'Vita spoliatus iacerem, nisi dulcedo astronomiae retinuisset animam': il manifesto di Regiomontano per un rinascimento delle scienze matematiche (Padova, 1464)

In the spring of 1464, the German astrologer, astronomer and mathematician Johannes Müller, known as Regiomontanus (1436-1476) offered a course of lectures on the Arab astronomer al-Farġānī at the University of Padua. The lectures are not extant, but we do have the text of his inaugural oration, on the dignity, utility and beauty of the mathematical sciences, also calling for the necessity of translating into Latin a number of key works of the past, so as to make them available to European scholars. Together with his editorial programme, published ten years later, Regiomontanus’s oration is a revolutionary and forward-looking cultural manifesto, which uniquely combines the humanities and the sciences. After a brief introduction, I present the critical edition of the Latin text, based on all 16th-century printed editions, followed by an annotated Italian translation