Projekt humanistyczny Kasjodora: "De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarum"
Cassiodorus’ Humanist Project: 'De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarurm'

Author(s): Józef Naumowicz
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Cassiodorus; Liberal arts; Vivarium; Institutiones; Medieval education
Summary/Abstract: After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (476) and the collapse of the Roman educational system and culture, the earliest attempt to save and revive the liberal arts took place as early as the early sixth century, in Italy, in the Ostrogothic state. The concepts of these arts were presented by Boethius in his textbooks on the four mathematical sciences (the treatises 'De institutione arithmetica' and 'De institutione musica' have survived), as well as in many translations of Greek works on logic, dialectics or philosophy. Cassiodorus cared for the development of these arts when he held major offices at the court of King Theodoric the Great or when he planned to establish a scholarly Christian academy in Rome, and finally when he organised the famous monastic and scholarly centre Vivarium, combined with a significant library, scriptorium or work on making Greek works available to the Latin reader. Cassiodorus presented the humanist program most clearly in the Institutiones, especially in Book II entitled 'De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarum', in which he presented the seven secular sciences and indicated the tools for practicing them. In this way he led to the codification of the seven liberal arts, adopted and developed not only by medieval authors but also in medieval educational systems.

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