Cesare Vasoli : gli studi sull'enciclopedismo

This essay traces and illustrates the rich production of works Cesare Vasoli devoted, over the course of more than thirty years, to the subject of modern encyclopaedias. According to Vasoli, the seventeenth century was the truly great century of the encyclopaedia; a period during which intellectuals of varied backgrounds and denominations devoted their energies to the search for systems capable of guaranteeing the acquisition and arrangement of universal knowledge.

Pursuing the dream of penetrating the intimate and unitary divine project that supersedes the ordered world of the res naturales, famous thinkers (Bruno, Alsted, Leibniz etc.), lesser-known ones (Gimma, Lana Terzi, Knittel), and others who are even more obscure, pursued the idea of a ‘universal knowledge' and sought with equal commitment, in Ramon Llull's Artes or in Pierre de la Ramée's methodus (or, even, by blending elements of both traditions) to answer the new questions that discoveries and inventions were raising in an age of profound transformation. [Publisher's text]

60562 characters