The Dantesque month continues with the history of women
This Thursday at 5:45 pm in the Aula Magna of the Department of Human Sciences of the University of San Marino (Viale Antonio Onofri, 87) the second appointment of the Dante’s Month, the traditional cycle of four literary conferences now in its fifteenth edition. The event started by the San Marino Dante Alighieri Association, in collaboration with the Higher Secondary School and the San Marino Music Institute. Prof. Veronica Casali, professor of literature and archeology expert in early Christian and Byzantine history, will address a fascinating topic of gender history in the conference “A SILENT FREEDOM. Widows between the ancient world and the Middle Ages “. Historiography has long reserved a discontinuous and marginal interest to women of the past, especially towards those female figures, far from aristocratic circles, who have found greater visibility in literary sources. Today, gender studies represent an increasingly rich and popular line of research, which has made it possible to give voice to categories that have remained silent for too long and to restore their place in history to women. This made it possible to discover in the women of the ancient world and active subjects in social and economic life, often able to use their finances also for the purposes of representation in the public field. In these terms, the figure of the widow is particularly interesting. In fact, if the imaginary with respect to a condition is normally connected with a female state that emerges from these sources, and need, the reality that emerges from the sources is well articulated and suggests that the sources are well articulated and suggests that they are unpublished spaces of freedom. With the affirmation of Christianity, in particular, the relationship between the vidua and the community is also redefined and it is precisely this female figure that embodies the new social sensitivity towards assistance to the needy and support for the community. While in the Late Antiquity it is above all in the religious sphere that the widow finds spaces of visibility and affirmation, in the epoch she becomes the protagonist of the medieval amorous fantasies of the authors, also thanks to the influence of the poetic forms of courtly love. Thus, as an alternative to the exaltation of chastity and asceticism (which we find, among others, in Dante and Petrarch), a positive conception of love and passion is imposed, in which the young and beautiful widow compares like an irresistible object of desire. Finally, we arrive at the comic-misogynist vein of spicy French fabliaux and Boccaccio’s short stories. That of the widow, therefore, is a complex condition, which has represented a problem from a legal and social point of view since ancient times, but it is precisely this mysterious and elusive character of her that makes it so interesting and full of charm. During the evening, history will travel on the notes of the talented musicians of the San Marino Music Institute: in fact, Pier Luigi Guidi (sax) and Niccolò Bronzetti (clarinet) will speak with the theme presented, performing pieces by Ennio Morricone and Javier Girotto. The conferences and readings are held thanks to the courtesy of the University of the Republic of San Marino and the Council of Castello di Serravalle and counting on the economic contribution of the Società Unione Mutuo Soccorso. The Dante Alighieri Association invites its members and citizens all to attend the event in large numbers; The appointment is therefore for 5:45 pm on Thursday 12 May in the Aula Magna of the Department of Human Sciences of the University. Thursday 26 May will then be the turn of prof. Luca Pasquale, who will hold a lecture entitled “LET’S SING TOGETHER IN THE COIR. Situations and aspects of Italian choral cinema ”.
cs Dante Alighieri Society