In cammino verso la trasfigurazione. La malinconia della natura nello schelling intermedio (1809 - 1815)

The present essay aims at investigating the peculiar relationship between Naturphilosopie and religion in Schelling’s works appeared between 1809 and 1815, and particularly the relationship between the concept of nature (Natur) and that of melancholy (Schwermut), intended as the «deepest manifestation» of nostalgia (Sehnsucht). In consideration of the ambiguity that the term “nature” assumes in the aforesaid period of Schelling’s research, the present work is articulated in two main parts. The first part aims at showing how melancholy is the historical effect of the original sin as a [cosmoteandrica] tragedy by analizing the double significance of death as a rupture and, at the same time, as a recovery – after Christ’s revelation – of the divine bound (Band) between nature and spirit. The second part moves backwards to the condition preceding the creation of the world, proving how the melancholy of nature is also the ontological cause of the original sin, insomuch it expresses the peculiar character of God’s first nature (erste Natur). In so doing, the present essay shows the primal significance that Schwermut has inside teosophical nature, the so called Grund von Existenz (“ground of existence”) which is distinct from Existenz itself, and which reinforces the unfathomability of the concept of Natur in the post-1806 Schelling, bringing the mystery of nature back to the primal mystery of being.