ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 deals with Robortello’s conception of rhetoric in all his printed and manuscript works. In De rhetorica facultate, Robortello emphasises that rhetoric has the capacity to express the content of knowledge, while in De artificio dicendi he shows how it is able to convey different content to different audiences, as well as the same content to diverse audiences. In the latter case rhetoric becomes oratory. If its main aim is to express thoughts, its main utility – according to Robortello’s manuscript Dell’oratore – is to make thoughts more germane in such a way that their tenor can be understood and known by others. The chapter focuses on the notion of truth, on the rhetorical argument of example and on the educational purpose of rhetoric.
