Tracing the Emergence of the Italian Verb volerci

Contributor(s): Cinzia Russi

The present article has two major objectives. First, it reveals the results of an original empirical analysis of Old Italian (OI) material (twenty texts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), which I carried out in order to trace the emergence and reconstruct the early distributional...

Research "Born in the Classroom": Students' Errors as a Source of Knowledge?

Contributor(s): Raffaella Maiguashca, Anne Urbancic

Michelangelo Reading Landino? The "Devil" in Michelangelo's Last Judgment

Contributor(s): Sarah Melanie Rolfe

In lieu of Satan, the Hell scene in Michelangelo's Last Judgment features Charon and Minos, two key figures present in Dante’s Inferno. These figures were given an interesting psychological interpretation in the well circulated fifteenth-century commentary on Dante's Commedia by Cristoforo...

Dialogical Strategies, Volgarizzamento, and Ciceronian Ethos in Antonio Brucioli's Dialogi Della Morale Filosofia

Contributor(s): Reinier Leushuis

In 1526, Antonio Brucioli (1487-1566) published a series of thirty dialogues that form a typical humanist compendium of moral and political wisdom in the vernacular. Scholars have considered these dialogues mainly from the perspective of Brucioli’s humanist and political allegiances, in...

Women Writing Women in Lodovico Domenichi's Anthology of 1559

Contributor(s): Gabriella Scarlatta Eschrich

In his Rime diverse d’alcune nobilissime et virtuosissime donne (1559), Lodovico Domenichi publishes the poetry of fifty-three women authors across borders of nation, city, politics, religion, profession, class, and genre. Among them, thirty-five dedicate or address their compositions to...

Virago Valorosa o “Marfisa Bizarra”? La Donna Guerriera ne La Pazzia d’Isabella (1611) di Flaminio Scala e ne Lo Schiavetto (1612) di Giovan Battista Andreini

Contributor(s): Valentina Denzel

In questo articolo confrontiamo la messa in scena dei personaggi femminili delle due commedie La pazzia di Isabella (1611) di Flaminio Scala e Lo Schiavetto (1612) di Giovan Battista Andreini. Le protagoniste della commedia di Scala, Isabella e Flaminia, rievocano per la loro presa d’armi le...

Calvino’s Encounter with the Animal: Anthropomorphism, Cognition and Ethics in Palomar

Contributor(s): Eugenio Bolongaro

This article examines the importance of the portrayal of animals in Palomar, Italo Calvino’s last major work of fiction. The discussion moves from some observations on the representation of animals in fiction, to a reflection on the ethical issues which emerge once the “question of...

Food and Anthropology in the Early Works of Matilde Serao

Contributor(s): Daria Valentini

Food has long been considered by anthropologists to be an integral part of self-representation, culture, and identity. The present study investigates the early works of Matilde Serao, focusing on food imagery and culinary customs of the city of Naples. Serao’s fiction and journalistic...

Dante’s Epistola a Can Grande: Allegory, Discourse, and their Semiotic Implications

Contributor(s): Raffaele De Benedictis

The focus of this study is the semiotic aspect concerning the allegory of the Commedia. More specifically, it aims at considering the meta-linguistic functioning of the Commedia’s allegory and how such a system may be recognized as essentially semiotic in its making. It also attempts to...

‘Ragionando di pittura’ tra artisti e letterati: Pino, Vasari, Dolce e Gilio

Contributor(s): Vincenzo Caputo

L’intervento si pone l’obiettivo di analizzare alcuni specifici dialoghi d’arte del Cinquecento, puntando in particolar modo l’attenzione sulla funzione dei loro rispettivi protagonisti. Si parte dal Dialogo di Pittura di Paolo Pino (1548) e dai Ragionamenti di Giorgio...

'Né mendicanti, né poveri': la libertà nelle utopie italiane del Rinascimento

Contributor(s): Cristina Perissinotto

Questo saggio analizza il problema della libertà in utopia con l’aiuto di un apparato filosofico di tradizione principalmente italiana e anglosassone, ove il discorso sulla libertà è sempre stato centrale. Alla luce dell’utopia eponima, quella di Thomas More, si...

“Più eretico d’ogni altro frate tragediante in quel secolo”. Francesco Ringhieri, monaco e drammaturgo, tra testi, polemiche, attori e documenti

Contributor(s): Gianni Cicali

Il saggio, attraverso testi e documenti, mette in luce alcune caratteristiche della drammaturgia di Francesco Ringhieri (Imola 1721-1787), segnatamente quelle più legate alla messinscena, alla spettacolarità, alla recitazione, al rapporto con l’opera in musica, ma anche alla...

Scene di famiglia: Dal carattere del teatro borghese ai ruoli pirandelliani

Contributor(s): Maria Elena Santuccio

Attraverso la promozione di un modello stabile e “naturale” di famiglia il teatro pedagogico-mimetico borghese svolge un ruolo importante nel progetto di disciplinamento e di controllo degli italiani. Il modello egemone di famiglia borghese basato sull’autorità maritale,...

L’autobiografia come dislocamento. Motivi allegorici ne La chiave a stella di Primo Levi

Contributor(s): Gianluca Cinelli

L’articolo analizza La chiave a stella (1978) di Primo Levi in chiave ermeneutica come un testo costruito allegoricamente attorno all’idea della dissimulazione dell’identità autobiografica. La compresenza nell’opera di un personaggio autobiografico e di un...

La festa della fratellanza italiana: Gianni Grohovaz and the Celebrations of Italian Memorial Day in Toronto, 1960-1975

Contributor(s): Paul Baxa

This article examines the Italian Memorial Day celebrations held in Toronto between 1960 and 1975. These celebrations were organized and conceived by poet-activist-exile Gianni Grohovaz during his tenure as director of the now defunct Italo-Canadian Recreation Club (ICRC) in Toronto. Using the...

In Memoriam: Marina Frescura

Contributor(s): Olga Zorzi Pugliese

Human Generation, Memory and Poetic Creation: From the Purgatorio to the Paradiso

Contributor(s): Paola Ureni

Statius’ scientific digression on the generation of the fetus and the formation of the fictive body in the afterlife occupies a large part of canto XXV of Dante’s Purgatorio. This article will examine the metaphorical relevance of that technical exposition to Dante’s poetics....

Why Did the Monkey Kill the Giant? Another Look at Margutte’s Death

Contributor(s): Pina Palma

In the Morgante through Margutte’s death-by-laughter Pulci voices a caustic critique of Ficino’s philosophical theories while obliquely denouncing Lorenzo de Medici’s acceptance of them. The spectacle of the monkey wearing and taking off Margutte’s boots follows...

'The Country is Large, and Beautiful and Happy.' Lelio Pecci’s Travel Journal of his 1549 Mission to Flanders

Contributor(s): Elena Brizio

Lelio Pecci’s travel journal for his mission to Emperor Charles V in Flanders offers modern readers a layman’s description of a large section of Europe (from northern Italy to France, Flanders, Germany, and Austria), as well as a priviledged view into the mind of a learned man from a...

Galileo’s Rhetoric of Fable

Contributor(s): Crystal Hall

In annotations, drafts, and published materials, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) consistently uses fables to ridicule his philosophical opponents’ forma mentis. An analysis of the revisions made to these short pieces argues that the fable was a deliberate rhetorical tool with dual effect: the...