«Spectaculo detinemur cum scripta intellegimus aut probamus». Per un riesame della rappresentazione delle «Artes» in Marziano Capella

In the organization of Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, the allegorical representation of the seven Artes (liberales) as characters-actors in the plot of the story, eponymous of the seven liberal disciplines, is an element which conveys the comprehensive message of the work as a whole; thus, it is not merely an allegorical process, and furthermore it is strikingly for its originality. The peculiarity of the complex figurative apparatus of the single artes is directly functional to the run of knowledge (or, in a neo-platonic way, of memory) under the philosophical-allegorical fabula of the marriage between Mercury and Philologia; therefore, it contributes to the global exegesis of the poetical and cultural meaning (or meanings) of the work. The description thus provides a unitary historical and epistemological vision of ars and provides the key for its comprehension.