I “Dies Caniculares” di Simone Maioli, un dimenticato testo cinquecentesco nel panorama storico dell’entomologia in Italia

[Autom. eng. transl.] Probably the name of Simone Maioli (1520-? 1598), from Asti, canonist and bishop of Volturara (suffragan diocese of the archdiocese of Benevento), says nothing to most of the lovers of the history of entomology. Risks if ever to be confused with that of another Maioli best known in our field and later than more than two centuries, Cesare, Forlì, friar of the Gerolimini, whose botanical and zoological works, even on insects, remained however almost all handwritten. Simone Maioli, on the other hand, in Italy seems to be involuntarily excluded from the ranks of our writers of natural history and insects, although one of his printed works, the Dies Caniculares, is placed in a well-defined sector - the theological-biblical address - of European literature which between 1500 and 1600 it dealt with naturalistic subjects. Written in Latin - the lingua franca of the time between the learned, the official language of the Church -, the work has a long title which is simply quoted from the beginning: "The days of heatwave", the August period of sultry heat in which it is permissible to neglect for a while the most burdensome duties of office and to recreate yourself in the countryside face to face with nature. It had a first edition in Rome in 1597, various posthumous re-editions and wide circulation in Europe, bearing witness to the notoriety especially among ecclesiastics. The genre is that of dialogue, very popular until the 18th century; to converse I am a knight, a philosopher and a theologian in which three 'souls' of the Author himself seem to be recognized. The Dies Caniculares are a sui generis encyclopedia that ranges from the phenomena of the sky to physical geography, from animals to plants and minerals, dividing the matter into interviews that are just as many chapters. The fifth is dedicated to insects (Insecta Animalia. Colloquium quintum) which takes up some tens of pages. The life and customs of representative insects (Cicendula, Coccuius, Bombyx, Papilio, Musca, Apis, Formica, Formicaleon, Scarabeus [sic!], Cervus volans, Vespa, Locust, Cicada, Pulex, Pediculus, Ephemerum, together with various' Vermes 'of uncertain identification and spider, scorpion, snail, etc.) are occasions for philosophical, theological and moralizing reflections, from which the ecclesiastics could draw inspiration for preaching. Reality, tradition and myth intertwine in a text that reflects in a not entirely uncritical way the beliefs of a century that has not freed itself from the principle of authority, a text that explicitly draws from Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, from the Holy Scriptures and from the Doctors of the Church , though not without original observations and attentive to the novelties that the New World revealed in those years. Pervaded by that sense of wonder that nature arouses, Maioli's work with regard to insects seems to make the well-known Plinian saying "rerum natura nusquam magis quam in minimis tota", variously reformulated over the centuries but still relevant.