After the appearance in 1501 of the term ant(h)ropologium coined by Magnus Hundt, in 1506 Raffaele Maffei (or Raphael Volaterranus) used (perhaps) the Latin term anthropologia, from which the corresponding forms in today’s national languages derive, for the very first time. This scarcely-known fact has remained as such to scholars who in recent decades have dealt with the semantic history of the word “anthropology”. This article shows the emergence of the (quasi-)neologism, the ways in which it spread in Europe during the sixteenth century and how the meaning that Maffei gave the term, close to today’s prosopography, remained practically the same throughout that century. The article shows that authors, whose position has been little understood and sparsely studied to date, fit perfectly into the intellectual genealogy started by Maffei.

Raffaele Maffei’s Anthropologia (1506): the birth and diffusion of a (quasi)-neologism

Leonardo Piasere
2019-01-01

Abstract

After the appearance in 1501 of the term ant(h)ropologium coined by Magnus Hundt, in 1506 Raffaele Maffei (or Raphael Volaterranus) used (perhaps) the Latin term anthropologia, from which the corresponding forms in today’s national languages derive, for the very first time. This scarcely-known fact has remained as such to scholars who in recent decades have dealt with the semantic history of the word “anthropology”. This article shows the emergence of the (quasi-)neologism, the ways in which it spread in Europe during the sixteenth century and how the meaning that Maffei gave the term, close to today’s prosopography, remained practically the same throughout that century. The article shows that authors, whose position has been little understood and sparsely studied to date, fit perfectly into the intellectual genealogy started by Maffei.
2019
Semantic history of “anthropology”; Aristotle’s anthrōpológos; Early modern Anthropologies; Renaissance
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/996706
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