Somnia. Il sogno dall'antichità all'età moderna

The volume retraces decisive moments of the reflection on the dream from antiquity and late antiquity to the modern age. Starting from the historical-critical synthesis presented by Tullio Gregory, the research on somnium faces, with the contributions of Francesco Fronterotta and Francesca Alesse, the thought of Plato and Aristotle, here restored along two main axes of the ancient tradition, to which are added, with the essays of Francesca Calabi and Domenico Devoti, fundamental phases of the elaboration of Philo of Alexandria and of the Jewish and New Testament tradition. Luciano Albanese's contribution on Giuliano il Teurgo (Julian the Theurgist) moves from the side of the resumption of neo-Platonic and theurgical themes, followed by Gaetano Lettieri's essay on Augustine as a decisive author for the redefinition of the conception of dreams. It is a complex and rich picture given back, starting from the Renaissance and early modern period, in the text by Claudio Buccolini and, concerning the Cartesian lexicon, in the contribution by Giulia Belgioioso. Anna Lisa Schino's text deals with the theme of prophetic dreams between La Mothe Le Vayer and Hobbes, while Daniel Garber's contribution is dedicated to the author of Leviathan and to the relationship between dreams and the politics of imagination. Pina Totaro investigates the contexts of the conception of dreams and knowledge in Spinoza, while the essay by Isabelle Olivo-Pendron and Gilles Olivo considers, in a modernity comprised in the temporal arc that goes from Montaigne to Rousseau, not precisely the dream but the "rêverie".