L'"Encyclopédie", la memoria, la ragione.

The essay reflects on the "Encyclopédie" of Diderot and d'Alembert, which is both rational recapitulation and critical examination of human knowledge and activities and a "Dictionnaire raisonné", aimed at bringing order in the unity of human intellect and at structuring the variety of meanings. While the "Encyclopédie" is primarily a work which shows alliance of history ("mémoire"), science ("raison") and arts ("imagination"), the project of Diderot and d'Alember is to define the philosophy which establishes such a unity or rather the links between all the different parts and to sketch the morphology of such an order: literary map of the world, tree of knowledge, as in the "Discours Préliminaire".