Francesco Filelfo’s Invective against Lodrisio Crivelli. The Body as a Mirror of Every Morality

Abstract

Francesco Filelfo, one of the prominent figures of the Italian Renaissance, revealed himself to be a man of unique intellectual capacities and of great communicative qualities, characteristics that allowed him to maintain a dense network of relationships
with the most influential men of his time. This study examines some passages from the epistle 26.01 –the longest one of his epistolary– in which, in between the lines of a vehement invective against Lodrisio Crivelli, there emerges a close relationship between the moral dimension of the individual and his physical appearance, a relationship that transcends time and, uniting the classical tradition and the Judeo-Christian one, is fully expressed in the dynamics of the Renaissance society in which the author lives.