La retorica degli esercizi preparatori. Glossario ragionato dei Progymnasmata

The Progymnasmata are handbooks which were used in the ancient schools to teach rhetoric. They include a graduated series of composition exercises on the types of texts which were considered fundamental in order to attain communicative competence. Students were expected to produce their own texts by applying precise exposition and composition patterns to re-elaborate classic models. The Progymnasmata represented a complete course of study for the cultural and literary education of the young. This volume re-orders the rhetoric teachings which have been passed down from ancient sources (the four manuals in Greek, the meagre latin contribuitions, the collections of fictitious exercises, the surviving papyrus documents and the Byzantine commentaries), organising the material around the most commonly supported technical and lexical categorisations. This synthesis provides a comprehensive description of the numerous types of, and variations on, rhetorical devices, both with regards to the evolution of theory, and thanks to the comparison to the precepts of the Artes. The specific contribution made by the Progymnasmata to the definition of numerous rhetorical devices and procedures, and to the successful course of human development, will be evident