Dublin Core
Title
The founding myth of the Schola Salerni: the importance of contact among languages and the activity of translation for interreligious and intercultural dialogue and the development of knowledge.
Abstract
According to the legend, the Schola salernitana was born by the casual meeting of four physicians, symbolic characters, whose dynamics and values aim to underline the confluence (in the civitas Hippocratica, cosmopolitan Mediterranean port, ‗open‘ and ‗syncretic‘ as its nascent School) of different medical, and cultural more in general, traditions: disembodied from their legendary traits, the four figures show how peculiar, in that intercultural and interreligious dialogue (among the Jewish, Arabic, Greek and Latin ones), is the role of languages and the importance of the work of translation, in its first, and primary, etymological meaning of tra(ns)-ducere, ‗transport from coast to coast‘. The proposed contribution intends to frame the founding myth of the Schola Salerni in the wider cultural background which was its host, contributor and supporter, highlighting the modern, meaningful value of its everlasting message also for the contemporary world, which is risking to lose sight of the main way of meeting, contact, exchange, dialogue for welfare and peace. The exemplum of the Schola medica Salernitana, a litmus test of a wider cultural and linguitic debate (from the quite medieval research of the ‗language of God‘ to the experiments of Frederick II), is emblematic of the absolute necessity of comparison in the construction of civilization and knowledge, comparison primarily passing through communication, and then, ultimately, on the linguistic field and activity of translation: the figure and work of Constantine Africanus are perhaps, in the specific case, the most significant examples.
Keywords
Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
PeerReviewed
Date
2011-05
Extent
51