Lettura dei 'segni' nella letteratura e cultura di lingua tedesca alle soglie dell'età moderna. Fra libero arbitrio e predestinazione

Abstract

The essay proposes an excursus through German-speaking culture between 1400 and 1650, aiming to highlight how the reading of 'signs',both artificial and natural, underwent substantial changes inthe perios under examination. In optimistic anthropological contexts, the reading is mainly the result of a widespread aspiration to knowledge and does not excude the free will of human beings. When a pessimistic conception dominates, the sign is the external manifestation of an ineluctable destiny.