The conference sets out to commemorate Elena Povoledo, a major theatre scholar, whose library and entire archive has recently been donated by her grandchildren to the Centre for Study and Documentary Research into European  Theatre and Opera.

Elena Povoledo was a pioneer in Italian studies on the relationship between the  gurative and performing arts, especially from the 16th to the 18th centuries. She conducted long and varied research activities on themes in the history of theatre, stage design, theatre architecture and iconography. A lecturer at the Accademia d’Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico di Roma, she was also chief editor of the Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo since its foundation in 1952 and an authoritative collaborator of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini for exhibitions on the subject of theatre held in the 1960s and 70s. 

The conference will mainly focus on the themes she studied in the course of her career: Renaissance, Baroque and 18th-century theatre. One session will be devoted to stage design in the second half of the 20th century, a  eld in which she had direct personal relations with many leading  gures in Italian theatre. 

The conference will be attended by Maria Ines Aliverti, Lorenzo Bianconi, Maria Ida Biggi, Silvia Carandini, Roberto Ciancarelli, Giovanna D’Amia, Iain Fenlon, Martina Frank, Siro Ferrone, Cristina Grazioli, Renzo Guardenti, Raimondo Guarino, Gerardo Guccini, Francesca Guidolin, Isabella Innamorati, Deanna Lenzi, Sara Mamone, Stefano Mazzoni, Teresa Megale, Franco Perrelli, Elisabetta Povoledo, Lorenzo Salveti, Silvana Sinisi, Gianluca Stefani, Anne Surgers, Elena Tamburini, Annamaria Testaverde and Marianna Zannoni.