The fruit of knowledge: To bite or not to bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve's sin and its scholastic sources

BORELLI, MARCELA; BUFFON, VALERIA; JAKUBECKI, NATALIA

Women's Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Springer

Año: 2021; p. 321 - 341

As we know the sacred books of the three religions are not characterized for a gender-friendly approach. In the very beginning of the Old Testament, we find the telling of Original Sin where the Devil tempts Eve, who in turn tempts Adam to commit the original Sin: to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The guilt of Eve in this discussion remains untouched in most cases. Taken from Augustine?s "De Genesi ad Litteram", it is later further systematized in Peter Lombard?s "Sentences". Isotta?s dialogue was a pioneer in setting this discussion aside from the Universities and bringing it to the intellectual Veronese circles. Although Isotta Nogarola is not the first to plead for Eve?s case, in her Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve she is a woman pleading for a woman?s case. Our work will examine the conditions of appearance of this discussion in Isotta focusing especially on the Scholastic antecedents of this debate. Although most quotations of the text are attributed to early Christian and pagan authors ?as typical characteristics of Humanistic literature?, we will demonstrate that many of them are taken instead from Scholastic sources discussing original sin, which are the immediate sources of the dialogue.