Retorica e narrazione del corpo nelle prediche dal Quattro al Seicento

This work examines the representation of the body in sacred prose between the beginning of the 15th and the end of the 17th-century. Starting from the sermons of Bernardino da Siena and arriving at those written by Paolo Segneri, some linguistic and rhetorical structures of the sermons will be analyzed in relation to the narration of the body in contrast to the narration of the soul. Furthermore, the body will be considered, understood pragmatically as the human body, made of flesh, bones and blood, and the body of God, described as an unattainable point of aesthetic perfection. Finally, the essay will focus on some aspects of the actio both from the point of view of the treatises on sacred eloquence and from that of contemporary artistic representation.