Dimitrie Cantemir şi tradiţia medievală a simbolului zoomorf
Dimitrie Cantemir and the Medieval Tradition of the Zoomorphic Symbol

Summary/Abstract: Natural history developed in Antiquity due to some positivist fi gures driven by their absolute scientific spirit. Reality was subject to accurate research, while the enormous tradition gathering animals in a mythological system with symbolic functions found a counterpart in the rationalist trend. Christianity is against both these tendencies, by excluding the animal from religion and demonizing it as an “idol” and, at the same time, by denying the relevance of its primary “nature” in favor of its “symbolic” nature. This study is an analysis of Dimitrie Cantemir’s approach, in Historia Hieroglyphica, on the Christian tradition of interpreting animal symbols, which hadn’t completely lost its authority in the West and, even less, in Eastern Europe

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