Few scholarly careers combine such varied interests with such underlying coherence as that of Agostino Paravicini Bagliani. A former scriptor latinus at the Vatican Apostolic Library, professor of medieval history at the University of Lausanne and, for sixteen years (2008-2024), president of the Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino (SISMEL), he has left a lasting mark on medieval historiography through his studies of the papacy, the Roman Curia and the cardinalate. His researches gradually extended to the history of science and medicine and to symbolic languages, touching on questions of historical anthropology.

This was by no means an accidental accumulation of interests. As the author recalled in the introduction to perhaps his best-known book, Il corpo del papa (1994), and in his introduction to the new edition of Medicina e scienze della natura alla corte dei papi nel Duecento (2023) [1], his research into cardinals' familiae and their testamentary documents brought to light the presence of physicians and medical books within the papal court. The institutional and social history of the Curia thus opened up areas of research that had received relatively little attention. These subjects are now widely studied and firmly established in medieval scholarship, largely thanks to the journal Micrologus, founded in 1993, and the Micrologus Library series, established five years later, both under Paravicini Bagliani's direction.

The development of this initiative is documented in the volume reviewed here, which brings together introductory and concluding texts originally published in the proceedings of conferences held under the auspices of Micrologus. In his preface (XIII-XVI), Michel Pastoureau, himself a participant in many of these conferences, observes that the diversity of subjects was accompanied by common questions and methods, forming a genuine community of scholars. He also addresses a problem faced by historians of science: how should they approach medieval explanations of the natural world that differ from present-day scientific knowledge? He rejects the dismissive attitude towards earlier scholars associated with positivist historiography and writes: "Pour nous, aujourd'hui, le réel et le vrai ont tendance à se rejoindre, sinon à se confondre. Pour les médiévaux, au contraire, ce sont deux notions bien distinctes: le réel est d'ordre physique; le vrai, d'ordre métaphysique" (XVI). This is an approach that those involved in Micrologus have sought to follow.

Indeed, especially from the thirteenth century onwards, the development and transmission of forms of knowledge that may now appear naïve had a profound impact on European culture. As Paravicini Bagliani stated in Perché Micrologus? (XIX-XX), these sciences led to "nuove istituzioni, nuovi modi di pensare le cose della vita, nuovi canoni estetici e nuovi generi letterari". This programmatic text first appeared in I discorsi dei corpi / Discourses of the Body (Micrologus, 1, 1993), the first issue of the journal, which published the proceedings of a conference held at the Ettore Majorana Centre in Erice (Trapani) in 1991. The circumstances in which the journal was founded are recalled by Paravicini Bagliani in "Micrologus" et les sciences au Moyen Âge, originally published in Le Moyen Âge et les sciences (2021) and reprinted in the volume under review (335-352). On the sidelines of the 1991 conference at Erice, Claudio Leonardi suggested that Paravicini Bagliani establish a new journal under the auspices of SISMEL. Discussions with scholars present on that occasion, including Jole Agrimi, Chiara Crisciani, Michela Pereira, Danielle Jacquart, Francesco Santi, Jean-Claude Schmitt and Alain Boureau, helped shape the scientific orientation of the new journal. Paravicini Bagliani himself proposed the title Micrologus, recalling medieval treatises by Guido of Arezzo and Ricardus Anglicus (335-337).

The forty-eight introductions, prefaces and conclusions collected in Body, Nature, Sciences, and Medieval Societies are reproduced in their original form, as the editorial note explains (XVII). The texts are arranged in three main sections, the first two divided into thematic subsections, with entries generally arranged in chronological order. The first, The Body (5-193; fourteen texts), comprises The Body and its Representations and The Body and the Courts. The topics extend from the corpse, portraiture, sleep and longevity to physicians at court, the body of the prince and gestures at court. The second and largest section, Nature and Society (197-535; twenty-seven texts), consists of The Worlds of Nature, Sciences and Medieval Societies, Magic, Prophecy and Divination, Islamic Sciences in the West and Philosophers and Scientists. Its subjects range from botany and zoology to the study of poisons, alchemy, systems of measurement, recipes, optics, geomancy and prophecy. The third and final section, Intellectual Laboratories (537-605; seven texts), explores concepts and practices relating to silence, fallibility, harmony, hearsay and desire, alongside manuscript miscellanies containing scientific texts and representations of reversals of fortune. The volume closes with a list of Micrologus conferences (607-612), an index of persons and places (613-636) and an index of the manuscripts cited in the anthology (637-638).

Moreover, the contribution of Micrologus to medieval scholarship may also be appreciated by consulting a separate reference work: Micrologus 1 (1993)-32 (2024). Micrologus Library, vols. 1-126: Indexes (2025), edited by Paravicini Bagliani and Silvia Agnoletti. [2] Freely accessible online, it provides the contents of thirty-two annual volumes of the journal (thirty-three issues, including the 2023 special issue) and 126 volumes of the series, together with indexes of authors and manuscripts. The journal's continuing attention to the history of the body is illustrated by Il cadavere / The Corpse (1999), I cinque sensi / The Five Senses (2002), Il cuore / The Heart (2003), La pelle umana / Human Skin (2005), La Madre / The Mother (2009) and Le Corps du Prince (2014), all published as thematic issues of the journal Micrologus.

The complete tables of contents also document the attention given to traditions beyond the Latin West. Among the issues of the journal are Gli Ebrei e le scienze / The Jews and the Sciences (2001), The Impact of Arabic Sciences in Europe and Asia (2016), Longevity and Immortality. Europe-Islam-Asia (2018), The Diffusion of the Islamic Sciences in the Western World (2020) and Arabic and Latin Theory of Perspective (2021). Individual contributions extend this picture: Éric Marié examined Chinese conceptions of the heart in Il cuore / The Heart (Micrologus, 2003) and fourteenth-century Chinese dermatology in La pelle umana / Human Skin (Micrologus, 2005). Within the book series, Astro-Medicine. Astrology and Medicine, East and West (Micrologus Library, 25, 2008) includes studies drawing on Babylonian, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Asian traditions, while L'éloquence du visage entre Orient et Occident (Micrologus Library, 110, 2022) also encompasses Japanese pictorial traditions.

The importance of Micrologus for medieval manuscript studies is also reflected in the manuscript index mentioned in the editorial note (XVII), which records more than 5,000 manuscripts cited in the journal and the Micrologus Library. Whereas the manuscript index included in the volume reviewed here covers only the texts reproduced in the anthology, the index compiled by Paravicini Bagliani in collaboration with Silvia Agnoletti encompasses the manuscript references found throughout the journal and the book series. The index thus lists manuscripts from the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian textual traditions.

Given the breadth and historiographical significance of the Micrologus initiative, a volume such as Body, Nature, Sciences, and Medieval Societies could hardly be expected to convey its full richness. Nevertheless, it allows readers to appreciate the variety and coherence of a scholarly community which, by bringing together texts, images and historiographical traditions of different origins, has shown how medieval civilisation's deep roots in the Christian traditions did not prevent, but rather encouraged, an openness to other cultures, whose contributions it received, assimilated and reinterpreted. This is perhaps something on which the West today might also reflect.

Notes:

[1] Agostino Paravicini Bagliani: Il corpo del papa 1994 (Biblioteca di cultura storica, 204), Torino, XIII-XXII: XIII-XV; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani: Introduzione alla nuova edizione, in: Id.: Medicina e scienze della natura alla corte dei papi nel Duecento (Millennio Medievale, 127. Strumenti e studi, n. s., 50), Firenze 2023, VII-XXV.

[2] Agostino Paravicini Bagliani / Silvia Agnoletti (eds.): Micrologus 1 (1993)-32 (2024). Micrologus Library, vols. 1-126: Indexes, Firenze 2025, open access: https://doi.org/10.36167/INDEXESMEMLPDF.

Alberto Spataro