2022/09/13 by Eraldo Bellini · 1 citation
Computer Science · Arts and Humanities · #Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition #Historical Linguistics and Language Studies #Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1163/9789004517240_008
openalex publication_date 2022/09/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
In 1644, Sforza Pallavicino attempted to demonstrate through the four books of Del bene how, in the practice of writing, the rigour of moral subject matter could be reconciled with the informality of the dialogue genre.This reconciliation could be ideally sustained through phrasing that was elegant but not so splendid and ornate as to make one forget that in scholarly works the word has to fulfil the primary function of transmitting knowledge.*If the possession of worldly and material goods always represents a loss for many or all people, then, as one reads in Del bene, 'wisdom is revered by everyone' precisely 'because the state of her being possessed by one person does not impede-but rather facilitates-her possession by others' .Solitary study should therefore not wear itself out in a private and self-sufficient environment; the acquisition of knowledge can never be separated from its transmissibility.Such an attitude consequently steers Pallavicino's reflections on the privileged channel 'of language, through which means we communicate learning to others without lessening it in ourselves' .1But in the very act of furnishing readers with a text that exemplifies the possibility of reconciling the 'subtlety of doctrine with the elegance of style' , Pallavicino refers them to a theoretical work that is about to be published, in which he promises a specific treatise 'on the style to use in scholarly matters' , employing the adjective 'scholarly' ('scientifico') here, and always thereafter, as referring above all to philosophical-moral disciplines.2The work was * This essay is the English translation, with a slightly modified