Il "mirabile" nel "De mundo" di Apuleio: una teoria filosofica della meraviglia tra Platone, Aristotele e Alessandro

Among the works transmitted in the Aristotelian corpus, the "Perì kosmou" addressed to Alexander the Great deals with the universe, the natural phenomena occurring on earth, the harmony between all things, and God as ruler of all beings. The "Perì kosmou" shows how the tales about Alexander the Great’s expedition to India produced a significant development in geographic and scientific knowledge for ancient philosophy. The long-lasting fortune of this treatise is proven also by the Latin paraphrase that Apuleius wrote in the 2nd century AD. In his "De mundo", Apuleius expands and changes many sections of the original Greek text: among his interventions, the description of universe’s marvellous features is significantly enlarged. This appears clearly in many passages, such as the preface with the dedication to Faustinus, the insertion of biographical anecdotes in chapters 17 (describing the sanctuary of Hierapolis in Phrygia and the worshipping role assigned to poisonous fumes coming out of the ground) and 32 (mentioning Phidias’ portrait on the Athena shield of statue on the Athenian acropolis) and the long description of universal harmony in chapters 19-22, which switch from scientific matters (dedicated to cosmos) to the theological ones (about God and its role in the universe). Apuleius stresses the role assigned to wonder, according to the importance that the extraordinary mirabilia described in the tales about Alexander’s expedition to the East have acquired in Hellenistic and Roman world. In Apuleius’ work, this feeling is not just a simple divertissement, but becomes the first strong input that drives man to contemplate the world and clearly perceive its harmonious structure, due to God who rules on the entire universe. Through a climax, Apuleius invites the reader to abandon the imperfect wonder, i.e. the wonder caused by single natural phenomena, and follow the authentic and universal wonder, i.e. the one that arises from the contemplation of universal harmony. In this way, men reach the real philosophical knowledge, acquiring the same point of view from which God himself watches over the entire universe. This theory, which can be tracked down reading the "De mundo", links the traditional topos about philosophical wonder, as expressed by Plato and Aristotle, with the fascination for mirabilia typical of Apuleius’ cultural background.