ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one of Celio Calcagnini's most fascinating moral treatises, De profectu, an outstanding example of his mnemonic genius. Thematic and verbal similarities with the letter on imitation, which dates from 1532, suggest that this treatise may have been written around the same time. Calcagnini is one of the great intellectuals of Renaissance Italy, there was virtually no field of knowledge, either literary or scientific, to which he did not attempt to apply his curious mind. Calcagnini's writing, as is clear from the De profectu, is an amazing laboratory of mnemonic strategies and allusive procedures which help to explore with striking immediacy some essential aspects of Renaissance literary aesthetics, including literature written in the vernacular. Calcagnini appears to be aware of the many meanings and connotations of the concept of shadow, as expressed both by the Latin word umbra and the Greek word skia.
