Center for Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

On April 19th, 2024, our Ph.D. Candidate Juliette Bellacosa defended her dissertation titled “Through the Eyes of the Beholder: Peter Greenaway’s Resurrection of the Italian Renaissance.” Congratulations, Doctor Bellacosa!

On February 2, 2024, our Ph.D. Candidate Giulio Genovese defended his dissertation titled "A militant Dante: sociopolitical uses of the Sommo Poeta in post-1968 Italy." Congratulations, Doctor Genovese!

Spring Semester 2024!

MAKA: Screening and Discussion on Thursday, October 26 at 4:00pm!

https://youtu.be/9pUkEG4SRtI
Last spring, Italian Studies Penn Arts & Sciences, through the linguistic assistance of second-year Ph.D. student Julia Pelosi-Thorpe, participated in producing "Orpheus Uncovered." This staged performance presented the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as narrated in music by composers who wrote operas based on this myth: Claudio Monteverdi, Stefano Landi, Luigi Rossi, Antonio Sartorio, and Christoph Willibald Gluck. The Baroque pasticcio was fully staged and sung in Italian on March 29, 2023 at the Penn Museum on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Singers were undergraduate and graduate students majoring in Linguistics, Philosophy, Biochemistry, Neuroscience, etc. The production and video illustrate Penn's mission of integrating academic study and artistic practice, providing students with a unique opportunity to combine scholarship and music performance for a deeper understanding of and immersion in the opera art form.

Penn Music/Italian courses:
Baroque Opera from Monteverdi to Gluck, taught by Mauro Calcagno
Opera and Music Theater Workshop, taught by Meg Bragle
Video by Matte Hewitt

Download program at https://bit.ly/47ulRXv

Support for "Orpheus Uncovered" was provided by the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation through an Arts Course Development Grant.

Orpheus Uncovered "Orpheus Uncovered" presents the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as narrated in music by composers who wrote operas based on this myth: Claudio Monteverdi, Ste...

Announcing the 2023-24 Season of the Music in the Pavilion Series at the University of Pennsylvania, which Music and Italian Studies Prof. Mauro Calcagno co-curates with Music colleague Mary Channen Caldwell together with Penn librarians (sign up for the mailing list here to stay up to date! https://tinyurl.com/bdj658hu ). One concert this season (Friday 3/22/24 at 7pm) is devoted to late Renaissance Italian madrigals featuring the extraordinary vocal group Blue Heron from Boston! Sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies, the performance will be complemented during the day by events related to the repertoire (stay tuned for further announcements).

The concerts take place in the beautiful sixth-floor Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion in Van Pelt Library. They showcase an array of professional and international musicians, not only performing gems from standard concert repertoires but also premiering works found in the wealth of materials—print and manuscript—held in the Kislak Center's collections, which will be concurrently exhibited in the adjacent Henry Charles Lea Library.

Here's the line-up:

*Fantasia (Josquin, Schubert, Price, et al.)*
September 14, 2023 (Thursday) — 7:00 pm
With Min-Young Kim, violin, Mandy Wolman, violin, Matthew Bengtson, piano

*Music and Friendship in 18th-Century Philadelphia*
November 23, 2023 (Thursday) — 7:00 pm
With The Raritan Players directed by Rebecca Cypess

*In the Salon of Pauline Viardot*
February 16, 2024 (Friday) — 7:00 pm
Night Music Ensemble with mezzo soprano Meg Bragle

*An Evening of Italian Madrigals*
March 22, 2024 (Friday) — 7:00 pm
Blue Heron vocal ensemble, directed by Scott Metcalfe

Each concert includes a scholarly talk at 6:15 pm alongside a display of archival material from the Kislak Center, followed by the concert (no intermission) at 7:00 pm.

The events are always free and open to the public!

Sign Up Sign Up Here!

Congratulations to Prof. Rossella Di Rosa and Prof. Julia Heim on receiving the 2023 Sachs Program for Arts Innovation award!

The spring semester might be over, but it is time to celebrate our students!

Please join us in congratulating our graduate students who were honored with awards and fellowships this past academic year.

Congratulazioni! 🏆☀️💐

It is with great sadness that we share the death of our dear friend Robert Cargni, former Associate Director of Arts of International House Philadelphia. We will miss him tremendously. Our condolences to his family and friends.

We present you today a new Fall 2023 Graduate class, also open for Undergraduate students.

ITAL 5550: Writing on the Walls: Art and Poetry in the Streets of Early Modern Florence (instructor: Cosette Bruhns Alonso)

This course examines the literary and social resonances of mural arts in medieval and Early Modern Italy. We will investigate emerging artistic conventions alongside textual moments that employ ekphrastic descriptions of mural art as a point of departure for larger commentaries on the role of gender, social hierarchies, the labor of the author and the artist, and civic justice. How did mural arts in medieval and early modern Italy shape viewers’ understanding of justice, society, and city life and their role within it? How did Italian authors appropriate artistic conventions, through text, in order to intervene in public discourse on sociopolitical concerns? Through a comparison of images and texts, we will explore the ways in which Italian writers and artists visualized justice, critiqued dominant social hierarchies, and renegotiated gendered spaces in their literary and artistic works. Alongside viewing works of art, course readings will explore literary representations of mural arts, both fictional and real, described ekphrastically in the works of Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Machiavelli, among others. Select readings from the work of Marguerite de Navarre, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Classical antecedents will shed light on cross cultural dialogue on the representation of civic life, gender, and justice in the Early Modern period. Primary source readings will be accompanied by selections from contemporary and critical theory on art history, gender, race, and politics. Finally, we will examine contemporary street art and graffiti in Florence to consider the legacy of these early modern tensions in Florentine culture today.

This course is designed to meet the requirements for the Price Lab for Digital Humanities' DH Credentials for Graduate Students Certificate and the Digital Humanities Undergraduate Minor. **Technical instruction and assistance will be provided at all stages of creating the digital publication. Students are not required to have digital humanities experience prior to enrolling.**

The America-Italy Society of Philadelphia, the Program of Italian Studies, and the Center for Italian Studies at Penn invite you to honor Prof. Domenico Vittorini's memory and celebrate our undergraduate students' achievements.

Please join us on April 21 at 5:00 PM in Cherpack.

Come hear music by Monteverdi, Maddalena Casulana, and other early modern Italian musicians in dialogue with today's American composers! Penn's Collegium Musicum directed by Meg Bragle performs this Monday, April 17, at 7:30 at St. Mary's Church on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Free admission (complete program in the PDF in the link).

Penn Collegium Musicum | Department of Music Love is love is love - whether we are in the 16th century or today. Come hear music by Monteverdi and Maddalena Casulana in dialogue with composers of today about the timelessness of love.

Lourdes Contreras, Ph.D. Candidate in Italian, was awarded the School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Congratulations, Lourdes!

April 19th, 2023, 5:30 PM - Penn Bookstore (Free Entrance).

Ph.D. Candidate in French and Francophone Studies Nicole Ferrari will be interviewing Michael F. Moore, translator of Alessandro Manzoni’s I promessi sposi. Moore will be discussing his translation, entitled The Betrothed, a Seventeenth-Century Milanese Story Discovered and Rewritten.

Buon Dantedì!

Today is the national Day dedicated to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy. For this celebration, the students of "Italian Histories: Dante" (ITAL 3520) read a Canto of the Inferno (Canto 13) guided by their instructor Mario Sassi.

Buon Dantedì!

FIGGS-Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Graduate Society University of Pennsylvania Penn Arts & Sciences

Dantedì 2023 - University of Pennsylvania Lectura Dantis, Inferno, Canto 13.This project has been organized for the Dantedì (March 25) 2023 by the students of the class ITAL3520, "Italian Histories: ...

On Saturday, March 18, the FIGGS (Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies Graduate Society) had its annual conference, and it was a real success!
Thank you to all the speakers, to Prof. Emily Greenwood (Harvard University) for her keynote address, and to everyone who participated in this event.

Advanced registration for Fall 2023 is almost open (March 20 to April 3)!
Here are the classes offered by the Italian section of the Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies department at the University of Pennsylvania 👇

Happening this week: 'Dante vs Dante: Material Traditions of the Lyric and the Construction of Poetic Authority' lecture by Laura Banella on Thursday 3/16. Banella is the 2022-2023 SIMS & Italian Studies Fellow in Italian Manuscript Studies, a fellowship supported by Penn’s Center for Italian Studies, the Italian Studies Section of the French, Italian, and German Studies (FIGS) department, and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS).

The talk illuminates the distinctive qualities attributed to lyric poetry and lyric poets through the lens of Dante and the material tradition of his lyrics between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Through a selection of peculiar lyric anthologies, ranging from the few elite illuminated codices of Dante’s lyric poetry to the many humble collections and up to lyric series found in merchant account books that encompass Dante’s lyrics, coming from both dominant cultural centers–like Florence and Venice—and peripheral areas, from Dante’s times to the early Renaissance, the talk investigates the many ways in which Dante’s lyric poetry was read and circulated independently from the 'Commedia', thus illuminating how these diverse publics correspond to “different Dantes.” Exploring the role of Dante as a major cultural authority as diffracted by scribes, compilers, artists, and other poets, and the ways in which his authorial persona as a lyric poet has been (re)shaped as an authoritative or non-authoritative figure in various material contexts, allows for a new understanding of cultural authority and of the role of the diverse actors involved in the circulation of the literary work. What is more, it sheds new light on the ways in which cultural authority is diffracted and diversely constructed in relation to different literary genres (lyric poetry vs the poetry of the 'Commedia'), times, and places.

For more information and to register for in-person or online attendance, please visit the Penn Libraries event page:
https://www.library.upenn.edu/event/dante-vs-dante-material-traditions-lyric-and-construction-poetic-authority

We are proud to announce that Ph.D. Candidate in Italian Tommaso De Robertis has been awarded the Global Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-Doctoral Fellowship for his three-year project "Re-orienting the Foundations of 'New Science': John Philoponus and the Modern Theories of Space and Void (1520-1604)."

De Robertis will work at the Universities of Toronto (Canada) and Macerata (Italy).

Congratulations!

Each semester, the College, in collaboration with the College Houses and academic departments and programs, holds a series of dinner discussions on majors, minors, and academic options. These grab-and-go dinners provide an opportunity to meet with faculty, staff, and students in a small, relaxed setting.

Francophone, Italian, and Germanic studies representatives will be in Du Bois College House on March 14 at 6:00 pm to answer your questions about the programs!

RSVP here: https://www.college.upenn.edu/node/1305

Come study Italian and Italian History in one of the best cities in the world, Florence! Our Summer Program runs in June, and the deadline to sign up is March 10.
More details here 👇

Penn Summer | Florence, Italy Our program in Florence allows students to improve their language skills while enjoying an immersive experience in Italian history and culture. Florence offers a wide array of resources for students, including world-renowned libraries and museums, culinary traditions, and fashion hubs. It is also a....

Juliette Bellacosa, Ph.D. Candidate in Italian, will participate in the 2023 Penn Grad Talks!
Join us on Friday, February 24, 2023, at 3 PM, in Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum (3260 South Street, Philadelphia).
Cheers also to Marie Bellec from the French section of FIGS!

Join us on February 24 to see Penn Arts & Sciences graduate students showcase their work and knowledge at the 7th Annual ! Come to the Widener Lecture Hall at the Penn Museum at 3 p.m. and cheer on your fellow students as they compete in the Humanities category. Refreshments will be served throughout the day.

Visit https://bit.ly/3xraMp9 to see the full list of speakers and their topic titles.

University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, Penn Alumni, GAPSA - Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, University of Pennsylvania Department of Music, University of Pennsylvania History Department, SASgov - Graduate Student Government of the School of Arts and Sciences, LPS Government, Penn LPS, Penn LPS Online, Graduate Student Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Alumni Lifelong Learning

Jan 19, 2023, at 5:15pm | Annenberg Center Feintuch Family Lobby (by the Box Office)

Join Mauro Calcagno and Eva Del Soldato for a discussion with director Marco Martinelli and actress Ermanna Montanari, leaders of the Teatro delle Albe [https://www.teatrodellealbe.com/eng/] presenting the show Fedeli d'Amore for Penn Live Arts [https://pennlivearts.org/event/teatro-delle-albe-1055] on Friday and Saturday, January 20-21 (Prince Theater). They will explore the creative process around the development of their multi-year project about revisiting Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

Just a couple of days before the early application deadline (January 15) for Penn-in-Florence, our Summer program in the beautiful Tuscan city!
See here for details 👇

Penn Summer | Florence, Italy Our program in Florence allows students to improve their language skills while enjoying an immersive experience in Italian history and culture. Florence offers a wide array of resources for students, including world-renowned libraries and museums, culinary traditions, and fashion hubs. It is also a....

We are very proud to announce the publication of our Fifth Volume (2022).
This new Volume is special for two reasons: for the first time, we are welcoming a Thematic Section edited by Elizabeth Coggeshall and Akash Kumar, who collected Articles and Project Descriptions on Dante and the Digital Humanities.
The second reason is the new section NEW DANTE WORLDS. This new section was established to foster creative contributions that demonstrate Dante’s continuing vitality and power to inspire the next generations of poets, writers, and artists. We inaugurate ‘New Dante Worlds’ with ‘After Dante,’ a poem by Nathalie F. Anderson.
We also want to thank Elena Molino for the incredible cover of this Volume.
And now, the Volume itself, here: https://repository.upenn.edu/bibdant/vol5/iss1/

Italian Professor Eva Del Soldato was honored yesterday as one of the Most Valuable Professors by Penn Women's Basketball team! We are all so proud!