Ombre dei sensi e ombre del pensiero. Dal Raggio ombroso alle Lezioni di tenebra

The involvement of art, in particular the arts of drawing, with scientific thought is the core of a visio intellectualis of the Renaissance as an age of “crisis”. A special feature of this “Renaissance philosophy of crisis” consists in the attempt to build a symbolic conception of reality which no longer matches the visible world. Without losing contact with objective reality, science and art try to withdraw from the plane of perception as much as from the noesis, and stand apart. From Alberti to Leibniz, the aporias of the shadow accompany a cultural route towards the modern, which proceeds between hazards and hesitations.