«Forme dell'antropofagia in alcuni testi medievali»

e reality of cannibalism raised a long debate among anthropologists. e theses of Arens recognize the Anthropophagy as merely ideological and its position is extremely fruitful in the analysis of some medieval texts, where, in line with the statements of Classical Antiquity, the Anthropophagy reveals himself as one of the hallmarks of “otherness”. During the middle ages, however, there has been an evolution in the ideological use of cannibalism: the travel literature, in fact, tends to negate any cultural or ritual significance to the Anthropophagy of the alien peoples marked by an irreducible barbarism that justifies the ideology of conquest. In this direction, in the literature on the colonization of the New World, there is a real cannibalistic epidemic.