SCAMBI CULTURALI ALLE RADICI DELL’UMANESIMO

Abstract

The foundation of “Magna Greciae” colonies in Southern Italy has been a fundamental element of connection between East and West, allowing to Ancient Greece to reach high levels in the social, cultural and economic field, with libraries and study centers that have formed philosophers, writers, doctors, leading artists. Calabria in particular, has played a strategic role in the Mediterranean Sea for the development of European Western culture and of humanism. Calabria was the only Mediterranean region to have welcomed for
centuries, and often at the same time, the two major cultures: the Eastern and the Western. In Calabria, people spoke ancient Greek language in modern age and until the last century there were areas where the Greek language was the only spoken language (Area Grecofona of Calabria). This circumstance explains the critical role the region had in the Middle Ages: libraries, study centers, scriptoria allowed the Latin translation and dissemination of the works of Plato and Aristotle, these two philosophers were at the basis of medieval scholasticism and, as a result, at the basis of the development of Humanism.

DOI: http://dx.medra.org/10.19254/LaborEst.09.01