Charles de Bovelles' EnigmaticLiber de Sapiente: A Heroic Notion of Wisdom

Abstract

In his exemplary study on The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom (1958) Eugene Rice explored the wide range of 'sapientia-ideals' developed in medieval and Renaissance texts. Depending on what ancient and/or patristic sources were consulted, sapientia focused on the divine, the divine and the human, or the human realm only. Accordingly, it was viewed either as a divine gift or a naturally acquired virtue. To complicate matters further, wisdom could be an intellectual, moral, and/or civic virtue with either the intellect or the will as the leading faculty. Finally, wisdom was considered the embodiment of vita contemplativa, or, on the contrary, of vita activa. Moreover, links to related notions such as scientia, pietas, prudentia, or virtus also influenced the ideal of wisdom pursued. 1 The present essay proposes to introduce one more notion: the figura heroica. The hero not as an alternative to the wise but as another means to implement an ideal of wisdom. In Renaissance philosophy the figure of the hero is usually associated with the thought of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). After all, he wrote a vibrant dialogue entitled De gl'Eroici Furori (The Heroic Frenzies, 1585) in which he expressed that true thinking is an act of self-transformation. And since transformation is a form of death, so Bruno argued, true thinking presupposes heroic qualities. Clearly, philosophy as a fatal undertaking in the process of which the philosopher receivesintellectualdeath by his or her own hand, challenges the more traditional understanding of philosophy as a quest for wisdom. But there may be an assumption here in that one thinks of having to make a choice: wisdom or heroism, as if there would have to be a crossroad at which one would be compelled to abandon one path for the other. How about wisdom and heroism as two intertwined paths? That would be much more in the spirit of the Renaissance with its well-known ideals of harmonia, concordia, and reconciliatio. Could Man thus be wise and heroic? Maybe a wise hero or a heroic wise? 2The following will first discuss Hercules as an example of a powerful hero who symbolized wisdom already in humanistic sources, then work out the heroic dimension in Giordano Intellectual History Review

The Examined Life: Relations Among Life Experience, Self-Reflection, and Wisdom

“…In the mirror she contemplates herself, while not losing sight of the world around her, as symbolized by the sun, moon, planets, and stars around the mirror's border. This image suggests that self-reflection is the beginning of wisdom (see Albertini, 2011).…”