Optimum non nasci. Herencia consolatoria y formas de la impiedad en los diálogos humanistas de miseria hominis

Abstract

AbstractThis article seeks to understand the significance and ideological implications of a dictum attributed to Crantor, optimum non nasci, in Humanist dialogues de miseria hominis written in Spain and Italy between 1455 and 1530. It explores the intellectual history of the dictum in Classical moral philosophy, focuses on its uses in the Ciceronian tradition of consolatory literature, and looks at the new meanings that emerge when the optimum non nasci is rewritten in Early Modern texts, within ideological debates about the misery and dignity of man. The article contends that the dictum, often considered irreligious or as an invitation to suicide (and therefore censored or expurgated from well known reference books), is used to frame the description of human misery and as a distinctive mark for Epicurean arguments in Early Modern letters.