NeoplAT offered a fresh and thoroughly documented account of the impact of Pagan Neoplatonism on the Abrahamic traditions. It focused mainly, but not exclusively, on the Elements of Theology of Proclus (fifth century) which occupies a unique place in the history of thought. Together with its ninth-century Arabic adaptation, the Book of Causes, it has been translated, adapted, refuted and commented upon by Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers across centuries, up to the dawn of modernity. Despite a renewed interest in Proclus’ legacy in recent years, one still observes a tendency to repeat conventional hypotheses focused on a limited range of well-studied authors. This project radically challenged these conservative narratives both by analysing invaluable, previously ignored resources and by developing an innovative comparative approach that embraces a variety of research methods and disciplines. Specialists in Arabic, Greek and Latin history of ideas, philology, palaeography and lexicography develop an intense interdisciplinary research laboratory investigating the influence of Proclus on the mutual exchanges between the scriptural monotheisms from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries.
NeoplAT provided significant breakthroughs in the scholarly understanding of this topic by
* identifying, analysing and making accessible a previously overlooked cultural patrimony: dozens of unpublished texts produced in various scholarly centres and today scattered in hundreds of manuscripts across the world.
* reconstructing the scholarly networks of transmission within and between the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West.
* reevaluating the reception of typical Greek Neoplatonic themes on key philosophical (in particular in metaphysics and epistemology) and theological themes (in particular, themes on creation, providence, divine immediacy, etc.).
