Bernardus Silvestris

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Bernardus Silvestris (* 1085 ; † 1160 or 1178 ) was a philosopher and poet . He is best known as the author of a Cosmographia .

Life

Little is known about Bernardus' life. André Vernet, the editor of Bernardus' main work Cosmographia , states that he lived from 1085 to 1178, other researchers name 1160 as the year of death. It is certain that the Cosmographia 1147 Pope Eugene III. was submitted. There is evidence that Bernardus was linked to a Spanish philosophical tradition. He probably came from Tours , as the exact descriptions in the Cosmographia show that he was familiar with this city and its surroundings . Later medieval authors have also associated him with Tours.

Bernardus certainly studied and taught in Chartres , where the most important cathedral school in Western Europe was located until the rise of universities in the later 12th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was assumed that Bernardus Silvestris was identical to Bernard of Chartres , but this identification has been proven to be false and is no longer supported today.

The beginning of the Cosmographia in the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana , Plut written by Giovanni Boccaccio . 33.31, fol. 59v (14th century)

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Bernardus' best-known work is Cosmographia , an epic poem about the creation of the world from the point of view of a high medieval thinker strongly influenced by Platonism . This poem influenced Geoffrey Chaucer and others through its pioneering use of allegory to discuss metaphysical and scientific questions. Bernardus draws on ideas from the Timaeus commentary by Calcidius .

Bernardus also wrote the poem Mathematicus . "Mathematicus" does not mean a mathematician, but an astrologer who calculates the orbits of the stars and the human fates that depend on them. This poem (854 verses), which is preserved in 17 manuscripts and written in elegiac distiches , deals with the ethical problems of astrological fatalism and determinism based on material from antiquity. Before the hero's birth, an astrologer predicted that the hero's parents would one day murder his father. Then they decide together to kill the child after the birth. The woman is not able to carry out this resolution, but deceives her husband and sends the newborn boy to a distant place where he is raised. He is given the name Patricida (parricide). Later he proved himself as a general and then attained the royal dignity. When the parents learn of his fame, the wife confesses to her husband that his son will be saved. Together they go to the king and reveal the whole truth to him. The king then decides to kill himself. He asks the People's Assembly and the Senate to give him permission to do so, and resigns from his royal office. - What is striking is the impartiality with which Bernardus treated the subjects of determinism and suicide, tabooed by medieval theology, and with which the hero's intention to end his own life rather than kill his father is presented in a positive light.

Bernardus probably also wrote the poem Experimentarius, as well as a number of smaller poems. Later in the Middle Ages other works were ascribed to him, including a commentary on Virgil's Aeneid and a commentary on Martianus Capella , both of which are undoubtedly by the same author. The Commentary on the Aeneid is the longest medieval commentary on this work, although it is incomplete and breaks off after about two thirds of the sixth book. The authorship is still controversial.

Modern reception

CS Lewis writes about Bernardus Silvestris towards the end of his science fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet ( Beyond the Silent Star , first volume in the Perelandra trilogy ).

Text editions and translations

  • Winthrop Wetherbee: The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris . Columbia University Press, New York 1990 (English translation)
  • Bernardus Silvestris: Mathematicus , ed. by Jan Prelog, trans. by Manfred Heim and Michael Kießlich, EOS Verlag, St. Ottilien 1993, ISBN 3-88096-909-4 (critical edition with German translation)

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Stephen Gersh: (Pseudo-?) Bernard Silvestris and the Revival of Neoplatonic Virgilian Exegesis . In: Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (ed.): Sophies maietores, "Chercheurs de sagesse". Hommage à Jean Pépin , Paris 1992, pp. 573-593. On pp. 576-580 he again cautiously advocates Bernardus' authorship, dealing with older research.
personal data
SURNAME Bernardus Silvestris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Philosopher and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 1085
DATE OF DEATH 1160 or 1178