Christoph Keller – in Latin Cellarius (1638/1707 AD) – established the division of History into ancient, medieval and modern. The establishment of this division privileged two points, one at each end, considered by men of the Age of Enlightenment as the most significant: Antiquity and Modernity. By calling the thousand years that separated these two extremes the “Middle Ages”, the impression is that the latter was not defined positively but merely appeared as a supporting role for the other two, erroneously attributing to this period a sterile and backward environment: the Dark Ages.

 

           Thinking about history based on this division, isolating the Middle Ages from the enlightenment of humanity, certainly encounters many difficulties when we think, above all, about the science and philosophy developed in the Arabic world during the so-called medieval period. This gap created numerous obstacles to establishing a continuous cadence of events, transmissions and receptions between ancient, medieval and modern science.

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                When such divisions are replaced and history is understood in its uninterrupted flow, it becomes easier to connect the various transmissions of philosophy over time. Just as a continent does not contain within itself the borders that divide it into various countries, so history, in its continuous flow, has no divisions. The false impression of a medieval interruption compromises the threads that weave history together..