above mentioned historical events. Its importance for the growth of the interest in philosophy among the Romans is richly evidenced in Cicero's writings, such as the Tusculanae disputationes and De oratore. In his paper Critolaus and Late Peripatetic Philosophy, D.E. Hahm discusses one of the envoys chosen by the Athenians to represent their polis in front of the Roman people. This representative of the Peripatetic school was very famous in his time, but we have not very many testimonies concerning his teaching (see F. Wehrli [hrsg.], Die Schule des Aristoteles. Texte und Kommentar, H. 10, Basel–Stuttgart 1959). Hahm analyzes the references in ancient writers to this philosopher and his followers in order to find why his name so easily disappeared from historical records of ancient philosophy. The main cause was that he was mainly concerned with presenting the Peripatetic philosophy to the general public and with supporting it against its rivals during the open philosophical debates. Critolaus did not devote his life to carrying on any research started by his predecessors, Aristotle and Theophrastus, and he probably did not write any treatises either. This 'peculiarity' as far as the way of philosophizing is concerned shows Critolaus as the original and autonomous thinker. This picture of him is confirmed by his two arguments against rhetoric, namely that it is not necessary to be a good and undefeated speaker und that rhetoric is not an art. This makes him much closer to the Platonic than to the Aristotelian position. It is well known that Plato in his Gorgias criticizes rhetoric exactly along these lines. It turns out that also Critolaus was deeply involved in the debate, one of the central questions of that time, about the role and status of rhetoric. In the field of ethics it can be seen, according to Hahm, that there is some convergence between the Stoic and Peripatetic idea of happiness, but this convergence concerns much more the language used than the doctrine itself. (It is worth reminding here that the Stoic terminology, which occurs in the fragments, could be attributed to Critolaus, and this fact was the cause of Wehrli's sceptical attitude to the fragments.) There is no direct evidence how Critolaus argued that his definition of happiness as " that which is jointly completed from all goods, that is, (all) three kinds " (trans. Hahm, p. 65) could be its correct notion (especially crossing swords with the Stoics). However, Hahm proposes to accept the hypothesis based on Cicero's indirect evidence that he could use arguments similar to those of Antiochus and Carneades. The definition as well as the concept of τέλος can again testify to the profound commitment to the ethical debates. Likewise, it has been proved not only by the critical examination made by the Stoics, but also by the polemics which is to be found in the Arius Didymus' Peripatetic ethical doxography (excerpted and preserved in Stobaeus). As far as Cirtolaus' physics is concerned, the same trait is recognized.

thersites, 2017

Since its inception in 1975, the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici has devoted a special attention to scholarly research in Ancient Philosophy. This short book is meant to offer an overview of the events and the publications in which this particular interest reverberated through more than three decades. The present overview is prefaced by two essays: the first was authored in the Nineties by the late Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, the distinguished ancient historian who was fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei and Director of the Istituto until his death in February 2010; the second, dating back to the same period, is written by the late Marcello Gigante, the Greek philologist renowned for enhancing research on the Herculaneum Papyri.

The Hellenistic Peloponnese: New Perspectives Conference, 2016

Medioevo Greco. Rivista di Storia e Filologia Bizantina, 2017

Renaissance Studies, 2019

Greek studies were central to the movement of fifteenth-century Italian humanism, as the humanists claimed themselves. But before 1450, Greek manuscripts were scarce, and many humanists were more enthusiastic about learning the language in theory than in practice. The case of Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) helps us understand the nature of humanist Greek studies in practice in this period. My study of Manetti’s Greek skills is based on his collection of Greek manuscripts, which have been preserved as a set among the Palatini graeci in the Vatican Library. I compare the way he collected and used his Greek manuscripts with his use of Greek sources in his Latin writings. Whereas Manetti hardly used Greek sources in the 1430s and 1440s, after 1450 he produced new Latin translations from the Greek. I suggest that this change could result from a sudden improvement in his Greek skills, but also from a different modus operandi in the case of his original Latin compositions as opposed to his translations.