ABSTRACT
Topica specialis The rhetorical concept of locus has been one of the most influential concepts in western culture.1 This substantially unbroken tradition, stretching from the sophists of the fifth century BC to modern rhetorical theory, has deeply influenced the development of thought and educational practices in all fields of knowledge. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the expanding power of rhetoric, from the literary domain to other disciplines, profoundly affected the status of knowledge and the relationships between the liberal arts.2
