Geroglifici fantastici. Il mito “estetico” dell’Egitto e il “pensare per immagini”

First chapter: the meaning of images in ancient Egyptian thought. The realtionship between images and signs in hieroglyphic writing. The "magic realism" of Egyptian images. Second chapter: hieroglyphic thinking in the Reinaissance. Symbolic values of epigraphic Egyptian writing and the Ars memoriae in Plato, Giordano Bruno, Giambattista Della Porta and Ralph Cudworth. Renaissance images of silence. Third chapter: hieroglyphs as heuristic instruments of aesthetic knowledge. Francis Bacon and Real Characters. Hieroglyphs as "universal fantastici" in Vico's Scienza nuova : an analysis of the first two books. Mythical thought as a form of thinking by images. Fourth chapter: the idea of gesture in the early 18. century's aesthetic culture. Iconism and obscurity in "expressive hieroglyphs" by Diderot. Closing remarks. Bibliography.