Francesco da Fiano on Adam and Eve, 1404.
"But I cannot yet leave off discussing the figuras of the Bible so rapidly… Everyone has read how, in Genesis, Eve was fraudulently seduced into eating the apple by the persuasion of the serpent, and how both were expelled from paradise. These things were understood as being veiled by figurative language, not only by modern theologians, but also by those of earlier times. They are understood as follows. Adam represents the spirit, Eve the flesh. Adam rules Eve, as the flesh is ruled by the spirit. Adam was conjoined to Eve for the purpose of propagating offspring, and so the spirit, by ruling the flesh, should direct itself, through the flesh, to the propagation of good works. The serpent denotes the temptation of the Devil, the apple represents the allurements of earthly things. For just as the serpent deceived Eve with the apple, so the flesh, unaware of the Devil’s temptation, is attracted by earthly blandishments, and seduced. And just as Eve led Adam to eat the apple, so very often the unstable and fragile nature of human flesh leads the spirit to consent to sin. Each is expelled from paradise, since each falls from the promised state of eternal good, or because each is punished; the spirit, conscious of the sin committed, through remorse, the flesh through pain.
from Francesco da Fiano, Contra Oblocutores er Detractores Poetarum (Against the Slanderers and Opponents of Poets), about 1405.
Francesco is drawing here from a very common interpretation of Genesis, and specifically from the super Genesim of the Venerable Bede (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 91, cols. 30 ff.).
For example, by Bede, one of the Church Fathers.
Malum in Latin, because it also means "evil" (malum = "apple" has a long "a"; malum = "evil", a short "a", but vowel quantity is not written down in Latin). There is no "apple" in the Garden of Eden story in Genesis, just a "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil."