Anselm of Besate

Anselm of Besate (Anselmus Peripateticus, "Anselm the Peripatetic") was an 11th-century churchman and rhetorician.

Anselm was born at Besate shortly after the year 1000 to a notable local family. He describes his genealogy in detail. He was related on his father's side to Bishops Sigifred of Piacenza, John II of Lucca and Cunibert of Turin, and to Archbishop John X of Ravenna. His mother belonged to the House of Arsago, through which he was related to Archbishop Arnulf II of Milan and Bishop Landulf II of Brescia.

Anselm received his education in Padua and Reggio, and became attached to the church of Milan. He later served in the chapel of the Emperor Henry III (reigned 1046–1056). Around 1047, he composed the Rhetorimachia (or De materia artis) and dedicated it to Henry III. It is one of the first works on rhetoric to appear in western Europe after Rabanus Maurus' De institutione clericorum of 819. It is a treatise in three books, ostensibly a letter to his nephew Rutiland to correct his confusion about rhetoric. The main targets of Anselm's rhetoric are magic and clerical vice, but he also attacks logic. To some scholars it represents a continuation of the Ciceronian tradition, or its rediscovery in 11th-century Italy, but to others it is "unlike anything that went before" (Peter Dronke) and represents the birth of a new medieval "art of controversy". It has received two critical editions.

Editions Anselm der Peripatetiker nebst anderen Beitragen zur Literaturgeschichte Italiens im eilften Jahrhundert, ed. Ernest Dümmler. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1872. [Edition of Rhetorimachia] Gunzo: Epistola ad Augienses und Anselm von Besate: Rhetorimachia, ed. Karl Manitius. Monumenta Germaniae Historica [MGH], Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters [QG], vol. 2. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1958. [Edition of Rhetorimachia]