Rabelais e la chimera : la biblioteca di Saint-Victor ‘au plus haut sens

The essay comments on Saint Victor's library, described by Rabelais via an improbable catalogue, in Chapter VII of Pantagruel. The analysis of the repertoyre's titles - which Rabelais restores in macaronic language - shows the perfect ‘deconstruction' of privileged expressions of scholastic institutions, while highlighting the creativity of a critical procedure also aimed at renewal. Nothing is removed, but changes form; Rabelais's repertoyre is not just an anti-library, against scholastic culture, but also a library ‘au plus haut sens'. The essay highlights a sort of permeable library aimed at representing the transition to modernity that 16th century humanism experienced, critically.

The surplus of titles guarantees the polysemy of the res literaria that the library intends to preserve; at the same time, it shows its most problematic character, as a locus called to contain, even if not in a linear way, an abnormal cultural heritage. The ideal library - multilingual, polysemic, and inclusive - is, perhaps, a chimera. [Publisher's text]