Togliere la mano dal quadro. Arte, natura e comunicazione della conoscenza in Plinio

Abstract

Does Pliny’s reflection on the notions of completeness/incompleteness – in relation to the aesthetic judgment on the perfection of artworks – also reveal something about the theoretical approach to be reserved for the knowledge of nature? Does the tension between perfection and imperfection have an impact on the ways Pliny promotes knowledge communication? This paper aims to answer these questions by retracing the paths of a subterranean relationship with Cicero’s De Officiis, a work animated by a similar tension, and explicitly praised in the prefatory letter of Pliny's encyclopaedia. At the same time, it will be possible starting to verify the hypothesis that Pliny nourishes the idea that incomplete knowledge belongs, constitutively, to human beings that opt for a writing style that is omnivorous, classificatory, and often dispersive, yet still capable of completing, in the only possible way, a cognitive relationship with nature.