What is one of the chief motivations for the study of history? Prof. Francesca Guerri suggests that it is “a passion for humanity.” But this is not a passion for abstractions. It is rather a passion for particular people, at particular times, in particular places, ordered to a particular end.

In this conversation, Dr. Guerri introduces us to Matilda of Tuscany and her role in the investiture controversy as well as her own studies of Renaissance mercantile life and the larger (Benedictine) vison of work as potentially sacred.

Dr. Guerri also takes up the question of the nature of liberal learning by considering a statement that Dante gives to Ulysses in the Inferno: “Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.” Is this an accurate description of liberal learning and its aims? What does it mean that Ulysses uses this statement to exhort his men to transgress divine bounds, leading ultimately to their death and his own damnation? (Are there dangers lurking with liberal education that is unmoored from a divine and regulative vision?)

Along the way, Dr. Guerri also considers the virtues—including patience and studiositas—that should animate the life of the historian and the discipline’s relationship to the other liberal arts, especially rhetoric as it is understood in of the works of Cicero, St. Augustine, and Dante.

Links of Potential Interest:

Dr. Guerri’s website: https://www.francescaguerri.com/

Crossroads Cultural Center:  http://www.crossroadsculturalcenter.org/

Christopher Dawson:  http://www.christopherdawson.org.uk/

St. Augustine, The City of God:  https://www.newcitypress.com/the-city-of-god-11-22-library-edition.html

Dante’s Inferno: https://www.amazon.com/Inferno-Divine-Comedy-Dante/dp/034548357X. 

A popular introduction to Matilda of Tuscany:  https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/matilda-of-tuscany-the-warrior-countess