Filología como enciclopedia. El «De nvptiis Philologiae et Mercvrii» de Marte Capella.

Abstract

The work of Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae etMercurii, composed by nine books, realizes a real reductio omnium artium ad philologiam. The allegorical figure of Philologia reassumes in herself the disciplinae cyclicae (the liberal arts), which are represented in the nuptial fabula by the uirgines dotales that Mercury, the god of hermeneutics, offers to his own bride-to-be as nuptial gift. these uirgines dotales will expose in front of the reunited celestial senate to celebrate the marriage, every in a book (III-Ix), the ars of which they are eponymouses. This cultural operation, that assumes the form of an encyclopedia, connects itself to a vast hellenistic and roman cultural tradition: it’s a path started in alexandria with the «various and manifold doctrine» of Eratosthenes, the first one who ascribed to himself the appellation of «philologus».