Rappresentazioni della barbarie e inquietudine religiosa tra Sei e Settecento (Bayle, Picart, Demeunier, Encyclopédie)

Representations of barbarism and religious uneasiness in Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries (Bayle, Picart, Demeunier, Encyclopédie). In early modern period and in the Baroque epoch, different conceptualizations of the term "barbarism" coexisted, defi ned mainly according to a geographical-linguistic interpretation. "Barbarism" also in the grammatical sense evokes the use of external, foreign expressions, not belonging to the language itself. A defi nition that is signifi cantly associated with the theme of alterity, masterfully synthesized by Montaigne in the famous aphorism according to which one calls barbarians those who do not share his uses. The overlap and identifi cation among barbarian, foreigner, primitive, heretic and savage - with a cultural, religious and moral accentuation progressively negative in its meaning - emerged in the Eighteenth century.