New Intellectual Saints

This book explores the reinvention of the Greek philosophers by seventeenth-century painters who transformed them into saintly icons of the intellectual life. Fundamental is the novel conception of these philosophers as itinerant beggars and dedicated writers of aphorisms. Drawing heavily on Diogenes Laertius, Erasmus and other author-collectors of apothegms, the painters create living and above all speaking images of the philosophers which were meant to trigger reflection on the core issues of human existence. Above all, these painted philosophers are shown to be men of paper, who used it to read, write, and think, and who engaged bodily and spiritually with the paper codex.