L’apoftegma tra retorica e letteratura: definizione lessicografica e analisi componenziale. Il contributo della filologia portoghese allo studio della chreia e della tradi zione patristica

This article attempts to provide an examination of the characteristics attrib uted to the apophthegm of classical and late-ancient civilisations. It con cludes with a lexicographic definition and an analysis of opposing traits in relation to assimilable figures, including the gnome, the chreia and the “memorable” (apomnemoneuma). Within this perspective, the recovery of the progymnastic tradition has led to the recognition of the importance of the influence of this didactics on the de­velopment of modern rhetoric, on Baroque oratory and on Jesuit educational theory, thanks to the contributions of Portuguese scholars Manuel Alexandre Jr and Anibal Pinto de Castro. Further, Teone’s text renders explicit the pos sibilities of widening chreia and gnome, and allows a like wise certain and productive elaboration of the proto-narrative elements pro posed by the exercises themselves.