Robert ZABOROWSKI

Original title: Algunas observaciones de Platón a respecto de las emociones

Published in Emotions in the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean World

Keywords: Desiring linkage, Emotions, Feeling, Plato, Stratification of affectivity, Thinking.

A paper is an attempt at reassessing the role of emotions in Plato’s dialogues cannot be assessed. A standard view identifying (or translating or interpreting) to logistikon with (as) reason, to thumoeides with (as) the irascible and to epithumetikon with (as) the concupiscent is challenged so far as each of the three parts possesses emotions (affectivity) of its own. The opinion that Plato is responsible for the negative view of emotion is rejected. Plato’s views on emotions are understood more accurately understood from a hierarchical perspective, i.e. when three parts of the soul are analyzed as three strata of the feeling–thinking–desiring linkages.

Júlia BUTINYÀ

Original title: Estructurant la tradició en les lletres catalanes antigues: de Ramon Llull (1232-1316) a Bernat Metge (1340-1413)

Published in The World of Tradition

Keywords: Bernat Metge, Crown of Aragon, Humanism, Middle Ages, Ramon Llull.

To contribute to structuring the tradition in the Catalan letters of the Middle Ages, links are exposed that root the thought of the great humanist, Bernat Metge, in the great medieval philosopher, Ramon Llull. This link allows us to observe the continuity that, in one way or another and with greater or lesser intensity – and often with leaps of eras-, can be seen in the different literatures. According to the present proposal of textual concomitants, in the Crown of Aragon and through both authors, the connection between tradition and modernity occurs with high intensity in the 14th century itself, right at the beginning of the change in mentality and sensibility.

Tainah Moreira NEVES

Published in

Keywords: Abbey of Saint-Denis, Gothic Architecture, Medieval Philosophy, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Suger of Saint-Denis.

This essay analyses Abbot Suger’s (1081-1151) spiritual work at the rebuilding of the entrance and the choir of the Abbey of Saint-Denis (1130/1137-1144). We based our research on his writings On the Consecration of the Church of Saint-Denis and On What Was Done under His Administration, as well as on the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Furthermore, the remnant physical structure of the church was analysed to strengthen the concepts advocated by the Abbot of Saint-Denis. Our intention was to demonstrate that in supervising the rebuilding of his abbey, Suger used Art and Architecture to communicate his spiritual beliefs based on the metaphysics of the light: the spirits would ascend from the material world, thanks to Christian contemplation, to the immaterial world, towards the Light.

Laura CARBÓ

Original title: La corte femenina de Tamorlán. Sensorialidad y poder desde la perspectiva de Ruy González de Clavijo (1403-1406)

Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds

Keywords: 15th century, Embassy to Tamerlan, Materiality, Power, Senses.

Ruy González de Clavijo starred, together with a team of ambassadors, the second mission sent by Henry III of Castile to Tamerlan in 1403, whose round trip itinerary spans three years. Clavijo's meticulous account includes the timurid protocol deployment, which often has the women of the court as protagonists. The ambassadors' approach to the women's world was eminently sensory: the five senses came to the aid of the travel story, with visual, tactile, auditory, tasteful, olfactory experiences that allowed the narrator to communicate the experiences occurred in the presence of women. In addressing to "sensory" we mean both the material world and the sensory experience itself. The historical study will focus on the’ representations of medieval objects (clothing, meals, setting, organization of spaces, buildings) and the consideration of its users, simultaneously addressing both the intellectual and material substrates of medieval culture. This study of the particular feminine spaces allows showing a relationship between culture, materiality and power in a temporal and spatial arc reduced to the itinerary of the embassy.