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Darrera modificació: 2025-05-20
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Palazzo, Alessandro, "Origin, Development and Decline of the Western Geomantic Tradition", Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 31 (2020), 417-441.
- Resum
- Origin, Development and Decline of the Western Geomantic Tradition Geomancy is a form of prediction that first appeared in the Middle Ages in Arabic North Africa and from there spread throughout the Mediterranean and across Eu- rope, where it became one of the most important divinatory arts. As a consequence, in the Latin world a large body of geomantic literature, made up of Arabo-Latin trans- lations, Latin treatises, vernacular writings, indirect testimonies in philosophical, theological and literary works, developed. The paper is intended to describe the Arabic background and the main features of the Western geomantic tradition that flourished and influenced European intel- lectual history from the 12th century — the first translations of Arabic treatises were done in this century — until its decline in the 18th century. Though belonging to various literary genres, being composed within diverse historico-cultural contexts and for diverse purposes, all geomantic texts shared common conceptions: the awareness of being part of a tradition, the narrative about the origins, the idea that geomancy has Hermetic and/or Islamic roots, the religious characterization and le- gitimation of the geomantic art, the view that it is associated with supernatural spir- its, and the ritualization of its method. In the 18th-century Enlightenment, geomantic texts went through a process of simplification and « desacralization », which eventually transformed them into the oversimplified practical handbooks which are today appreciated by those who are in search of an easy-to-use technique for predicting future events. In contrast, in some Arabic countries and in Persia geomancy has remained un- changed as a strongly ritualized divinatory practice. This divinatory art has survived thanks to the oral tradition, which was lively still into the 20th century, but has also been nourished by the written sources of the medieval tradition.
- Matèries
- Filosofia
Màgia - Endevinació
Astronomia i astrologia
- URL
- https://www.academia.edu/44691412/ALESSANDRO_PALAZZ ...
https://iris.unitn.it/handle/11572/284855
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