ingenium

Elizabethans still employed the term ingenium, or its counterpart at that time, “wit.”

Dictionary of the History of Ideas RUDOLF WITTKOWER 1968

Edgar Zilsel has pointed out that the term ingenium as characterizing extraordinary inborn talent was unknown in the Middle Ages (Zilsel, pp. 251ff.).

MUSICAL GENIUS EDWARD E. LOWINSKY 1968

Descartes employs the term ingenium to mean both an unusual capability to dis - cover the truth (viz., new truths) and a special talent

Dictionary of the History of Ideas GIORGIO TONELLI 1968

Defined as natural talent or "prerational" genius, ingenium was held in contrast to the wisdom gained from practice and experience, and considered a divine stamp on the soul delivered at the instant of one's birth.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

A combination of ingenium and discipline likewise marks the ideal orator.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

A teacher's methods were tuned to reveal and cultivate the unique character hidden within each student while impressing those habits of uprightness that would guide his or her ingenium to the common good.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Cicero notes: "Oratory is an art [like architecture] in the loose sense that its successes can be codified and taught; but the chief virtue of the orator is inborn, ingenium, from which sharpness of mind arise sharpness in invention, richness in exposition and ornament, firm and long-lasting memory" (Cicero De oratore 1. xxiii; Summers, Judgment of Sense, 130n14).

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

By thoughtful ruminating on their flowers, committing them to memory, pupils assimilated the wisdom of their predecessors, transforming their forbears 'words into their own. 15 Conducting this wisdom through one's own life revealed the unique inner genius (ingenium) of one's character.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

Similarly, memory building exercised one's mental ingenium, a procedure that Aristotle considered central in the development of ethical character. 67 Mastery of an art, material or mental, was thus perceived to cultivate prudence, since the accumulation of experience enhances one's foresight and refinement.

Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

You shall find that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae, they have a worm as well as others; you shall find a fantastical strain, a fustian, a bombast, a vainglorious humour, an affected style, &c., like a prominent thread in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works.

Anatomy of Melancholy 2007