Conferences and Seminars – Page 7 – Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Study Symposium: Venice the Second Byzantium

On June 21, 2022, the “Venice the Second Byzantium” Study Seminar will gather top scholars to reflect on the link between Constantinople and Venice.
To all those who for centuries landed there, Constantinople appeared a wonder, sublime city, an unforgettable enchantment. Of it remains an unquenchable nostalgia. Venice was born and formed Byzantine, became what it is in a complex relationship with the motherland, the imperial polis on the Bosporus. The wonder of Constantinople, after the fall of its civilization in 1453, is as if it had been translocated into the wonder of Venice. There is something familiar between these two cities, something that eludes but is felt in the suspended atmospheres. Not so much the details, but the whole, a certain idea, a being between West and East. The “Venice the Second Byzantium” Study Seminar gathers top scholars to reflect on this famous formula that evokes the ties between the two cities and their histories. It is also a way of recalling a formula dear to Vittore Branca, longtime Secretary General of the Giorgio Cini Foundation, who considered that of Venice a unique civilization.

Following is the day’s program:

10 a.m.

Peter Schreiner, Universität zu Köln

What does alterum Byzantium mean?

Caterina Carpinato, Ca’ Foscari University Venice

The Fall of the Polis in the Άλωσις της Τροίας of Nikolaos Lukanis (Venice, Nicolini da Sabbio, 1526)

Sandra Origone, University of Genoa

Genoa and Venice in the confrontation with Byzantium

Beatrice Daskas, Ca’ Foscari University Venice

Βασίλεια πόλις / Civitas regia.

Reflections around a topos between Constantinople and Venice

Niccolò Zorzi, University of Padua

The gaze of the other.

Venice in the mirror of Byzantine sources

3:00 p.m.

Silvia Ronchey, University of Roma Tre

Escape from the First Rome. Bessarion and the legacy of Byzantium.

Eleftherios Despotakis, Johannes Guttemberg-Universität Mainz

Byzantium and Venice in the Perspective of Archival and Manuscript Sources.

A case-study of the library of the monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai

Gianmario Guidarelli, University of Padua

Venetian Renaissance architecture and Byzantium.

Problems and perspectives of research

Egidio Ivetic, Institute for the History of the Venetian Society and State – Giorgio Cini Foundation

The sea of Venice as a Byzantine legacy

Ermanno Orlando, University for Foreigners of Siena

“And here it seems to them that they are entering a second Byzantium.”

Venice and the Diaspora from the Balkans in the xv century

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International Conference Goldoni Avant la Lettre: Evolution, Involution, and Transformation of Theatrical Genres (1650-1750)

The Institute of Theatre and Opera, in collaboration with the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, has organised an international conference on changes in theatrical genres between 1650 and 1750. The event is part of the research activities of the Archivio del Teatro Pregoldoniano (ArpreGo), which has selected Italian plays between 1650 and 1750 with characteristics that may have influenced Carlo Goldoni’s reformed theatre in terms of all his highly varied historical and artistic production. This project has also led to a significant number of editions of period plays with links to Goldoni’s production and to the creation of several databases which, together with the texts of the plays, can be freely consulted on the project’s official website (www.usc.gal/goldoni).

The conference will be an opportunity for scholars in the field to meet and discuss the subject and, in particular, dramaturgical developments that influenced Goldoni’s formative process. In addition to the organisers of the event, Maria Ida Biggi (Institute of Theatre and Opera, Fondazione Giorgio Cini; Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice), Javier Gutiérrez Carou (Universidade Santiago de Compostela) and Piermario Vescovo (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice), the members of the Advisory Committee include Beatrice Alfonzetti (Università La Sapienza, Rome), Camilla Cederna and Lucie Comparini (Université Paris-Sorbonne), Francesco Cotticelli (Università di Napoli), Emanuele De Luca and Andrea Fabiano (Université Paris-Sorbonne), Paologiovanni Maione (Conservatorio di Napoli), Marzia Pieri (Università di Siena) and Anna Scannapieco (Università di Padova).

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Conference New Concepts of Harmony in Musical Composition 1945-1975

The last stage of a three-year project, this conference has been organised by Gianmario Borio, Pascal Decroupet and Christoph Neidhöfer and funded by the Ernst von Siemens-Musikstiftung. The focus will be on a key issue in 20th-century music theory: the principles and characteristics of the harmonic dimension in post-tonal composition. This part of the project explores the compositional techniques and theoretical elaborations of the three decades after the Second World War. It follows on from an initial meeting of the research group in 2019, the starting point for a panel held by the coordinators and some members of the group at the 85th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (2019).

The monographic conference papers will deal with Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Gérard Grisey, György Ligeti, Bruno Maderna, Olivier Messiaen, Luigi Nono, Henri Pousseur and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.

Participants: Jonathan Bernard, David W. Bernstein, Paolo Dal Molin, Pascal Decroupet, François-Xavier Féron, Oliver Korte, Catherine Losada, Christopher Brent Murray, Christoph Neidhöfer, Susanna Pasticci, Cordula Pätzold and Ingrid Pustijanac.

On the occasion of the conference, on 12 July at 7:00 PM, there will be a concert in the Auditorium ‘Lo Squero’ (free admission) by the mdi Ensemble composed of:

Sonia Formenti flute

Paolo Casiraghi clarinet

Lorenzo Derinni violin

Paolo Fumagalli viola

Giorgio Casati cello

Valentina Messa piano

The Ensemble will play:

Niccolò Castiglioni Gymel (1960), per flauto e pianoforte

Elliott Carter Esprit rude/esprit doux (1985), per flauto e clarinetto

Luigi Nono “Hay que caminar” soñando (1989), per due violini

Giacomo Manzoni Frase (1988), per clarinetto e pianoforte

Bernd Alois Zimmermann Intercomunicazione (1967), per violoncello e pianoforte

Pierre Boulez Improvisé – Pour le Dr. Kalmus (1969), per flauto, clarinetto, viola, violoncello e pianoforte

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Accademia Vivaldi Advanced Workshops on Performing the Music of Antonio Vivaldi

The Accademia Vivaldi advanced courses will continue in 2022 with five workshops for singers and instrumentalists on performing practice of Vivaldi’s compositions. The courses will be devoted to singing (sacred vocal music, vocal chamber music, and dramas for music with a special focus on Griselda in the June workshop) and performing basso continuo. A maximum of ten selected students will be admitted to the workshops through a call for applications. The students will have the opportunity to work on performing technique but also to further their knowledge of the musicological aspects of the chosen compositions, thanks to lessons to be given by the musicologists who edit the Vivaldi Institute’s critical editions. There will be a public concert at the end of each workshop.

International Conference Il Teatro delle riviste (1870-2000). Periodicals as objects and tools of theatrical historiography

This conference represents the culmination of the work conducted over the past ten years by the Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire sur les Revues de Théâtre (GRIRT), and is organized in synergy with the Institute for Theatre and Melodrama of the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice and the program Theatre and Photography in France and Europe
in the 19th and 20th Centuries of the Institut Universitaire de France. The goal of the meeting is to deepen the studies on the journals of the field, valuable documentary sources for theatrical historiography. The focus of the conference is on the period from the 1870s-1880s to the to the last years of the 20th century with the emergence of new digital media.

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Comitato organizzativo
Maria Ida Biggi (Istituto per il Teatro e il Melodramma, Fondazione Giorgio Cini; Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia); Marianna Zannoni (Istituto per il Teatro e il Melodramma, Fondazione Giorgio Cini; Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia); Sophie Lucet (Université de Paris); Marco Consolini (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle); Romain Piana (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle); Arnaud Rykner (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)

Comitato scientifico
Paul Aron (Université Libre de Bruxelles); Marion Denizot (Université Rennes 2); Mathieu Duplay (Université de Paris); Mark Evans (Coventry University); Roberta Gandolfi (Università degli Studi di Parma); Gerardo Guccini (Università degli Studi di Bologna); Jan Lazardzig (Freie Universität Berlin); Lorenzo Mango (Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale); Evanghelia Stead (Université Paris-Saclay); Armelle Talbot (Université de Paris); Piermario Vescovo (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia); Jean-Claude Yon (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)

Conference Oral-Tradition Music as a Cultural Heritage

A fast-growing issue for Italian ethnomusicology, and for musicology as a whole, is the absence of the term “music” in the Italian cultural heritage code. Music is thought of and regulated only as live performance, while the protection and preservation of musical heritage is not contemplated in the Italian legal system. Hence the need for ethnomusicology, as a new discipline straddling musicology and demoethno-anthropology, to engage in defining music assets, be they material or intangible, also in the light of recent UNESCO legislation. This means recognising and defining what can be considered cultural heritage in the sphere of oral-tradition music, including audiovisual recordings and documentation, musical instruments, archives and knowledge handed down orally.

The Institute for Comparative Music Studies has invited various professionals to discuss these issues in order to gain recognition for musical heritage and the role of the “musicologist” within the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism: experts in the field of ethnomusicol- ogy; lecturers from the University of Bologna School of Specialisation in Musical Heritage and the University of Perugia School of Specialisation in Demoethno-anthropological Heritage; ethnomusicologists from the conservation agencies; and members of ministerial institutions responsible for managing musical heritage, such as the Istituto Centrale per i Beni Sonori ed Audiovisivi and the Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti Musicali.

Study Day Giacomo Manzoni and literature: Celebrating the Composer’s Ninetieth Birthday

In conjunction with the concert and round table devoted to Giacomo Manzoni on 3 June at the Teatro Verdi, Padua, the Institute of Music will hold a study day on the composer’s relationship with the literary world. Even when a student, Manzoni was particularly interested in 20th-century literature, especially German literature. In 1955 he graduated in foreign languages and literature from Bocconi University with a thesis on the presence of music in the works of Thomas Mann. The Lübeck writer’s important influence on him is demonstrated by the opera Doktor Faustus (1989). Manzoni’s vocal and theatrical compositions are based on a peculiar technique of reassembling and elaborating texts, revealing a marked aptitude for literary creation. Starting from the materials preserved in the Institute of Music archive, Giacomo Albert, Pietro Cavallotti, Giorgio Panizza and Elena Polledri will deal with paradigmatic cases concerning the setting to music of texts by Hölderlin, Beckett, Ginsberg and various Italian poets (Caproni, Zanzotto, Leonetti, Fortini and Raboni).

International conference FontanaArte. House of Glass

In close correlation with the exhibition FontanaArte. House of Glass, this conference will explore the unique creative process bound up with the production and market success of the Milanese company by examining the policies and management of its artistic directors. The participants will analyse the trends and the most important figures who shaped the evolution of design in the various production sectors. Initially founded as manufacturers specialised in glass sheets for building purposes, the company then moved on to the production of unique pieces for glass furnishings. The undisputed qualitative growth of FontanaArte was reflected on the national and international scene with a multifaceted range of solutions and continuously developing areas of research. From 1932 onwards, under the direction of Gio Ponti, one of the most renowned architects and designers of the time, the FontanaArte brand was synonymous with creativity and avant-garde experimentation. Despite the fact that the limited production of the 1950s grew into mass production, the products never lost their uniqueness, so much so that a good number of models continue to be bestsellers for the company. The conference will focus therefore on the specific characteristics of FontanaArte throughout the crucial decades of production. The in-depth studies will primarily concentrate on the excellent glass processing with particularly significant examples (among the most celebrated names is architect Gae Aulenti), but also on the functional strategies concerning light in space and the interaction between user and designed environment. In such cases, lighting was often conceived to be adapted in an original way to personal needs by taking into account diversity of contexts.

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Conference Comics and the Invisible: Intertwining Academic and Artistic perspectives

The theme of the invisible in spiritual, social and geographical terms as developed in the context of graphic book illustration and comics was the focus of the Invisible Lines travelling project, cofunded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and created by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities of Giorgio Cini Foundation in collaboration with Hamelin Associazione Culturale (Italy), Baobab Books (Czech Republic) and Central Vapeur (France). Three workshops for twelve selected young artists were organised for 2021 (Venice, Tabor and Strasbourg). They are now being followed up in 2022 by three publications and three exhibitions (Bologna, Tabor and Strasbourg). The conference, the last stage of this intense long journey, returns to the concept of invisibility to ask if, and how, the ninth art can represent the invisible. To be attended by artists and academics, the conference will end with a “drawing concert” directed by ingenious artists Stefano Ricci and Manuele Fior.

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Admission is free upon registration on the registration form.

Non-Belief and Non-Believers: evolution and challenges of contemporary irreligiousness

This Conference, organised by the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR) with the collaboration of the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilizations and Spiritualties and of the University of Piemonte Orientale, aims to investigate the heterogeneous phenomenon of contemporary unbelief from a multifaceted perspective which includes the juridical and socio-anthropological point of view.

This field of investigation, little explored at a scientific level, will be analyzed under the multiple aspects of individual and collective phenomenology, without neglecting the confrontation with the challenges of secularization and post-secularization, not least the tension between freedom of expression and protection of sacred, particularly evident in matters of blasphemy laws. The prismatic identities of irreligiousness will be compared on an international level, in a dialogue that also involves the increasingly emerging parodic religions, with the aim of drawing common lines in an approach that is not identitarian but rather the exercise of religious freedom.

Programme 15:00 – 19:00

15:00 Welcome Greetings:

Roberto Grendene (The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, Italy)
Francesco Piraino (Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities, Giorgio Cini Foundation)
Roberto Mazzola (Ecclesiastical Law and Intercultural Law, University of Piemonte Orientale)

15:30 Speeches:

Non religious belief landscape of Europe
Andrew Copson (President of Humanists International)

Freedom of speach and Blasphemy laws
Marco Croce (University of Florence)

17:10 Coffee break

17:30 Round Table:

Moderator: Francesco Alicino (LUM University)

The diversity and recent evolution of non-religion in Europe

Anne-Laure Zwilling (CNRS, Strasbourg)

Secularizations and their posts: crisis of the secularization theory and emergence of a post secular paradigm
Debora Spini (New York University in Florence and Syracuse University in Florence)

Why religion is different?
Victor Javier Vazquez Alonso (University of Sevilla)

The conference is in English with simultaneous translation into Italian

For more information:
non-belief.conference@cini.it

Reservation required

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