Rosario Assunto Explained

Region:Western Philosophy
Era:20th-century philosophy
Rosario Assunto
Birth Date:28 March 1915
Birth Place:Caltanissetta, Kingdom of Italy
Death Place:Rome, Italy
School Tradition:Aesthetics

Rosario Assunto (pronounced as /it/; 28 March 1915 – 24 January 1994) was an Italian philosopher, he was an Art theorist and landscape aesthetician.

Life

Rosario Assunto was born in 1915 in the same building next to the Church of Santa Lucia, in the historic center of Caltanissetta, where also Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo was born in 1887.[1] He received his doctorate in jurisprudence in 1938, but then began a teaching career. From 1944 to 1951 he studied philosophy with the "critical ontologist" and specialist of Kant's philosophy Pantaleo Carabellese (1877–1948) at the Sapienza University of Rome. He became an assistant to Carabellese and, after his death in 1948, to Luigi Scaravelli an Italian philosopher (1894–1957). In 1955 he became a private lecturer and from 1968 to 1980 he was professor of aesthetics at the University of Urbino.

In 1981 he moved to Rome, where he taught as a professor of the history of Italian philosophy.[2] As an elitist individualist, he remained aloof from the movimento del Sessantotto and withdrew from public discussion since the 1970s. The increasing dominance of language and sign theory approaches in philosophy also contributed to this, making Assunto's positions appear out of date.[3]

In 1991 all his work on gardens and landscapes and his positions in favor of their recognition were rewarded with the Carlo Scarpa International Prize for the Garden, awarded by the Benetton Studi Ricerche Foundation of Treviso. He fought a battle of ideas for good governance, care and defense of the gardens; for the affirmation of their irreplaceable value as heritage of memory and places designed and created to experience contemplation.[4]

Assunto maintained numerous contacts with avant-garde artists. He was married to the art historian Wanda Gaeta, who died early; he died the 24 January 1994 for a tumor.

Thought

A focus of his work was landscape aesthetics. In Il paesaggio e l'estetica (1973) Assunto shows that people search for and create their own landscape, both physically and spiritually. In several works he develops a theory of the garden. He was influenced by the German romantic view of nature. In Ipotesi e postille sull'estetica medioevale (1975) he deals with Dante's poetry. Intervengono i personaggi (col permesso degli autori) (1977) is a collection of satirical-philosophical stories.[5]

The theme of the relationship between nature and art was the focus of his research, he systematically posed and articulated the problem of the specificity of the constitutive values of the landscape, to the point of making clear the reasons for the "modern cult of the garden".[4] Furthermore, he also took care of his writing activity for an audience of non-experts.[4]

Assunto distinguishes between vertical (anagogic) and horizontal significance. Vertical is the exploration of the past and the depths of the soul, which gives meaning to the present. Horizontally (socially or historically) significant is the reference to other parts of the world, to the polis, social life, the world of institutions.[6] Examples of this are the art and literature of surrealism, which seeks to change the world, or the works of Bertolt Brecht and Luigi Pirandello, the Italian film of neorealism, but also any literature that refers to philosophical questions and thus goes beyond itself.[7]

Works

I, Natura e storia, Napoli, Giannini, 1973.

II, Arte, critica e filosofia, Napoli, Giannini, 1973.

Selected bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Webdimension (web@webdimension.it) . Il paesaggio e l'estetica. Modernità del pensiero di Rosario Assunto, il filosofo del paesaggio. . Parchi Letterari . it . 2024-02-13.
  2. Web site: Assunto . Rosario . Rosario Assunto, Die Theorie des Schönen im Mittelalter . PhilPapers . 1982 . 2024-02-13.
  3. Web site: Nicita . Paola . Assunto scandaloso esteta . Archivio – la Repubblica.it . 13 May 2006 . it . 2024-02-13.
  4. Web site: Premio speciale a Rosario Assunto (Italia) . Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche . it . 2024-02-13.
  5. Web site: poetica . Treccani . 28 July 2023 . it . 2024-02-13.
  6. Web site: Marina Moirika Reker, A Filosofia do Jardim em Rosario Assunto. pt . 2024-02-13.
  7. Wells . David A. . 1982 . Medieval Literature . The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies . Modern Humanities Research Association . 44 . 721–775 . 10.1163/22224297-90002519 . 0084-4152 . 20867935 .