The conference, dedicated to the relationship between spirituality and medicine from a comparative and trans-historical perspective, explores folk, vernacular, complementary, alternative, indigenous and biological medicine. The healing movements alternative to scientific medicine that challenged the management of the pandemic often have religious and/or spiritual roots and lead to political repercussions of great impact, providing new energy to nationalism, populism and fundamentalism. The conference will bring together anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, historians and experts in religious studies.
The conference is organized jointly by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities (Fondazione Giorgio Cini) the Center for the Study of World Religions (Harvard Divinity School), the Center for the Study of Lived Religion (Università Ca’ Foscari) and the HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing.
Spiritualities and Healing in Global and Transhistorical Perspectives is part of the annual thematic programme Democracy and Pandemics, which will be highlighted by the exhibition Venice and Epidemies, taking place at the Longhena Library from 20 June.
programmE
9:30 – 10am | Welcome Greetings
- Francesco Piraino (Fondazione Giorgio Cini)
- Giovanna Parmigiani (Harvard University)
- Emily Pierini (Sapienza University of Rome)
10 – 11:30am | Panel: Spiritualities and Healing in the Mediterranean and Beyond
- Giovanna Parmigiani (Harvard University)
Magic and Healing in Southern Italy: Spiritual Pizzica as a Magical Practice
- Theodoros Kyriakides (University of Cyprus)
Magico-Religious Proximity and the Aesthetics of Healing in Cypriot Yitíes and Yiatrosóphia
- Francesca Conti (The American University of Rome)
Secret Words Revealed: Gender, Tradition, and Change among Italian Folk Healers and Segnature
Chair: Francesco Piraino (Fondazione Giorgio Cini)
11:30 – 12pm | Coffee Break
12 – 1pm | Panel: Spirituality, Healing, and COVID-19
Chair: Giovanna Parmigiani (Harvard University)
2:30 – 4:30pm | Panel: Spiritualities and Healing in Historical Perspective
- Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir and Ali Qadir (Tampere University, Finland)
Mystical Consciousness and Healing: Modern Eastern Orthodox Mystics between Trascendence and Community
- Claudia Stella Geremia (Harvard University)
Enchanting Remedies: The Donne de Fora and the Blurred Lined between Magic and Healing (16 th -20 th Centuries)
- Silke Felber (University of Arts, Linz, Austria)
Tracing the Pomander: Aromatic Medicine, Colonial Extraction, and the Becoming of the Body in Early Modern Europe
- Maryam Abbasi (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)
The Zar Ritual: Spirits, Healing, and Cultural Heritage in Southern Iran
Chair: Giovanna Capponi (Universitade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)
10 – 11:30am | Panel: Healing between Spiritualities and Biomedicine
- Emily Pierini (Sapienza University of Rome)
Doctors, Saints, and Spirits: Therapeutic Itineraries between Spirituality and Biomedicine
- Géraldine Mossière (Université de Montréal, Canada)
The Work of Energy in Mind-Body Practices: A New Medicine? The Cases of 5 Rhythms and Core Energetics
- Cecilia Draicchio (KU Leuven)
Taking Belief Seriously? Looking at the Intersections of Psychiatry and Spiritual Healing in Ghana Through and Old-Fashioned Category
Chair: Joseph Sanzo (Ca’ Foscari Universtiy of Venice)
11:30 – 12pm Coffee Break
12 – 13pm | Panel: Healing Sounds
- Jessica Roda (Georgetown University)
Jewish Healing, Sounds, Body, and the Global Culture of Wellness
- Zeynep Bulut (Queen’s University Belfast)
Experimental Music as a Sustainable Care Model
Chair: Francesco Piraino (Fondazione Giorgio Cini)
2:30 – 4pm | Panel: Spiritualities, Healing, and Politics
- Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira (University of Cambridge)
Mental Healing, Nation Building, and Alternative Modernities in Early 20th-Century China
- Pilar Morena d’Alò (Newcastle University)
Spirituality as Decolonisation: Co-option and Embracement in Argentine Feminism
- Fernanda Gebara (Yorenka Tasorentsi Institute)
Ancestral Medicines, Biocultural Conservation, and the Politics of Recognition: Indigenous Spiritualities as Pathways to Healing the Future
Chair: Giovanna Parmigiani (Harvard University)
10 – 11am | Panel: Spiritualities and Healing from South America
- Giovanna Capponi (Universitade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)
Health Practices in Afro-Brazilian Religions: Navigating Science, Ecology, and Public Health Crises
- Piera Talin (Center for the Study of Lived Religion at Cà Foscari University of Venice)
Rite and Treatment in Ayahuasca Religions and Urban Neo-Shamanic Ayahuasca Groups
Chair: Emily Pierini (Sapienza University of Rome)
11 – 11:30am Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30pm Round Table
The conference will be held in English.
On the occasion of the forthcoming opening of the exhibition The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel, to be held on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, a public event will precede and explore its principal themes in greater depth.
Organised during the opening days of the Biennale, the initiative forms part of the Biennale Architettura 2025 – 19. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, it broadens the Biennale’s discourse, placing particular emphasis on the role of the museum in shaping the future of architecture. The morning of discussions brings together architects and museum professionals for a series of conversations dedicated to one of the key sites of contemporary architectural experimentation: the museum.
The initiative aims to foster a dynamic dialogue on the contribution of architecture and architects to the development of museum cultural policies and to the shaping of our relationship with art, in both urban and non-urban contexts.
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10:00 | Introduction by Béatrice Grenier
10:15 – 10:45 | Cultural Infrastructure for urban transformation
Joshua Ramus, REX
Andrés Jaque, Office for Political Innovation
Antoine Picon, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
11:00 – 11:30 | The Architectural Layers of the Museum
Cecilia Puga, Museo Cileno di Arte Precolombiana
Giovanna Borasi, Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
Manuel Segade, Museo Reina Sofía
11:45 – 12:15 | Rethinking Pavilions As Potential Museums
Lina Ghotmeh, Lina Ghotmeh Architecture
Nicolas Fayad, EAST Architecture
Chris Dercon, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
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One of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s earliest institutes, the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society dates back to 1955. Its main purpose for decades has been to make a fundamental contribution to the study of the history of Venice through the collection of documentation, research, the publication of the journal Studi Veneziani and the organisation
of seminars and scientific meetings. This year, through the participation of expert scholars, we are celebrating seven decades of activity by recalling the figures of the directors who have led the Institute, the scientific and publishing experiences, all with an eye to the future. As part of the seminar, volume 87–88 of Studi Veneziani (2023) will be presented.
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Egidio Ivetic
Introduction
Marcello Verga
Full Professor of Early Modern History, University of Florence
Italian Historiography and the History of Venice
Niccolò Zorzi
Full Professor of Byzantine Civilisation, University of Padua
Agostino Pertusi, Director
Antonella Barzazi
Full Professor of Early Modern History, University of Padua
Gaetano Cozzi, Director
Gino Benzoni
Member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and former Director of the Institute for the History of Venetian Society and State
A Life Chapter at the Giorgio Cini Foundation
Egidio Ivetic
Director, Institute for the History of Venetian Society and State, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
New Challenges
Marco Pellegrini
Full Professor of Early Modern History, University of Bergamo
Presentation of Volume 87-88 of Studi Veneziani (2023)
moderator
Andrea Zannini
Full Professor of Early Modern History, University of Udine
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Accesso libero fino a esaurimento posti.
The Georg Solti Academy returns to Venice with the Solti-Peretti Repetiteurs Course. Founded by the legendary conductor Georg Solti, the Accademia is dedicated to training young opera singers and repetiteurs at the start of their professional experience. The courses are completely free of charge for students, giving them the opportunity to access training of the highest level. The Course allows six selected repetiteurs to hone their skills under the guidance of some of the finest international conductors, vocal coaches and repetiteurs.
On Friday 18 April at 6pm, at the conclusion of the Masterclass, the Sala degli Arazzi of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini will host the Academy concert with five grand pianos, six pianists and six singers. An innovative training course for those aspiring to conduct, which is a rarity in the Italian musical context.
On the occasion of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presents at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini the new architecture of its future building designed by Jean Nouvel in The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel.
This grounbreaking exhibition, part of the Collateral Events of the Biennale, will run from May 10 to September 14, 2025.
Since its creation, the Fondation Cartier has placed architecture at the heart of its programming and used it as a way to foster cross-disciplinary creative dialogue. Its current building designed by renowned architect Jean Nouvel and inaugurated in 1994 on Boulevard Raspail, Paris, broke all conventions of exhibition making by its apparent immateriality as a glass cube. Thirty years later, the Fondation Cartier commissioned to Jean Nouvel a new building set to open late 2025 at the Place du Palais Royal, Paris, next to the Louvre. Pushing the boundaries of architectural design, it embodies the Fondation’s mission to engage all forms of contemporary creation. The exhibition presented by the Fondation Cartier at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini unveils the innovative design concepts of this new landmark building and explores the future of architecture through its lenses.
It draws inspiration from Nouvel’s critical text, written in 1980: The future of architecture is no longer architectural. The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain by Jean Nouvel revisits this statement and restages the architect’s contextual approach, consisting in creating spaces that are not merely buildings but cultural and intellectual environments, in an architecture that transcends boundaries. In his project for the Fondation Cartier’s new space, architecture becomes a platform for the broader spectrum of human intelligence, including the visual arts, philosophy, and technology, in echo with the Biennale’s central theme, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.
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Open daily from 11am to 7pm. Closed on Wednesdays.
Free admission
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The Fondazione Giorgio Cini has always had a vocation for dialogue between the humanities and sciences, and is recognised as a place for reflection on global issues.
With the symposium Global Health in the Age of AI: Charting a Course for Ethical Implementation and Societal Benefit, organised last November, it renewed this commitment, inaugurating a new cycle of international meet ings to facilitate the identification of solutions to rise to contemporary challenges.
This year, the symposium Democracy and Pandemics aims to explore how democracies can address the challenges posed by pandemics, approaching the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. The symposium brings together experts from medicine, economics, politics, sociology, philosophy and law to develop comprehensive and sustainable solutions.
The event underlines the importance of international collaboration, and aims to offer concrete reflections to minimise the human and economic damage of future health crises.
Throughout its history, Venice has been ravaged by dramatic epidemics. Votive basilicas such as the ‘Salute’ and the ‘Redentore’ are traces of this. However, Venice has always been able to react, developing rules and structures to prevent and contain its pandemics. It is no coincidence that words like ‘lazarette’ and ‘quarantine’ originated here in Venice. We will also offer an account of this activity of the Republic, with a series of cultural events organised by the Foundation’s Institutes, ranging from historical narratives to artistic recollections, from theatre to concerts.
Concert | Musical Direction by Kudsi Erguner and Giannis Koutis
Building on a decade-long collaboration with Kudsi Erguner, artistic director of the advanced training project in Ottoman classical music Birûn, the Institute presents an event dedicated to interfaith dialogue.
Two choirs, Byzantine and Ottoman, have been invited to perform in Venice, accompanied on the ney flute by Kudsi Erguner himself. The repertoire includes significant Muslim and Eastern Orthodox Christian musical works, composed within the cosmopolitan context of Constantinople during the Ottoman period.
The event is held thanks to the contribution of the Fondation A.G. Leventis
www.leventisfoundation.org | p.panayi.cy@icloud.com
Free admission until capacity is reached | 18:00
From 3 to 5 March, the seminar Singing in the air, with masks, organised in collaboration with Isabelle Moindrot and Giulia Filacanapa, professors at the Théâtre Performance et Societé of the Université Paris 8 and the École Universitaire de Recherche ArTeC – Nanterre, will be held at the Institute of Theatre and Opera.
The seminar, a follow-up chapter to the Singing in the pool seminar hosted last year, focuses on the discovery and study of the theatrical mask, with particular reference to the aerial environment. The students attend a lecture on the history of theatrical scenography by the director, Professor Maria Ida Biggi, who gives them an overview of the research carried out by important scenographers. In addition, the students present can view sketches, masks and preparatory materials relating to some of the productions of set designer Santuzza Calì, whose entire documentary archive is preserved at the Institute.
With his threefold activity as composer, conductor and theorist, Pierre Boulez profoundly influenced twentieth-century musical thought.
On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth, a workshop in the Research- Led Performance cycle focusing on conducting orchestral ensembles is offered. The programme, coordinated by Marco Angius, includes four compositions that reflect Boulez’s sound world: Anton Webern’s Symphony op. 21, Edgard Varèse’s Octandre, Pierre Boulez’s Mémoriale, and Niccolò Castiglioni’s Tropi. Eight young conductors who have shown interest and aptitude for the repertoire in question are to be selected through a call for applications. Practical sessions alternate with theoretical sessions held by Pietro Cavallotti, Paolo Dal Molin, Massimiliano Locanto and Francisco Rocca.
The workshop ends with a concert on 7 March, at 6 p.m., in the Sala degli Arazzi of the Foundation, at the conclusion of a three-day workshop focused on conducting orchestral ensembles, within the Research-led Performance cycle.
The concert programme includes performances of pieces by Niccolò Castiglioni, Tropi (1959, for chamber ensemble), Pierre Boulez, Mémoriale (1985, for solo flute and eight instruments), Edgard Varèse, Octandre (1923, for eight instruments) and Anton Webern, Sinfonia op. 21 (1928).
Concert | 6 p.m.
The Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi organizes six masterclasses on the performance practice of the compositions by Antonio Vivaldi, dedicated to young singers (max 39 years) and players.
Each meeting of three/five day each will take place at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice:
19-22 February, 2-4 April, 28-31 May, 16-19 July, 10-13 September, 25-29 November.
Deadlines for presentation of requests: 20 January, 3 March 28 April 13 June, 8 August and 24 October.
Teachers are Gemma Bertagnolli, Verónica Cangemi, e Antonio Frigé.
In cooperation with Fondazione Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation, lectures by musicologists from the research group La drammaturgia musicale a Venezia (1678-1792) are scheduled at each meeting.
Download Accademia Vivaldi 2025
Calendar
19-22 February
Singing masterclass: Gemma Bertagnolli
2-4 April
Basso continuo masterclass: Antonio Frigé
28-31 May
Singing masterclass: Verónica Cangemi
15-19 July
Singing masterclass: Gemma Bertagnolli
10-13 September
Singing masterclass: Gemma Bertagnolli
26-29 November
Singing masterclass: Gemma Bertagnolli
