Theodor Mommsen, Franz Cumont e la diffusione delle "religioni orientali". Considerazioni su un inedito ritrovato negli Archivi dell'Academia Belgica

In the Archives of Franz Cumont (1868-1947) at the Belgian Academyin Rome a manuscript has been recently found. In the inventory ofthe archives of the Belgian scholar, the document was labelled as a draftof the introduction to the Les mystères de Mithra (1901). Nevertheless, acloser reading revealed that it is actually an original text, enriched witha score of 20 written comments in a different handwriting from that of F.Cumont. The comparison of this writing with that of the Franz Cumontcorrespondents revealed that the astute and sometimes very dry reader,was probably the German scholar Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903). Weknow that Franz Cumont had shared scientific values and friendshipwith him from the times of his stay in Germany between 1888-1889. Thematching reading of Franz Cumont’s text and Mommsen’s annotationsgive us an interesting testimony of two different approaches, two differentbut complementary ways to “historize” the “oriental religions”. I willput my attention on such aspects in this paper