“Educare il corpo per salvare l’anima”. Sullo Splanamento de li Proverbii di Salomone di Girardo Patecchio

Abstract

Can the soul be saved by educating the body? The dynamic expansion of municipal civilization in Italy led to the affirmation of a kind of literature with a predominantly practical character and very clear moralistic purpose, all concentrated on didactic-religious and didactic-social elements. Girardo Patecchio is one of the authors who distinguished themselves particularly in this literary genre in northern Italy. From his Splanamento de li Proverbii di Salomone, rises the assumption that it is possible to have the soul saved by saving the body. Where by “salvation of the body” Patecchio means to “educate” the body because it is only thanks to a costumed and virtuous body that one avoids falling into temptation and can reach the eternal salvation of the soul.

Keywords

• Patecchio
• didactic literature
• moral education
• proverbs
• Holy Scriptures
• Italian literature of the origins