The renaissance Filautia

Streszcz. po ang. Recenzowane materiały z konferencji naukowej: Oblicza Narcyza : obecność autora w dziele, dn. 17-19 października 2007 r., Kraków. Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

In the icon LXIX of the Emblems of Alciatus there is a figure bent over the stream. Is it a woman or a man? It is hard to say. It is only from the fact that the first verse of the caption i.e. an epigram visible below the picture directed at Narcissus, we surmise who the icon depicts. But in the inscription there is Filautia. Who is it then? Narcissus or Filautia? Enriched in the period of the Renaissance with the ancient philosophical anthropology, the reflection on humanity also comprises the problem of ‘self-love’, which is yet distinguished, at least by some authors, from common vices of egoism, selfi shness, greed and even - which is a completely diff erent matter - from autoeroticism. However, exactly in Alciatus himself the emblem LXIX is in the series vitia (vices) and describes ‘pride’ (superbia). And Filautia was praised quite reasonably in Erasmus’ Stultitia. Francois Rebelais (Pantagruel) and Francis Bacon (Of Wisdom for the Man’s Self) wrote about it. Filautia in the 16th and 17th century texts is not necessarily a vice. It is also ‘friendship with self’, it is a feeling of an idea of internal harmony. The evolution of this idea in the early contemporary literature deserves to be given more attention.