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The Art of Rhetoric (Institutiones Oratoriae, 1711-1741): From the definitive Latin text and notes, Italian commentary and introduction by ... and Arthur W. Shippee (Value Inquiry Book)

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This manual on rhetoric is an excellent introduction to the art of public and private speech. It revealed all the kinds of tropes that render our communication appealing, attractive, interesting, and fascinating. In addition, the manual explain the art of persuading and the techniques used by law professionals when in the conference room as well as in the forum, when defending a cause. The manual was indeed written for pre-law students in the eighteenth century, when the art of speaking in public and in the court was the only art of communication. Examples of the different tropes and techniques are taken from the authors of the classical world, from Cicero, for instance, Quintilian, and Demosthenes. Today in the universities the rhetoric of Ernesto Grassi goes for the most, but it is on this writing of Vico that Grassi relied in his theory of rhetoric!