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Dante's Visions: Crossing Sights on Natural Philosophy, Theory of Vision, and Medicine in the Divine Comedy and Beyond offers a fascinating insight into Dante's engagement with the science of his time, particularly with visual perception and neurological disorders.
List of contents
IntroductionCecilia Panti and Marco Piccolino
Chapter 1Dante and Natural Philosophy
Simon A. GilsonChapter 2Visual Motion Illusions in the Classical Era and in the Middle Ages
Nicholas J. Wade Chapter 3Vision as a Tangible and Dynamic Tool in the Divine Comedy. An Overview
Marco PiccolinoChapter 4Moving Clouds and Bending Towers: The Illusive Motion of the Garisenda in Inferno XXXI
Marco PiccolinoChapter 5Where Do Visions That Do Not Come from Sight Come from?
Mirko TavoniChapter 6Seeing the Light: Dante and the Perspectivist Theory of Light as Proper Visible
Cecilia PantiChapter 7Visual Perception in Dante's Commedia According to the Early Commentaries (1320-1400)
Francesca GalliChapter 8A Medical Commentary on the Signa amoris in the Vita Nuova
Francesco BrigoChapter 9Dante, Healthcare and Diseases
Michele A. Riva and Lorenzo LorussoChapter 10Dante Neurologist and Neuroanatomist: Evidence from the Divine Comedy
Donatella Lippi, Raffaella Bianucci, Elena Varotto, Francesco Arba, and Francesco M. Galassi
About the author
Cecilia Panti is Professor of History of medieval philosophy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy). Her research interests in the fields of philosophy, optics, theory of music, and the quadrivium are featured in numerous academic journals and collective volumes. Her publications include editions of Robert Grosseteste's cosmological treatises (2001) and his
De luce (2011); Johannes Tinctoris'
Dictionary of Music (2004); a volume on acoustics in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (2008); and the special issues of the journals
Micrologus: Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies ('Latin and Arabic Theory of Perspective', Volume 29, 2021) and
Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval ('Robert Grosseteste and Aristotelianism', Volume 30/1, 2023).
Marco Piccolino has taught general physiology and the history of science at the University of Ferrara (Italy), where he is currently a member of the Centre of Neuroscience. He is a neurophysiologist who has conducted significant research in the physiology of the retina, publishing his results in prestigious international journals, including
Nature and
Science. He has written several volumes on the history of electrophysiology and sensory physiology, notably
The Shocking History of Electric Fishes: From Ancient Epochs to the Birth of Modern Neurophysiology (2011) with Stanley Finger;
Shocking Frogs: Galvani, Volta, and the Electric Origins of Neuroscience (2013) with Marco Bresadola; and
Galileo's Visions: Piercing the Spheres of the Heavens by Eye and Mind (2013), with Nicholas J. Wade.
Summary
Dante’s Visions: Crossing Sights on Natural Philosophy, Theory of Vision, and Medicine in the Divine Comedy and Beyond offers a fascinating insight into Dante’s engagement with the science of his time, particularly with visual perception and neurological disorders.
