Storia e fortuna della Grammatica di Emmanuele Alvares, S. J.

Abstract

The author shows that the publication of Father Manuel Alvares’ Grammatica Latina in 1572 fulfilled the hopes of the teachers who, reacting against medieval methods, considered Despauterius’ compendium inadequate for the Humanistic needs of the time. He then studies the genesis of the work; the method followed in the exposition; the eulogia and the criticisms that it earned, whether from the Roman College or from the various religious provinces of the Society of Jesus; the abridgements and the modifications to which it was subject; and its amazing diffusion, patent in more than 530 editions published in the course of three centuries in almost all the countries to which the pedagogic influence of the Jesuits extended.