Porti, mari e itineraria nel Liber de introductione loquendi di Filippino da Ferrara OP

The essay investigates the presence of the sea in the exempla collected by the Dominican friar Filippino da Ferrara in the Liber de introductione loquendi (second quarter of the fourteenth century). Drawing from homiletic sources, bestiaries, written and oral narratives, the maritime element is investigated from multiple points of view: for its factual importance for social life and trade, all the more tangible for the territory of the Upper Adriatic where Filippino spends his existence; as a habitat for marvelous creatures, the objective correlative of vices that are to be stigmatised according to the Christian morality of which the preacher is a spokesperson, and, finally, as an inscrutable medium between the Christian world and the mysterious and troubling pagan Orient. An appendix contains the passages that are discussed, edited according to the version of manuscript no. 1552 of the Bologna University Library.