«Sabiats que us diray en riman». First considerations on the relationship among form, communication and audience in Ramon Llull's Lògica del Gatzell

Abstract

Ramon Llull’s first vernacular work, the Lògica del Gatzell, is a verse compendium based on al-Ghazali’s Maqasid al-falasifah and Peter of Spain’s Tractatus, to which he added some elements of his personal thought. Along with the Latin version, the Compendium logicae Algazelis, it shows Llull’s purpose to promote the study of basic philosophical principles by providing two different types of didactic tools, specifically designed for the kind of audience they were addressed to. The vernacular one was intended for people who couldn’t read Latin, thus the author adopted a literary form and a communication strategy which were typical of the romance tradition. The formal and rhetorical analysis of the work, also in comparison to the Arabic source and the Latin Compendium, aims to cast some light on the characteristics of its recipients.