Cardano: sognare gli affetti

Cardano: Dreaming Affections · Girolamo Cardano, who wrote repeatedly on passions throughout his oeuvre, dealt with affectiones also in his treatise on dreams (Somniorum Synesiorum libri quatuor), in a dedicated chapter of its first book (immediately followed by one on actions and passions). In the context of the historical semantics of the affective vocabulary, one of the interesting points of his treatment of the subject is offered by the (fairly surprising) list of the phenomena his notion includes. In his reading, an affective state experienced while dreaming is interpreted as meaning something related to that state of mind, such as its likely cause, or else by way of opposition to indicate the lack of a condition and desire to acquire it.