Ritorno ad Alcuino di York: resoconto di un progetto didattico interdisciplinare sulle 'Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes'

The contribution illustrates the outcomes of an interdisciplinary teaching project that involved students in a second class of a scientific high school in Palermo in s.y. 2018-2019. The activity was coordinated by the teachers of Latin (Prof. Li Causi) and Mathematics (Prof. Modica), and ended with the publication on a web page of the cooperative translation of a group of problems taken from the Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes of Alcuin of York (735-804 AD), a philosopher and theologian active at the court of Charlemagne. The main objective was to approach the study of the texts chosen by the teachers, analyzing not only the transition from an ancient language (Latin) to Italian, but also the transition from the natural to the symbolic language of modern mathematics.