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The paper attempts to offer a fresh look at Philo' s theme of the two kinds of wisdom, the perfect one (represented by Sarah) and the intermediate, or encyclical culture (represented by Hagar), considering analogous images in Greek philosophy. The paper does not aim to sketch once again the history of the notion of enkyklios paideia, either in general terms or in Philo' s perspective, as this history has been sufficiently reconstructed from both a philological and a conceptual point of view. More modestly, I intend to re-define some original traits appearing in Philo' s exegesis of Gen 16,1-6, as developed in the first part of De congressu eruditionis gratia. As a result of this survey, I propose to read Philo' s interpretation as building not only upon the 'canonical' comparison with Penelope and her servants, but also, first and foremost, upon the Platonic metaphors of knowledge as 'eros' and 'childbirth' experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at reconstructing the history of the canvas representing Origen painted by Jusepe de Ribera. Such an atypical iconographic motif was allegedly commissioned by Benedetto Giustiniani because Origen matched the interests of the 17th cent. baroque culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]