Chapter Il lavoro nella letteratura medioevale di tecniche dell’arte

Abstract

This contribution aims to enunciate different conceptions regarding the work in the treatises on techniques of the arts during the Middle Ages. On the one hand, theocentric texts related to two conceptions of different religious origins (Theophilus and the Jewish Kabbalah), propose that the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden entails mortality and imperfection, but due to the emanation of the divine will, man is allowed to participate in the intelligence of the Creator. In other works, however, the awareness of work emerges as a form of active knowledge that allows one to transform and win, to dominate nature by becoming aware and master of its secrets. Largely transmitted through Hellenistic alchemy, this is a vein of an anthropocentric matrix that is a legacy of the ancient world.