Matteo Varoli
(Tutor: Prof.ssa Elisabetta Cattanei) – Le matematiche nella letteratura pseudopitagorica
In 2018, I graduated in Classical Philology from Università degli Studi di Genova, with a dissertation on the treatise On the Nature of the Cosmos and the Soul, falsely attributed to Timaeus of Locri. I am currently a PhD student of Philosophy at Università degli Studi di Cagliari; the aim of my research project, which consists of a collection, translation and commentary on Greek and Latin fragments and testimonia, is to investigate sources for Hellenistic and Post-Hellenistic Pythagorean mathematics, especially in the Pythagorean Apocrypha, meaning by this term the field of knowledge which the Ancients called mathemata, namely arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, with a glance to practical disciplines such as optics and mechanics, and even to what we consider as pseudo-sciences, arithmology and astrology. I’ve recently published an article (on Lexis 2019) dealing with some Pythagorean Apocrypha (Archytas, On Intelligence and Sense Perception; Brotinos; Aresas; Ekkelos) linked to the Platonist exegesis of Plato’s Republic. I’ve also given a talk in an international context, during the 10th edition of the Atelier “Pseudopythagorica” promoted by CNRS and LabEx Hastec in Paris (October 2nd, 2019), on questions about physics, astronomy, and exegesis in the treatise On the Nature of the Cosmos and the Soul. Amongst my research interests, there are ancient physics, cosmology and metaphysics, Pythagoreanism, Neopythagoreans, Pythagorean Apocrypha, the history of Platonism and the Old Academy, history of ancient sciences, music, arithmetic and astronomy, tradition and exegesis of philosophical and mathematical texts in Antiquity, pseudepigraphy in the Greek and Roman world. Ph.D. Thesis