L'humanitas, secondo Varrone. La memoria della stirpe umana

By considering all the occurrences of humanitas and humanus in Varro’s works and fragments, the paper aims to show his special re-elaboration of this fundamental concept for Roman culture. According to Varro, all its meanings would stem from a single sense: for him, humanitas would be «human memory» or «tradition», i.e. the cultural heritage that is passed down generation after generation, creating a human cultural genealogy and thus enabling humankind to acquire a conscious cognatio. From this idea probably derives the purpose of Varro’s antiquarian work and especially of the first section, the Antiquitates rerum humanarum.