The virtues and vices of speech / Giovanni Gioviano Pontano ; edited and translated by G.W. Pigman III.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, 1429-1503, author.

Contributor:

Pigman, G. W. (George W.), III, 1951- editor, translator.

Series:

I Tatti Renaissance library ; 87.

The I Tatti Renaissance library ; 87

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Aristotle--Influence--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle.

Rhetoric, Medieval--Early works to 1800.

Rhetoric, Medieval.

Virtue--Early works to 1800.

Virtue.

Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Genre:

Early works.

Physical Description:

xxxvii, 497 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2019.

Language Note:

Text in Latin with English translation on facing pages; introduction and notes in English.

Summary:

Although Pontano did not polish De sermone completely or provide books 2-6 with prefaces, as Summonte indicates in his own preface ("Appendix One"), he had substantially completed it about a year before his death. Although most appreciated as a collection of witticisms, De sermone is first and foremost a treatise of Aristotelian moral philosophy about the virtues and vices of speech. In 1.4.3 Pontano presents the treatise as a continuation of his other studies of the moral virtues and insists upon the concept that guides him, the Aristotelian doctrine that every moral virtue is a mean between two extremes, an excess and a deficiency, both of which are vices. De sermone provides an inventory of the kinds of speech in social situations, and Aristotle is Pontano's guide throughout. At one point he explains his method as exploring at greater length and a bit more searchingly subjects treated by Aristotle. Chapter 2.6 and sections 2.7.1-4 are a detailed summary of Aristotle's discussion of the mean of veracity and its extremes of ostentation and self-deprecation. Although Pontano does not say so, chapter 1.26 borrows heavily from Aristotle's discussion of the unnamed mean most resembling friendship and its extremes of contentiousness and obsequiousness.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Chapter headings

On speech. Book I ; Book II ; Book III ; Book IV ; Book V ; Book VI

Appendix I: Summonte's preface

Appendix II: Pontano's coinages.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contains:

Container of: Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, 1429-1503. De sermone.

Container of: Pontano, Giovanni Gioviano, 1429-1503. De sermone. English (Pigman)

ISBN:

9780674987500

0674987500

OCLC:

1038040167