L’Umanesimo di fronte alla schiavitù. I capitoli de servitute del De obedientia di Giovanni Pontano. Saggio di edizione con commento.

In fifteenth-century Europe, on the eve of the discovery of the Americas, the slave trade was among the most profitable and widespread forms of commerce, and Naples—one of the most dynamic ports of the Mediterranean—was no exception. Within this context, an intellectual reflection on the condition of the slave emerged, along with a debate on the legitimacy of slavery, conducted at both the philosophical and theological levels as well as within humanist treatise literature. Giovanni Pontano’s De obedientia (1470) devotes the final chapters of Book III to this debate. This article offers a critical edition and commentary of these passages.