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Nuccio Ordine

Nuccio Ordine (Diamante, 1958) is professor of the theory of literature at the University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy. Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, he has taught at American (Yale, NYU) and European universities (EHESS, Paris-IV Sorbonne, Paris-III Sorbonne-Nouvelle, CESR of Tours, Institut Universitaire de France, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, Paris-VIII, Warburg Institute, Eichstätt University).

He is one of the major contemporary experts on Giordano Bruno and the Renaissance. His books have been translated into many languages, among them Chinese, Japanese and Russian.

He is general editor of a new edition of Bruno's work and, along with Yves Hersant and Alain Segonds, of three collections of classics at Les Belles Lettres.

In Italy, he is general editor of the series “Sileni” at Liguori, “Classici del pensiero europeo” at Nino Aragno Editore and “Classici della letteratura europea” at Utet.

Books

	LA SOGLIA DELL'OMBRA From Candlebearer to The Heroic Frenzies the interweave of philosophy, literature, and painting constitutes one of the most important theoretical axes of the thought of Giordano Bruno. The series of seven works he chose to write in the Italian language opens with a comedy (Candlebearer) whose protagonist is a painter-philosopher, and closes with a dialogue (The Heroic Frenzies) in which a philosopher-painter limns, and comments upon, images. Repeatedly in the course of his thinking, Bruno makes use of the metaphor of painting as a way of speaking about his philosophy. But what do the painter and the philosopher have in common? An answer may be sought by analyzing the myths of the origins of philosophy and the origins of painting: to philosophize (the myth of the cave in Plato and the Neoplatonists), just as to paint (the myth of the origins of painting in Pliny, Quintilian, Alberti, and Vasari), signifies above all to work with shadows. The true philosopher and the true painter begin in shadow, in a desperate attempt to cross over its threshold. If the philosopher had confined himself to contemplating the shadows projected on the wall of the cave, if the painter had limited himself to tracing the outline of his model (in portraiture) or of himself (in self-portraiture), neither philosophy nor painting would ever have been able to advance. In THE THRESHOLD OF SHADOW this theme is documented through a uniquely important iconographic dossier, assembled from the collection of the Warburg Institute and other major repertories, which brings together little-known images of the projection of shadow. Using this theme, Nuccio Ordine analyzes, clearly and rigorously, the genesis and development of the Italian works of Giordano Bruno, showing the deep unity binding the piece for the stage written in Paris to the six philosophical dialogues written in London. ITALIAN: Marsilio, 2003 e 2004, pp. 255 FRENCH: Les Belles Lettres, 2003, pp. 400 SPANISH: Siruela, 2008 PORTUGUESE: Perspectiva, 2006 RUMANIAN: Institutul Cultural Roman, 2005 RUSSIAN: Saint-Petesburg University Press Mosca 2007 CHINESE: rights sold to Oriental Press, Peking (Bejing) 2009
	LA CABALA DELL'ASINO In his highly original study, GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ASS,Nuccio Ordine uses the figure of the ass as a lens through which to focus on the thought and writings of the great Renaissance humanist philosopher Giordano Bruno. The donkey played a prominent role as a symbol in sixteenth-century literature, and the ass and human asininity became a recurring motif in Bruno's writings. Ordine offers the first analysis of Bruno's use of this complex symbol, which encompasses contradictory characteristics ranging from humble and hardworking to ignorant and idle. The result is a deeper understanding of Bruno the philosopher, along with a stronger appreciation of Bruno the literary artist. Ordine looks especially closely at Bruno's use of the figure of the donkey in his attacks on the theologies of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and in issues that have become modernist concerns. Ordine's analysis sheds light on each of the major themes of Bruno's philosophy: science and knowledge, myth and religion, language and literature. ITALIAN: Cortina, 2009, Liguori, 1987 e 1996, pp.290 FRENCH: Les Belles Lettres, 1993 e 2005, pp.270 ENGLISH: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 288 GERMAN: Wilhelm Fink, 1999 BRASILIAN: EDUSC, 2008 PORTUGUESE: EDUSC, 2008 CHINESE: Oriental Press, 2005 RUMANIAN: Humanitas, 2004 JAPANESE: Toshindo, 2002
	GIORDANO BRUNO, RONSARD E LA RELIGIONE 1580, the French Embassy in London: Giordano Bruno, a philosopher, and Michel de Castelnau, a diplomatist, condemn religious fanaticism. Still, works such as The Expulsion of the Beast or Memories echo the images and themes brought up twenty years before by Ronsard in his speeches against Huguenots and Papal Guards. Giordano Bruno, Ronsard and Religion is an accurate analysis of Bruno’s dialogues; but there’s much more to it, since it also places Bruno’s works in the correct historical, literary and philosophical context of the Valois Court, as well as following the debate on religion as a social tie. Myths such as Hercules, Giants, the Hydra or the Centaur – as well as king Henry the Third’s enigmatic witticism, ‘ultima coelo manet’ – are all part of a great scheme that puts religious cults at the service of the State, of peace and of the community. This brilliant essay also makes it clear that aesthetics also play an important role in the fight against religious fanaticism; if Ronsard’s make Bruno’s work any clearer, it is also true that the philosopher’s dialogues stir the reader to a new reading of the poet’s works. FRENCH: Albin Michel, 2004, pp.420 ITALIAN: Raffaello Cortina, 2007
	TEORIA DELLA NOVELLA E TEORIA DEL RISO NEL CINQUECENTO Laughter and short stories shared a strong bond in the 16th century. Treatises on the nature of laughter were common in disparate fields such as medicine, physiognomy, philosophy, rhetoric and poetry, each of them being familiar with the concept of short story. The theory behind short stories, in turn, could not avoid confronting itself with the debate on the nature of laughter. Ethics, aesthetics and physiology thus found themselves entwined in the therapeutic function of humorous tales. Laughter and storytelling were able to both heal and kill, just as any medicine was. Nuccio Ordine’s THEORY OF SHORT STORIES AND THEORY OF LAUGHTER IN THE 16TH CENTURY explains the common themes (eros, admiratio, the “new things”, adage, jest, ridicule, turpitude, scoff, eutrapelia) among story and essay writers from this point of view. ITALIAN: Liguori, 1996 pp. 176 FRENCH: Vrin/Nino Aragno, 2002
	The various fields of knowledge of the Renaissance meet around a place, a literary style, a symbol and a common theme. The French embassy in Venice was not only a place of espionage and intrigue; it was also a laboratory of philology and a meeting point for writers and artists. Dialogue was not just a narrative style used at court; it also allowed for a new, daring way of expressing a new world vision. In the eight essays that make up Le rendez-vous des savoirs. Littérature, philosophie et diplomatie à la Renaissance, every distinction between writers, philosophers, scientists, diplomatists and artists is cancelled. FRENCH: Klincksieck, 1999, pp.212

Publishers

ITALIAN

Cortina
Liguori
Marsilio

ENGLISH

Yale University Press

FRENCH

Les Belles Lettres
Albin Michel
Vrin
Klincksieck

GERMAN

Wilhelm Fink
Königshausen-Neumann

SPANISH

Siruela

PORTUGUESE

EDUSC

RUMANIAN

Humanitas
Institutul Cultural Roman

RUSSIAN

Sankt Petersburg University Press

CHINESE - Oriental Press

JAPANESE - Toshindo

Awards

FILOSOFIA SIRACUSA AWARD
ROMBIOLO AWARD
ANASSILAOS 2006 Megale Hellas Section
ORIENT EXPRESS 2003
CESARE DE LOLLIS 2003
LE CITTÀ DELLA MAGNA GRECIA 1987

Some reviews

"Ce brillant essai s'appui essentiellement sur un dialogue célèbre de Bruno, 'L'expulsion de la bete triomphante'. Nuccio Ordine dresse un remarquable tableau de l'imbrication de la religion et de la justice, tant dans l'oeuvre de Ronsard que dan celle du Nolain"

Le Nouvel Observateur, Livres en vitrine, 19 janvier 2005

"Questo brillante saggio si fonda essenzialmente su un dialogo di Bruno, 'Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante'. Nuccio Ordine dipinge un notevole quadro dei nodi che legano religione e giustizia sia nell'opera di Ronsard che in quella del Nolano"

Le Nouvel Observateur, Livres en vitrine, 19 janvier 2005

“Contro il Vangelo armato è un libro fondamentale, affascinante e importante che ci dà gli anticorpi di cui oggi abbiamo bisogno”

Stefano Rodotà, Presentazione Camera dei Deputati

“Contro il Vangelo armato di Nuccio Ordine è non soltanto ricco ma straordinariamente intenso, fondato su una ricostruzione filologicamente rigorosa delle opere di Bruno e del contesto in cui il filosofo è vissuto”

Giacomo Marramao, Presentazione Camera dei Deputati

“Nuccio Ordine ha varcato i confini europei: con i suoi saggi di filosofia, tradotti in cinese e giapponese, è arrivato fino a Tokio e a Shanghai”

Il Sole-24 Ore, 16 luglio 2007

"Nuccio Ordine est le premier à recenser de manière systématique les sens théoriques de l’asinité, à préciser toutes ses ambivalences. À analyser ses acceptions contradictoires, à montrer comment ce jeu de sens opposés mène au cœur même de la pensée du Nolain. Telle est la nouveauté de LA CABALA DELL’ASINO: il ne dissocie pas l’artiste du philosophe; loin d’isoler le thème de l’asinité, il le replace dans le contexte d’une intense méditation; dans une image à première vue paradoxale, il rèpere un point nodal de la recherche spéculative."

Eugenio Garin (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

"Dans l’ouvrage de Nuccio Ordine, ce qui est fascinant avant tout, c’est la clarté du cheminement de sa pensée et la multiplicité des thèmes propres à sa recherche. En cédant directement la parole aux textes de Giordano Bruno, il offre au lecteur un « parcours » qui établit de manière subtile des rapports entre les divers domaines du savoir qui figurent dans l’œuvre du philosophe nolain. L’ouvrage d’Ordine ne se destine pas seulement aux philosophes ou aux littéraires, mais aussi aux scientifiques. C’est un livre qui donne à réfléchir sur des thèmes qui méritent aujourd’hui — dans des contextes évidemment différents — l’attention des sciences de la nature et des sciences humaines. Outre l’importante valeur scientifique de son ouvrage, le mérite d’Ordine est d’avoir su éveiller la curiosité du lecteur et rendre passionnante l’extraordinaire expérience philosophique de Bruno."

Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry 1977)

The rich and complicated work will introduce the attentive reader to a vast number of primary and secondary sources on Western thought from antiquity to early modern times that would otherwise have escaped him.

Paul Oskar Kristeller (Columbia University)

"The reader will find in Nuccio Ordine a marvellously faithful and revealing guide to the ardent, magical world of Giordano Bruno."

George Steiner (Churchill College, Cambridge)

"Nuccio Ordine is well known to the public for his excellent studies on Giordano Bruno. He is one of the major contemporary experts on the whole social, artistic, literary, and spiritual milieu of the Renaissance and the Early Modern period. In the present work, he offers us a remarkable model of method in the field of philosophical exegesis, for he succeeds in reconstructing, in a very precise manner, the intellectual and spiritual itinerary of Giordano Bruno during the period, 1582-1585, when he composed all of his oeuvre in the Italian language."

Pierre Hadot (professor emeritus at the Collège of France)

"Il libro di Ordine è soprattutto un modello i ricerca interdisciplinare. Attraverso uno studio attento ed originale dell'immaginario di un filosofo "eretico", l'autore riesce a sciogliere, fra l'altro, molte delle ombre che circondavano fino a poco tempo fa l'opera del più grande pittore italiano coevo: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Un libro prezioso che uno storico dell'arte non può non avere nella sua biblioteca."

Victor Stoichita (Università di Friburgo, Svizzera /Rudolf-Wittkower-Visiting Professor presso la Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut, Roma)

"On Bruno, and in general on the subjects dealt with in this book, Nuccio Ordine's competence is internationally recognized."

Remo Bodei in La Rivista dei Libri, Italian edition of The New York Review of Books, February 2004

"Nuccio Ordine, a leading expert in the Renaissance with special expertise in literary studies, has recently offered a notable study of Bruno's dialogues."

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20-30 Novembre 2003

"Nuccio Ordine is probably the leading expert on Giordano Bruno."

Libération, 3 May 2003

"A magisterial and engrossing introduction to Bruno."

La Repubblica, 10 January 2004

"Il lavoro di Nuccio Ordine – grande specialista di Bruno, le cui opere pubblica con una cura e una scienza impeccabili – invita a un affascinante dialogo tra ricerca estetica e riflessione filosofica."

Le Monde, 27 maggio 2005

"I libri dello studioso Nuccio Ordine su Bruno, tradotti uno dietro l’altro a Pechino, interessano i cinesi per le questioni metafisiche del suo pensiero."

Francesco Sisci in La Stampa, inserto Lo Specchio, 17 dicembre 2005

"La soglia dell’ombra di Nuccio Ordine si pone ora come punto di riferimento ineludibile per qualsiasi riflessione sul filosofo nolano. Ordine si afferma con questo saggio come uno dei maggiori conoscitori mondiali dell’opera di Bruno."

Giorgio Patrizi in Corriera della Sera, inserto Corriere del

Mezzogiorno, 11 ottobre 2003

"Un documentato e acuto studio di Nuccio Ordine ha ricostruito il soggiorno di Bruno tra Parigi e Londra e il suo percorso tra scrittura, teatro e pittura."

Michele Rak in Il Mattino, 31 luglio 2003

"Ordine ha conquistato merito nell’aver discusso a lungo ne La soglia dell’ombra del mito di Narciso e delle teorie del conoscere."

Marcello Ciccuto in L’Indice, febbraio 2004

"Il libro di Ordine è subito balzato alla ribalta per la riproposizione di un vigore saggistico di cui si era un poco perduta la speranza in tempo di vacche magre."

Marzio Pieri in Stilos in inserto La Sicilia, 6 maggio 2003

"Ordine svela il volto di un pensatore coraggioso."

L’Humanité (21 giugno 2003)

"Uno dei migliori studiosi di Bruno."

Le Monde, 18 luglio 2003

"Ordine è uno di quei lettori di Bruno che è capace di penetrare «entro la midolla del senso»."

Giulio Giorello in Corriere della Sera, 22 febbraio 2007

"Un suggestivo saggio su Giordano Bruno."

Panorama, 1 marzo 2007

"Tra i massimi studiosi dell’opera di Giordano Bruno."

Il Domani, 21 gennaio 2007

"Il libro più affascinante dedicato al folle volo di Bruno tra arte e cosmologia."