La main, les arts et la dignité humaine entre Augustin, Bonaventure et Roger Bacon

Medieval reflection on the hand has highlighted its dichotomous or dialectical aspects: in a negative sense, the hand can produce idols and objects considered inferior to intellectual activity, or in a positive sense, the hand’s movements can be well regulated by criteria that express the divine origin of th human being who directs it. After an initial part dedicated to Cicero and Augustine, who elaborate on the positive sense in which the hand is an expression of man’s divine dignity, the article focuses on the reflections of the Friars Minor Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Roger Bacon, who, in different ways, re-evaluate the mechanical arts. It will be shown how the ability to well order the movements of the hand through intelligible criteria, such as harmonic proportions, constitutes an essential trait for it to be recognised as having full dignity – as opposed to what it could do if oriented to ‘lower’ purposes such as the production of idols –, a full dignity since it is aimed at the highest tasks of the human being.