ABSTRACT
In paraphrasing the classical source-texts Torrigiano, possibly inspired by his teacher Taddeo Alderotti, made certain crucial elisions. Renaissance writers would still have been aware of the distinction; in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, for example, the comic parody of scholastic debate between Moth and Don Armado hinges precisely on whether or not “ingenious” means quick. Nevertheless, the boundary between the two usages would gradually erode. This chapter traces this erosion in detail and describes the conceptual framework in which they lay, the Renaissance’s overall doctrines of soul, mind and intellect. Traditionally angels, and at inspired moments philosophers themselves, had been exempt from the labour of constructing syllogisms, their understandings being not just quick but instantaneous. Like them, the ingenious gentleman had an instant understanding that exempted him from the opprobrium of apprenticeship. The ingenious gentleman, and thence the Galtonian genius, are her natural successors.
