Previous events

2024

Zerocalcare talks too much: Strategies of Generating a Self-Narrative

Karin Kukkonen (Department of Litterature, Area studies and European Languagues at the University of Oslo) will give a talk about how we create our selves through the stories that we tell

Time and place: Dec. 17, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive narratology have long been discussing in how far narratives produce the basis for identity and sense of self. Connecting our pasts with our present experience provides templates for meaning making, which can be revised, discarded or intensified. Graphic novels, in particular graphic memoirs, such as Spiegelman’s Maus, Bechdel’s Fun Home or Satrapi’s Persepolis, reflect on how selves, lives and narratives are carefully constructed and narrated.

The main criticism voiced in the discussion around self-narratives has been Galen Strawson’s claim that it is possible to have a sense of self without articulating a life story. In my paper, I propose to contrast Strawson’s minimal case with the maximal case of self-narration in Zerocalcare’s Netflix series Strappare Lungo i Bordi (Tear Along the Dotted Line, 2022). What model of self narration does the artist develop across the mini-series and how does it relate to his work in graphic reportage, such as Kobane Calling (2015)? What can we learn about the possible maximum limits for telling stories about selves? More generally, I will also address the issue of how works of art and artifice can contribute to the philosophical and psychological discussions.

Prof. Karin Kukkonen works on the relationship between literature and the human mind, how it models consciousness and how writers work creatively. Her interest in the history of the novel has also led her to focus on narratives and cognitive approaches to literature.

Being Roman in Late Antiquity

This international symposium explores the various meaning that being/non-being/becoming Roman had in Late Antiquity.

Time and place: Dec. 13, 2024 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

For anyone living under the Roman rule, being Roman was an intrinsically ambivalent concept, which could connote both an attachment to the city of Rome and being a citizen; for Christians, who cast themselves as a new nation, being Roman generally implied being pagan but Roman citizenship also involved them in a complex dialectic of privilege and heritage (anticipated by Paul’s appeal to his legal status in Acts 22). The colloquium explores the various meanings that being/non-being/becoming Roman had in late antiquity. As part of our conversation, we expect to touch on the questions of temporality (the interplay between the Romes of the past and the Rome of any given historical present), imperial self-representation, and the perceptions of relative outsiders, such as former barbarians or the inhabitants of Eastern provinces. We will also scrutinize the relevance of the concept of “identity” to the task of making sense of Romanicity in late antiquity.

PROGRAMME

11:00-12:00 morning session

Welcome and introduction

Kristin Aavitsland (Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome)

The Laws of War: Augustine's Women in The City of God, Book 1.

Susanna Elm (University of California, Berkeley)

12:00-13:00 building tour and lunch for participants

13:00-14:40 afternoon session i: Romanitas as a Challenge

Chaired by Daniele Miano (University of Oslo)

Proudly Roman - but why? Perspectives on Roman identity from Priscus of Panium and Cosmas Indicopleustes.

Federico De Romanis (Tor Vergata)

Roman or Christian? Burial practices and identities in Late Antiquity.

Irene Selsvold (The Norwegian Institute in Rome)

14:40-15:00 coffee break

15:00-17:00 afternoon session ii: Peripheral Perspectives

Chaired by Christopher Siwicki (The Norwegian Institute in Rome)

Being Roman through re-creation of the past.

Siri Sande (The Norwegian Institute in Rome)

Outside the centre: Aphraates, Eusebius and an idea of romanitas.

Claudia Tavolieri (Tor Vergata)

The importance of not being Roman: Provincialism and cosmopolitanism in Gregory of Nazianzus. Boris Maslov (University of Oslo)

17:15 closing discussion and reception (followed by dinner for participants)

The symposium is organised by the University of Oslo:

Boris Maslov, the Department of Philosophy, Classica, History og Art and Ideas

Christopher Siwicki, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The event is co-sponsored by the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley, and the Norwegian Institute in Rome

Kindly contact one of the organisers if you are interested in participating in the symposium.

Organiser

Det norske institutt i Roma, Universitetet i Oslo

L'uomo con le radici in cielo

Un libro e un autore all'Istituto di Norvegia in Roma: Dialogo tra Alessandro Scafi e Franco Cardini, moderato da Elena Pandolfi

Time and place: Dec. 11, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Istituto di Norvegia

Autori e artisti hanno già affrontato nelle forme più diverse interrogativi fondamentali e domande specifiche; storie d’amore e di educazione sentimentale si leggono nei classici di tutti i tempi e tutte le tradizioni; il tumore è protagonista di romanzi, racconti di vita vissuta, oltre che di studi scientifici e storici. L’uomo con le radici in cielo si distingue perché tratta di cultura, filosofia e religione pur non essendo un trattato; parla di amore, ma è il romanzo di una storia vera; descrive un’esperienza vissuta di cancro e trasformazione interiore, ma la devastazione della malattia non è la sola protagonista, ed è vissuta e descritta in un contesto positivo di riflessione e speranza L’uomo con le radici in cielo è allo stesso tempo una storia medica e umana di male e guarigione, una meditazione sulla vita e sulla morte, su Dio e sull’uomo, sulla dinamica tra libertà, vocazione e destino.

"Questa è la storia vera di un viaggo liberatorio dall'ego al logos"

Franco Cardini

Letture dal libro: Carolina Zaccarini

Alessandro Scafi insegna Storia della Cultura nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento presso il Warburg Institute di Londra. È autore di numerose pubblicazioni accademiche. Per un pubblico non specialista ha scritto Eurodesign. Immagini, avventure e misteri della moneta europea (Bruno Mondafori, 2009), Alla scoperta del paradiso: un atlante del cielo sulla terra (Sellerio, 2011) e Maps of Paradise (British Library e University of Chicago Press, 2013). Ha collaborato ai programmi culturali della BBC, di Radio Vaticana, Radio Svizzera e Radio Rai. A 2023 teneva la Conferenza L’Orange presso l’Istituto di Norvegia in Roma.

L'evento è aperto, ma si prega isciversi qui: nettskjema.no/a/scafi

Seguirà un rinfresco.

Organiser

Istituto di Norvegia in Roma

Director´s Seminar: Cathrine Tønseth Sundém

From Drawing to Perception: A Study of the Conjectural Orthogonal Section of the Baths of Caracalla by Andrea Palladio

Time and place: Dec. 10, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Catherine Tønseth Sundém, formerly research fellow at the DNIR, is presently working on a MPhil in History of Art and Architecture at the University of Cambridge. In this presentation, she will explain her dissertation project, focussing on Andrea Palladio's drawing of the ancient Baths of Caracalla. She aims to show how architectural drawings serve as a crucial link between an idea and the built. Through her study of the conjectural orthogonal sections of the Baths of Caracalla by Andrea Palladio from the 1540s, she will to discuss how the orthogonal projection influenced the perception of the architectural space of the baths. The project sees the drawing operating as a tool from two perspectives. First, for the drawer who comprehends and re-composes a complete building from ruin on paper, and second, for the observer projecting the interpretation of the drawing back onto ruin — thus completing the dynamic interplay between idea and interpreted reality.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

International Conference: Circulation of Written Heritage

Networks, policies, and promotion (15th-18th centuries)

Time and place: Dec. 5, 2024 – Dec. 6, 2024, Norwegian Institute in Rome

3rd International Conference Circulation of Written Heritage

Networks, policies, and promotion (15th-18th centuries)

Since the advent of the printing press, the circulation of written cultural heritage has been shaped by the policies and regulations dictated by various powers throughout history. These regulations sought to strike a balance between control and promotion.

Numerous institutional mechanisms were put in place to control the production, circulation, and consumption of books, with far-reaching consequences. Examples include printing privileges and state or religious censorship.

These norms and regulations interacted with the reality of the actors involved in the production and distribution of books. As a result, networks operating in the book markets developed various strategies, including the creation of lobbies to influence decision-making processes, the use of alternative institutions, or simply not complying with the rules.

The aim of the conference

The aim of this conference is to examine how these mechanisms of control and promotion have influenced the production and circulation of written cultural heritage, as well as their interplay with commercial, political, financial, and legal networks.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Rules and regulations for the circulation of written knowledge.
• Printing privileges: balancing private interests and knowledge control.
• The control of production: censorship, promotion, and lobbies.
• Commercial networks, agents, and logistics in the circulation of written knowledge.
• The financial architecture of book markets.
• Materials and authorship.

This conference particularly encourages incorporating a gender perspective in discussing these themes.

Programme

Thursday 5 December

9:00–10:00: Coffee and welcome

10:00–12:00: First panel: Circulation and dissemination of books

Communication as a factor in the dissemination of book knowledge: Agents and Transports in the Connected Networks of Anton Koberger and Johann Amerbach (1471/1478-1513). Martina Hacke, University of Dusseldorf.

The financial architecture of the Atlantic book market in the 16th century: an insight from Seville. Montserrat Cachero and Natalia Maillard, Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

Riverases and Agundezes. Two family strategy models in the emerging book market in New Spain. Nora Jimenez, Colegio de Michoacán.

The circulation of the clandestine manuscript in 17th-century scholarly Italy. Francesca Nepori, Archivio di Stato di Massa e Sezione di Pontremoli.

12:00–14:00: Lunch

14:00–15:30: Second panel: The Escorial Monastery and the book world in Early Modern Spain

"That most famous library, well-known throughout Europe": The Escorial library in the Republic of Letters (XVIth-XVIIth century). Guy Lazure, University of Windsor.

Beyond the Escorial Monastery: Secondary Actors and Unofficial Agents in the Networks of Liturgical Control during the late 16th Century in Spain. Jorge Fragua, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

The limits of printing privileges: the relationship between the Royal Company of Printers and the Monastery of El Escorial for printing liturgical books (1764-1825). Alberto José Campillo Pardo, Be4Copy/University of Oslo.

Friday 6 December

9:30–10:30: Coffee and welcome

10:30–12:00: Third panel: Production and materials

The mechanism of typographical vignettes in the Venetian Interdict (1606-1607). Strategies and circulation in Roberto Meietti's printed products. Simone Lonati, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

'We are currently printing a new book': The advertisement of books and the establishment of international book networks in the 17th century Huguenot gazettes. Panagiotis Georgakakis, St. Andrews University.

De la Roma clásica a las aulas jesuíticas. Microhistoria editorial de las "Cartas" de Cicerón y de las "Fabulas" de Fedro (Burgos, 1755). Alberto Gamarra, Bibliopegia/Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

12:00–14:00: Lunch

14:00–16:00: Fourth panel: Digital Humanities for book history

The Be4Copy Nodegoat Database for the study of the system of book privilege in early modern Europe. Andrea Ottone, Be4Copy/University of Oslo.

Red_Libros2: a Database for the study of early modern book market

Montserrat Cachero and Natalia Maillard, Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

Los libros de los clerigos en la Nueva Galicia (1711-1814). Marina Mantilla Trolle and Claudia Alejandra Benítez Palacios, Universidad de Guadalajara.

Confección de la base de Datos LAI (Libros a Indias) 1584-1660", Nora Edith Jiménez, Colegio de Michoacán

For more information, please contact ajcpardo@iakh.uio.no .

Scientific committee

Alberto José Campillo Pardo – University of Oslo

Marius Buning – University of Oslo

Natalia Maillard – Universidad Pablo de Olavide

Montserrat Cachero – Universidad Pablo de Olavide

Secretary

Rocío Molina – Universidad Pablo de Olavide

Funding

The conference is funded by the ERC Before Copyright project (ERC, BE4COPY, 101042034) of the University of Oslo (Norway) and the I+D project Las redes del comercio de libros en la Monarquía Hispánica: mercados, agentes y arquitectura financiera. 1501-1648 (PID2022-137793NB-I00) of the Pablo de Olavide University (Spain).

Organiser

BE4COPY and RedLibros

Director's Seminar: Janicke Heldal

Globalization through Education: Jesuit Pedagogy from 1540 to 1773 and Its Influence on the Global, Modern Educational Architecture

Time and place: Dec. 3, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

Janicke Heldal is Professor of pedagogy at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo, Norway. In November and December, she is Scholar in Residence at the DNIR. It this presentation, she will discuss how Jesuit pedagogy has been central to globalization and what she designates the modern educational architecture.

Despite Jesuit pedagogy, what is often referred to as Ignatian pedagogy, being widespread in large parts of the world, there is relatively little research on it compared to, i.e., pedagogy with roots in the Enlightenment and Bildungstradition. This applies particularly in Scandinavia. Most of the research that has been published is from religious, historical, and theological researchers and, naturally enough, from the Jesuit academic community. The Jesuits were important to the colonization processes and contributed to this largely through education. There is a lack of pedagogical research that looks at the relationship between pedagogy, religion, and politics and what role education has had and has in the processes of globalization.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Novembre Nordico: Photographer Morten Krogvold

"The only development you can stop is your own."

Time and place: Nov. 27, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

In this talk, Morten Krogvold will present his profound and acute perspectives on life and existence in his photographs.

Working on the basis of a profound knowledge of the history of photography and art, Norwegian photographer Morten Krogvold is a master of portraiture and slow photography. His creative projects, characterised by a strong focus on the timelessness and transience of life, can take decades to develop. Krogvold is a gifted communicator who has given workshops, seminars and lectures in more than 20 countries. He has also directed television programmes and published several books. He is best known for his black and white portraits of artists, politicians and celebrities, but is also recognised for his images of nature and classical architecture. One of Norway's most prominent photographers and cultural commentators since the 1980s, Morten was made a Knight of the Order of St. Olav in 2005 for his commitment to photography.

To participate, sign up at events@roma.uio.no

The event is part of the festival Novembre Nordico, taking place in Rome 27 October to 30 November, offering numerous events about Scandindavian culture. See the full programme here.

Novembre Nordico is organized by the embassies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the Circolo Scandinavo and the four Scandinavian research institutes in Rome: lAccademia di Danimarca, Istituto di Finlandia a Roma, Istituto di Norvegia in Roma, and l’Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici.

Director's Seminar: Ingrid S. A. Kibsgaard

Appeals to the Apostolic Penitentiary from the Spanish Inquisition

Time and place: Nov. 26, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

In this seminar, our Scholar in Residence Ingrid S. A Kibsgaard from University of Bergen presents her research on early modern sources from the papal office of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

The Spanish society in the Middle Ages was dominated by religious authorities, especially following the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. The Inquisition aimed to identify, investigate, and punish heresy to unify the population under the Catholic faith. This had severe consequences for the accused, making it difficult for them to reintegrate into society. While previous research has documented various efforts by these individuals to seek a second chance, the possibility of appealing to the Apostolic Penitentiary in Rome remains unexplored. The Penitentiary, a papal office within the Roman Curia, dealt with serious cases related to sin and crimes against the regulations of canon law, and handled incoming supplications from individuals across Europe seeking forgiveness or permission from the Catholic Church. This presentation explores what these supplications can reveal about the relationship between the Penitentiary and the Spanish Inquisition, and how these letters reflect the experiences of individuals in Spain with the Inquisition.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Novembre Nordico: Nordic Crossroads

Cultural centres and architectural exchanges between Italy and the North in the early modern period

Time and place: Nov. 25, 2024 2:30 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

This conference investigates the relations between the Nordic countries and Rome and Italy from the late Middle Ages to the early modern age. Political, religious, cultural and architectural links define a network of routes across Europe, and determine the importance of the Nordic centres in a fertile and complex confrontation with the south of the continent.

This evening's event is now fully booked.

To participate by zoom, log on to this link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/67382319905

Programme

14:30-16:20 Part I: Nordic Crossroads. Cultural Centres and Exchanges in Early Modern Europe

Classicism, Confessionalism, and Urban Planning in 17th Century Norway. Kristin B. Aavitsland, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Building Rome at Home: Two Norwegian Travelers to Baroque Rome. Victor Plahte Tschudi, Oslo School of Architecture

The Construction of the Classical Language of Architecture in Early Modern Denmark. Christoffer Thorborg, Arkitektskolen Århus

The Transfer of Italian Models in 17th Century Sweden. David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl’s Ceiling Painting (1675) in the Palace of Nobility in Stockholm. Sabrina Norlander Elisasson, University of Stockholm

The South-North Cultural Exchanges in the Easter Part of Sweden and Its Capital Turku in the 17th-18thCenturies. Panu Savolainen, Aalto University Helsinki

16:20-16:40 Break

16:40-18:15 Part II: Models and Materials. Architectural Itineraries Between Rome and the North

Introduction to the Research Programme “Rome in the Nordic Countries”. Antonello Alici, Università Politecnica delle Marche; Mario Bevilacqua, Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma/ Sapienza Università di Roma; Saverio Sturm, Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma / Università Roma Tre

Lambert van Haven’s Collection of Prints (1696). Dario Beccarini, Sapienza Università di Roma

Danish and Scandinavian Artists in the Rome of Bernini. Marco Coppolaro, Sapienza Università di Roma

The Travel Sketchbook by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz, 1751. Olimpia Ratto Vaquer, Università Roma Tre

Charles Bassi (1772-1840), Wood and Classicism in Finland. Anna Pichetto Fratin, Università Roma Tre

Turf, Stone, Concrete: Materials of Icelandic Architecture in the 18th and 19th Century. Sofia Nannini, Politecnico di Torino

18:15-18:30 Break

18:30-19:00 Part III: Keynote Lecture

Rome and the North: Reception and Dialogue. Kristoffer Neville, University of California, Riverside

Director's Seminar: Vegard Halland

The Macella in Pompeii and by Forum Romanum: Architecture, Function and Societal Aspects before Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD

Time and place: Nov. 19, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Vegard Halland, one of this term's visiting fellows, is doing his Master's Thesis in archaology at the University of Bergen, examining the architectural, functional and social aspects of the macellum in Pompeii and the macellum at the Roman Forum in Rome prior to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. In this presentation, he will show how these ancient Roman marketplaces served as important hubs where citizens gathered to exchange goods, ideas and social interactions. He compares and contrasts the Roman and the Pompeiian sites through a survey of archaeological finds and historical sources.

In his study, Halland proposes that both macella shared fundamental architectural principles reflecting Roman building techniques. Furthermore, he suggests that the sites served as important meeting places for local communities, where activities and social hierarchies were influenced by their respective contexts. He aims to provide a holistic understanding of these Roman marketplaces, and to shed light on how different types of evidence complement each other when attempting to reconstruct the role of the macella in ancient Roman society.

NB! This presentation will be given in Norwegian.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Beauty and Proportion: Exploring Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean and Beyond, 300–1100

International symposium in memory of Prof. Hjalmar Torp (1924–2023) on the 100th anniversary of his birth

Time and place: Nov. 13, 2024 2:00 PM – Nov. 15, 2024 3:00 PM, Norwegian Institute in Rome

In the second half of the twentieth century, great efforts were made in art historical research to get a better and more comprehensive understanding of the visual culture of the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, periods which previous scholarship pejoratively labelled the dark ages. Among excellent scholars who contributed immensely to shed light on this field, was the Norwegian art historian Hjalmar Torp (1924- 2023).

His fundamental research contributions, published in five languages (English, Italian, French, German and Norwegian), ranges from Byzantine mosaics in Greece, Langobard architecture and painting in Italy, to Coptic sculpture and architecture in Egypt.

The Norwegian Institute in Rome, an institution owing its existence to Hjalmar Torp, wants to honour its former Director and his scholarly achievements by organizing a symposium in his name on the centenary of his birth.

To attend, please register at events@roma.uio.no before 11th November.

Program

Wednesday 13th November

14:00 Coffee, registration

14:30 Welcome and introduction. Kristin B. Aavitsland, Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome (DNIR)

Session 1: Conceptions of Beauty. Chair: Caroline Goodson, American Academy in Rome

14:45 Beauty and Proportion: Asymmetrical Symmetry in Saintly Faces. Bente Kiilerich, University of Bergen

15:15 The Mongrel Beauty of Spolia Colonnades. Dale Kinney, Bryn Mawr

15:45 La scultura lignea bizantina. Canone e bellezza, forma e colore (Byzantine wooden sculpture. Canon and beauty, form and color). Silvia Pedone, Accademia dei Lincei, Rome

16:15 Discussion

16:45 Coffee break

Session 2: Sacred Space I. Chair: Lila Yawn, John Cabot University, Rome

17:15 A Heavenly Setting for Transcendent Man: The Dome as Visual Space and Symbol in Late Roman and Early Byzantine Art. Cecilia Olovsdotter, Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome

17:45 Sacred Spaces in an Expanded Medieval World: The Georgian Perspective. Erik Thunø, Rutgers University, New Jersey

18:15 Discussion

19:00 Reception at DNIR’s rooftop terrace

20:00 Conference dinner by invitation

Thursday 14th November

Session 3: Sacred Space II. Chair: Marina Prusac-Lindhagen, University of Oslo

09:30 The Christianisation of Sacred Space in the cities of Western Asia Minor in Late Antiquity. Irene Selvold, DNIR

10:00 Death in a Change of Time: A Tombstone Story on the Conversion from Pagan to Christian Funerary Ideologies in Asia Minor and Greece. Rasmus Brandt, DNIR

10:30 Discussion

11:00 Coffee break

Session 4: Representing Christ? Problems of contexts and iconographies. Chair: Kristin B. Aavitsland, DNIR

11:30 The bust with a Christogram in the mosaic at Hinton St. Mary - Christ or personification? Siri Sande, DNIR

12:00 From Rome to Iberia and Armenia: The Christ of “traditio legis” and related myths (400-900). Ivan Foletti, Masaryk University, Brno

12:30 Il pluteo protoromanico del Museo diocesano e Gallerie del Tiepolo di Udine. Laura Chinellato, Udine

13:00 Discussion

13:30 Lunch

Session 5: Rome. Chair: Irene Selsvold, DNIR

14:30 Rome’s Temple of the Sun in the Middle Ages. Robert Coates-Stephens, British School at Rome

15:00 The Old Testament Cycle in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. Sarah Bassett, Bloomington

15:30 Waters of Life: The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste and Theatres of Healing in the late Roman World. John Mitchell, East Anglia

16:00 Discussion

16:30 Coffee break

Session 6: In the memory of Hjalmar Torp. Chair: J. Rasmus Brandt, DNIR

17:00 The Professor: A Memorable Lesson in Methodology. Kristin B. Aavitsland, DNIR/ University of Oslo

17:30 Ricordi di una lunga conoscenza e di una cara amicizia. Valentino Pace, Rome / Udine

18:00 Concluding remarks

Friday 15th November

Excursion to Cori (for speakers at the conference).

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Erlend Myklebust

A Voyage to the Underworld: What the Latin Navigatio Brendani and the Old Irish Immram Maíle Dúin can teach us about Medieval “popular literature”

Time and place: Nov. 12, 2024 6:00 PM – Nov. 15, 2024 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

DNIR proudly presents the 2024 Winner of Hans Rasmus Astrup's Rome Award for Excellent Student Work: PhD student Erlend Myklebust, who will give this talk at the Director's Seminar, based on his award-winning Master’s thesis A Voyage to the Otherworld: A Comparative Analysis of the Latin Navigatio Brendani and the Old Irish Immram Maíle Dúin. This work was supervised by Professor Han Lamers and Dr Nicolai Engesland.

Journeys to wonderous places have played a fundamental part of literature from its earliest beginnings, as is evident from the classical epics of Homer and Vergil. Around the eighth century, an Irish scribe combined this literary trope with monastic teachings to great success when writing the Latin-language Navigatio Sancti Brendani; the story of the saint’s seven-year sea-journey became one of the most widely disseminated works of the Medieval Period. This story shares many features with the Irish vernacular immrama-genre, and especially its relationship to the vernacular Immram Maíle Dúin, have been a matter of great debate. The immram (literally ‘rowing-around’) presents the Irish warrior Mael Dúin on a quest to avenge the death of his father finding himself on a voyage through a number of wonderous islands. This talk will explore the relationship between the two texts and discuss what their relationship can tell us about the movements and developments of Medieval ‘popular literature’.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Novembre Nordico: Edvard Munch - un ritratto dell'artista

Incontro con Ivo de Figueiredo in dialogo con Kristin B. Aavitsland

Time and place: Nov. 7, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

Lo storico, scrittore e critico letterario Ivo de Figueiredo è autore della più recente biografia dedicata a Edvard Munch: Stormen (vol 1, 2023; vol. 2, 2024; La tempesta). La tempesta di energia creativa che portò Munch dalla nativa Løten ai cuori pulsanti di Berlino e Parigi di fine Ottocento è il filo conduttore della biografia di de Figueiredo, che abbraccia sia gli aspetti personali e umani di un artista ossessionato dalla creazione artistica sia il contesto storico-culturale dell’epoca in cui visse. L’incontro si svolge in lingua inglese.

Ivo de Figueiredo, storico, scrittore e critico letterario norvegese

Kristin B. Aavitsland, storica dell’arte e direttrice dell’Istituto di Norvegia

Organizzato da: Istituto di Norvegia / Ambasciata di Norvegia

L’evento ha capienza limitata. Si prega di prenotarsi inviando una email a events@roma.uio.no

Dal 27 ottobre al 30 novembre Roma svela il suo legame con le culture nordiche per la terza edizione di Novembre Nordico con numerosi eventi. Programma

Le Ambasciate di Danimarca, Finlandia, Norvegia e Svezia, il Circolo Scandinavo e i quattro Istituti culturali e scientifici nordici: l’Accademia di Danimarca, l’Istituto di Finlandia a Roma, l’Istituto di Norvegia in Roma, e l’Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma si uniscono in questa occasione per divulgare un ricco programma di iniziative per valorizzare il legame storico dei Paesi Nordici con la città di Roma e per creare nuovi momenti di scambio attraverso mostre, talk, concerti, proiezioni e le case di illustri personaggi storici aperte al pubblico.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Hildegunn Valen Kleive and Knut-Willy Sæther

Religion in Interdisciplinary Research

Time and place: Oct. 29, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Institute in Rome

DNIR welcomes Hildegunn Valen Kleive and Knut-Willy Sæther, both scholars of religious studies from Volda University College (VUC) in Western Norway. In their presentations they will introduce some examples of interdisciplinary research conducted at their institute at VUC. One is the ongoing FAITHED project which investigates the culture of religious minorities in Norway, especially children and youth with Muslim and Catholic background. They will also present ongoing interdisciplinary research on aesthetic experiences in nature and spirituality.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The 2024 L'Orange Lecture: The Art of Reading and the Studiolo of Urbino

We are delighted to welcome Prof. em. Lina Bolzoni of Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa to give this year's L'Orange Lecture.

Time and place: Oct. 22, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

As an internationally celebrated expert on Italian Renaissance literature and culture, Lina Bolzoni will lecture on the art of reading, presenting the famous late fifteenth-century studiolo or reading-room of the Ducal Palace at Urbino as an eloquent and informative case.

Abstract

The lecture begins with Marcel Proust’s beautiful definition of reading: “this wonderful miracle of reading which is communication in the heart of solitude” and goes back to the Renaissance, to the idea of reading as an encounter with the author.

Since these authors often belong to the past, our theme may be usefully renamed ‘reading as a dialogue with the dead’, a form of lay resurrection or a necromantic rite, to use an image dear to Thomas Greene.

The Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino makes a powerful case for the ways in which books and portraits can interact in the silent dialogue with viewer and reader.

About the lecturer

Lina Bolzoni is an historian of Italian literature and literary criticism. Since 1997, she has held a chair as Professor of Italian Literature at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.

She has been Visiting Professor at many European and American universities, including Harvard University, UCLA, New York University, and the Collège de France. She has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities and a Whitney J. Oates Short-Term Fellow of the Humanities Council at Princeton University.

Her research focus on topics like the relations between literature and philosophy, the sacred and the profane in the Renaissance period, on memory and rhetoric, and on portraiture in poetic and figurative traditions.

She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, national member of the Accademia dei Lincei, fellow of the British Academy, and director of the Morgana series of Renaissance texts and studies.

Among her many important works are La stanza della memoria (1995); La rete delle immagini. Predicazione in volgare dalle origini a Bernardino da Siena (2002; Brancati Prize, Balzan Prize and Viareggio Rèpaci Prize); Poesia e ritratto nel Rinascimento (2008); Il cuore di cristallo. Ragionamenti d'amore, poesia e ritratto nel Rinascimento (2010); ll lettore creativo. Percorsi cinquecenteschi fra memoria, gioco, scrittura (2012); L'Orlando furioso nello specchio delle immagini (2014); Una meravigliosa solitudine. L'arte di leggere nell'Europa moderna (2019); La Commedia di Dante nello specchio delle immagini (2021); Nel giardino dei libri (2023). Many of her books are translated to English and other languages.

The lecture will be given in English. Prof. Bolzoni will be introduced by DNIR's Honorary Fellow Dr. Clara Stella.

The event is open to everyone

To participate in person, please register before 21 October at 12 hrs to events@roma.uio.no

To participate by zoom: https://uio.zoom.us/j/65099684474

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Christians and Christianity in Fourth-Century Egypt

DNIR is delighted to host this conference on early Christianity, organized by the ERC-funded project Deconstructing Early Christian Metanarratives: Fourth-Century Egyptian Christianity in the Light of Material Evidence (DEChriM).

Time and place: Oct. 17, 2024 9:00 AM – Oct. 18, 2024 6:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

For any queries about this event, contact Prof. Victor Ghica.

Programme

Thursday 17 October

09:00 Welcome by Director Kristin Aavitsland

09:15 Alberto Camplani, Towards a history of the institutional Church in third- and fourth-century Egypt: The Christianisation of the chora, the expansion of the episcopal network, the struggle with competing movements, the self-representation

10:00 Ewa Wipszycka, The Melitian Church in the papyrological documentation

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Victor Ghica, The spread of Christianity in Egypt during the fourth century in light of archaeological sources: Chronological and topographical data

11:45 Christian Bull, Traditional cults in fourth-century Egypt

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Paola Buzi, Gianfranco Agosti, The Christian literature of fourth century Egypt

14:15 Hugo Lundhaug, Apocryphal literature in the fourth century

15:00 Cäcilia Fluck, Fourth-century Christian textiles (via Zoom)

15:45 Coffee break

16:00 Frank Feder, Earliest Coptic translations of the Bible

16:45 Discussions

19:30 Dinner

Friday 18 October

09:00 Ágnes Mihálykó, Nathan Chase, Liturgy and liturgical texts in fourth-century Egypt (partly via Zoom)

09:45 Leah Mascia, Transition to Christianity in post-mortem funerary rituals in fourth-century Egypt

10:30 Coffee break

10:45 Korshi Dosoo, Fourth-century magical texts in Egypt

11:30 Victor Ghica, Fourth-century Christian archaeological record of Egypt: What Christianity do the surviving monuments and artefacts reveal?

12:15 Lunch

13:30 Matthias Müller, The emergence of Coptic script and Coptic literary languages

14:15 Håkon Teigen, Victor Ghica, A Manichaean reading of the Nag Hammadi codices

15:00 Aaltje Hidding, Christianity at fourth-century Kysis. A local onomastic analysis and the debate on the Christian demography of the fourth century in Egypt

15:45 Coffee break

16:00 Aaltje Hidding, Joanna Wegner, Fourth-century Christian clergy in documentary sources

16:45 Discussions

17:30 Visit of the basilica of Santa Pudenziana

19:30 Dinner

Director's seminar: Laura Gutierrez Myran and Sunniva Mundal Haug

DNIR is delighted to present two of this terms' fellows working on their master's theses, Laura Gutierrez Myran and Sunniva Mundal Haug, both from the University of Bergen.

Time and place: Oct. 15, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

Visiting fellow Laura Gutierrez Myran, University of Bergen. The Ancient Roman Cult of Bacchus

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, the god Bacchus was associated with wine and drama. His cult was characterized by nocturnal excursions and ecstatic rituals. Unlike other cults, the cult of Bacchus was open to both female and male participants. In 186 B.C.E. the Roman Senate issued a decree forbidding activities in the Roman cult of the god. In her master’s thesis, Laura Gutierrez Myran investigates the problematic side of the cult through the Roman historian Livy and the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus, among other sources, regarding topics like gender and gender roles. Through a hermeneutical approach and studying both literary and archeological sources, Laura aims to analyze the problematic aspects which Livy and the Roman Senate wrote about, and through this, get a better idea on what might have happened in the cult.

Ella & Eystein Magnus Fellow Sunniva Mundal Haug, University of Bergen. Looking divinity in the eye: Material agency and psychoanalysis in ancient Greek and Roman art

Sunniva Mundal Haug explores Roman sculptures of Antinous, the lover of Emperor Hadrian, from the perspective of perception and the gazes of the viewer as well as that of the artwork. Taking Greco-Roman philosophers’ ideas on the tactile function of sight as a point of departure, she confronts them with modern material agency theory and psychoanalysis, which she believes can help provide us with a deeper understanding of ancient art. She argues that the gaze is a point of intersection, as the act of looking and being looked at is given agency and power in both theoretical approaches.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's seminar: Simon Malmberg

The Ancient City of Rome: Where Was It?

Time: Oct. 8, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

About the talk

Professor Simon Malmberg (University of Bergen) poses a simple, almost trivial question in this paper. We all know where Rome is. We are right in the middle of it when this paper is presented.

But where was the ancient city of Rome? What geographic area are we referring to, and who lived there? How might this area have changed in antiquity? And is there a difference between what we view as ancient Rome, and what the ancient Romans themselves saw as the city?

When studying ancient Rome, we marvel at the million inhabitants that often are said to have inhabited the city. This will not, however, be another attempt at estimating the exact number of inhabitants of ancient Rome. It will instead discuss where they all lived, and how, perplexingly, Rome has been viewed both as a city with immensely crowded living conditions, and as one of the least densely populated ancient cities.

In addition, the paper will discuss the city limits. It will challenge the ideas of what is urban, and seeing the city wall as an urban border, both of which have subconsciously guided conceptions about ancient Rome.

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Director's seminar: Aurora di Trapano

Fascism, architecture and memory in the Agro Pontino

Time and place: Oct. 1, 2024 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

In this paper, our visiting fellow and intern Aurora di Trapani (University of Oslo) presents her master project on the collective memory of the Fascist era in Italy.

About the talk

It is now over a hundred years since the March on Rome and the beginning of the ventennio fascista and eighty since the fall of the regime and the death of Mussolini. Still, Mussolini and fascism are being discussed.

The collective memory is split, divided into those who condemn it and those who view it as a positive, pivotal experience in the development of Italy. Nowhere more than in the Agro Pontino - a place deeply tied to the dictator - is this true.

The tangible proof and action of the regime are still felt today: in the towns built by his orders, in the squares that hosted him and where thousands heard him speak, in the commemorative plaques and parks that still honour his name.

Aurora asks: Given the architectural legacy of fascism, how has its memory survived and developed in this region of Italy?

The event is open to everyone

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested.

Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Svein H. Gullbekk and Hans Jacob Orning

From Iceland to Rome in the twelfth century and today: Travelling to Rome in the footsteps of a medieval pilgrim

Time and place: Sep. 24, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

In 1152, the cleric Nikolas Bergsson set out on a pilgrimage from northern Iceland to Jerusalem. Back home, he had a brief itinerary written about his journey. Svein and Hans Jacob, professors of history at University of Oslo, decided to follow Nikolas on bike from Iceland to Rome, and to write a book about Nikolas' and their own journey. In this presentation, they will discuss some core topics from their ride and book: how did a pilgrim travel in the twelfth century, what did Europe look like then, what did Nikolas see - and what not? What unites a medieval pilgrim and a modern traveler, and what sets them apart?

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Brent Nongbri and Thea Stenhaugen

DNIR is delighted to welcome friends and colleagues to the double seminar opening this term's series, given by Prof. Brent Nongbri (History of Religions) and Thea Stenhaugen (Architectural History).

Time and place: Sep. 17, 2024 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Norwegian Insitute in Rome

Brent Nongbri, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society, Oslo:

Just a Cut-and-Paste Job? Possible Interpretations of glutinarius and glutinator

The Latin inscription embedded in the northeast wall of the Norwegian Institute in Rome is part of a small group of epigraphic remains that refer to a profession (or professions) known as glutinarius or glutinator, occasionally ambiguously abbreviated as glutin. Little is known with certainty about the exact meaning(s) of these terms. The standard modern lexica do not inspire confidence. The words are as rare in Latin literature as they are in inscriptions, but a famous epistolary exchange between Cicero and his friend Atticus has been influential (perhaps too influential?) in guiding the interpretation of the inscriptions toward the papyrus manufacture industry. This talk, very much exploratory in nature, revisits the Ciceronian passage, surveys the epigraphic evidence with an eye toward identifying the social location of the glutinarius/glutinator, and draws on papyrological remains to offer some ideas about what it was that the glutinarii actually did.

Thea Stenshaugen, Oslo School of Architecture and Design:

The Restoration of the Arch of Titus

The Arch of Titus in Rome dates around 81 a.D. However, the arch that we know of today, is not really the arch it was back then. The Arch of Titus works today as an entrance to the Roman forum, but what is really the story behind this once demolished triumphal arch, and what has made it so influential in the practice of restoration? This talk discusses Giuseppe Valadier’s restoration of the Arch of Titus during the Renaissance, and how it has affected both Rome and Europe’s restoration history. Moreover, the sources and techniques underpinning Valadier’s restoration is also presented, as well as later comparable projects.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar.

Organiser

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The Image of Rome in the Nordic Countries (17th-19th Centuries)

The Norwegian Institute in Rome is delighted to take part in a research initiative from the Roman universities La Sapienza and Roma Tre together with Università Politecnica delle Marche on the production, international diffusion and influence of graphic materials (prints, illustrated books, maps, drawings) related to Classical and contemporary Roman and Italian architecture in the Nordic countries.

Time and place: June 3, 2024 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Accademia di Danimarca, Via Omero 18, Roma

The seminar presents this research program, whose aim is to reach a deeper understanding of the itineraries and patterns of diffusion architectural languages based on classical codes consolidated across Western Europe between 1650-1750. Major centres of elaboration and diffusion were Rome and Paris, where Academies endorsed the role of drawing, and promoted the production of prints and illustrated books as basic teaching materials, laying the foundation of a shared architectural language across the continent.

The research group will investigate architects and patrons’ collections of prints, drawings and illustrated books acquired during their training years in Rome, focusing on the bracing links between Italy and countries renovating their building traditions adopting Classicism for the first time.

Hosted by the Danish Academy in Rome, the working seminar welcomes scholars from the Nordic Academies in Rome to reinforce a dynamic research network among our countries.

Program:

Opening Address: Charlotte Bundgaard, Director of Accademia di Danimarca

Introduction: Mario Bevilacqua, Sapienza Università di Roma, Saverio Sturm, Università di RomaTre, Antonello Alici, Università Politecnica delle Marche

Research topics: Francesco Freddolini, Sapienza Università di Roma, Carlotta Torricelli, Università di RomaTre, Anna Pichetto Fratin, Università di RomaTre, Giovanni Bellucci, Università Politecnica delle Marche

Research team: Olimpia Ratto Vaquer, Università di RomaTre, Marco Coppolaro, Sapienza Università di Roma, Dario Beccarini, Sapienza Università di Roma

Round table: Charlotte Bundgaard, Director of Danish Academy in Rome, Tuomo Nuorluoto, Vice Director Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Marie Kraft, Director Circolo Scandinavo, Kristin B. Aavitsland, Director The Norwegian Institute in Rome, Timo Keinänen, Helsinki

The research initiative is funded by the European Union

Rome in Oslo 19 March

The Norwegian institute in Rome invites to the annual P.A. Munch lecture and to the presentation of the first H.R. Astrup Rome-award to students.

Time and place: Mar. 19, 2024 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM, Domus Bibliotheca

The P.A. Munch lecture is normally held in Rome during the Spring term, but due to renovation works at the Institute in Rome, it was decided to move it to Oslo this year. The lecture is part of a more comprehensive programme organised by the Institute under the umbrella of the "UiO's Humaniorafestival".

The venue opens at 17:30. The official programme starts at 18:00, and is in Norwegian. Kindly see the Norwegian website (link below) for a detailed programme and how to register.

Inn i historien – Humaniorafestivalen 2024 - Det humanistiske fakultet (uio.no)

2023

Director's Seminar: Laura Saetveit Miles

St. Birgitta of Sweden in Medieval Rome: On the Trail of Two English Superfans, Cardinal Adam Easton and Margery Kempe

Time and place: Nov. 21, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Scholar in Residence, Professor Laura Saetveit Miles of the University of Bergen, researches the fourteenth-century visionary Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373), and her wide-raging influence. Birgitta is most well-known for three things: her enormous book of over 700 visions, the Revelationes; her massive campaign to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome; and her creation of a new double monastic order that spread throughout Europe and still exists today. After a life as an aristocratic wife and mother of eight, Birgitta was commanded by Christ in a vision to move to Rome. Here she spent over two decades living an ascetic, holy life and developing powerful political and curial networks in order to achieve her goals. Her magisterial Revelationes was translated into many European vernaculars, and along with her monastic order, helped to spread her cult. She was proclaimed a saint by Pope Boniface IX in 1391 and a patron saint of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1999.

But far away in medieval England, she became especially popular – in fact, the most popular female author from the period 1380-1550. Even though she never set foot in the country, the saint’s book of revelations was very well known there and translated into Middle English twice. Why was Birgitta so popular with English people? This presentation explains the reasons behind England’s obsession with this Swedish holy woman. We will meet two of Birgitta’s biggest English fans in the medieval period: first, Cardinal Adam Easton, who helped secure Birgitta’s canonization, writing a long defense of her sanctity and her new monastic order, and even crediting her with his survival after torture and imprisonment by Pope Urban VI. Second, laywoman Margery Kempe, who modeled her own visionary vocation on Birgitta’s and even visited the saint’s former house in Rome and talked to Birgitta’s maid. Through these two very different figures we will learn what made this Swedish woman such a compelling saint.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Who Lost Out When Rome's Monuments Went Up?

 Circolo Gianicolense: Christopher S. Siwicki

Time and place: Nov. 15, 2023 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Via Garibaldi 31

Circolo Gianicolense is a joint seminar series for fellows at three foreign research institutions at the Gianicolo: The Norwegian Institute in Rome, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, and the American Academy in Rome. 

The Circolo's gathering 15 November takes place at the temporary premises of The Finnish Institute in Rome in Via Garibaldi 31. Our postdoctoral fellow Dr. Christopher S. Siwicki will present the research project he has been working on during his fellowship at the DNIR. As his postdoctoral engagement with us is soon coming to an end, this talk will also be his farewell lecture. The talk is open to all!  

Abstract: 

Urban redevelopment creates winners and losers. The monuments of ancient Rome are visually impressive, but they often overlie residential area. Many Greek and Latin authors eulogise feats of construction, but others express uneasiness about, even hostility to, such works. While the double-edged sword of urban development in contemporary cities continues to be the focus of intense scrutiny, scholarship on the Roman world predominantly emphasises the positive aspects of monumental architecture – baths, forums, temples, entertainment complexes. Yet what was the impact of these large structure on the people who actually lived around them? What was the opposition to such projects? Questioning the assumption that ‘public’ buildings necessarily benefit the ‘public’ this papers examines the harmful side of building activity in antiquity.

Participation must be registered to events@roma.uio.no by 14 November at 16:00

Organizer

Circolo Gianicolense

Director's Seminar: Vigdis Andrea Evang

Exploration and Authority: Olaus Magnus between Learned Knowledge and Personal Experience

Time and place: Nov. 14, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Among the research topics of our Scholar in Residence, Vigdis Andrea Baugstø Evang, is Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), the Swedish archbishop in exile in Italy. Undoubtedly a learned man, Olaus Magnus was also a man who would like for his fellow ecclesiastics to know a great deal more about Sweden than they did. How could he garner sympathy and support for the Catholic Church in his homeland if no-one knew the first thing about it?

In creating a lavish map of the north, the Carta Marina, and in publishing a book, the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, detailing the places and people he had not himself seen for many years, Olaus Magnus presents himself as an especially trustworthy source because he himself was a native of the land he described. Yet this position is a layered one. As both cartographer and cartographic source, as both learned bishop and exotic foreigner, as both a local and a traveller, Olaus Magnus employs a number of legitimating strategies at once.  How should we read this multivalent self-presentation, Vigdis asks in this presentation, and in what way should it shape our understanding of his map and his book? 

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Novembre Nordico: il viaggo di Sigurd Jórsalfari nel Medioevo

Francesco D'Angelo parlerà di Sigurd Jórsalafari e del suo avventuroso viaggio nel Mediterraneo 1107-1111 . 

L'evento è aperto per tutti tramite registrazione e fa parte del Novembre Nordico a Roma.

Time and place: Nov. 8, 2023 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM, Istituto di Norvegia in Roma

Il re norvegese Sigurd Magnússon è stato il primo sovrano cristiano a visitare la Terrasanta dopo la conquista crociata di Gerusalemme. Un viaggio straordinario: dall’Inghilterra alla Spagna musulmana, dalla Sicilia a Gerusalemme e oltre, fino a Costantinopoli, in un susseguirsi di battaglie navali e assedi, incontri con re e imperatori e scontri con nemici musulmani ma anche, all’occorrenza, cristiani. Un periplo del mondo allora conosciuto che, in quattro anni (1107-1111), condusse sessanta navi dagli estremi confini della terra fino al cuore della Cristianità e da qui nuovamente in patria. Uno degli episodi meno conosciuti e più affascinanti della grande storia delle crociate che unisce ai tratti tipici delle scorrerie vichinghe (desiderio di avventura, di fama e di ricchezze) quella tensione spirituale di cui è permeata tutta l’epoca, e che farà guadagnare al suo giovane protagonista fama imperitura.

La conferenza si terrà in italiano

Francesco D’Angelo è ricercatore in storia medievale presso il Dipartimento di Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte Spettacolo di Sapienza Università di Roma. Guest researcher all’Istituto di Norvegia in Roma. Si occupa di storia della Norvegia e dei rapporti tra Scandinavia e Italia nel medioevo.

L’evento è aperto al pubblico, con prenotazione obbligatoria a: events@roma.uio.no  entro le ore 10:00 il giorno delle conferenza

Segue un ricevimento

Per l'occasione, saranno presenti Vocifuoriscena con il loro catalogo nordico

Dal 2 al 28 novembre Roma svela il suo legame con le culture nordiche per la seconda edizione di Novembre Nordico, con piu di 20 eventi. Programma

Le Ambasciate di Danimarca, Finlandia, Norvegia e Svezia, il Circolo Scandinavo e i quattro Istituti culturali e scientifici nordici: l’Accademia di Danimarca, l’Istituto di Finlandia a Roma, l’Istituto di Norvegia in Roma, e l’Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma si uniscono in questa occasione per divulgare un ricco programma di iniziative per valorizzare il legame storico dei Paesi Nordici con la città di Roma e per creare nuovi momenti di scambio attraverso mostre, talk, concerti, proiezioni e le case di illustri personaggi storici aperte al pubblico. 

#novembrenordico2023 #traccenordichearoma

Organizer

Det norske institutt i Roma, Universitetet i Oslo

Director's Seminar: Sissel Grøndal

The Norwegian Sculptor Gustav Vigeland's Travels and Studies in Italy in 1895 and 1896: An Encounter with the Early Italian Renaissance

Time and place: Nov. 7, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Ella & Eystein Magnus Fellow Sissel Grøndal (University of Oslo) presents her MA project on the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1969-1943) and his travels in Italy. Under which conditions and in what way did his Italian experience inspire and influence (and thus change) Vigeland's artistic expression and perception of art? His notebooks and letters provide a significant empirical basis both contextually and formally to suggest an influence from the Early Italian Renaissance.

Gustav Vigeland's encounter with the Early Italian Renaissance may have had a greater impact on his artistry in his formative early years both formally and iconologically in terms of the Florentine Renaissance Humanism than what has previously been assumed. 

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Serata Ibseniana - Novembre Nordico

Ibsen scrisse le sue opere piu famose in Italia. Nella sua relazione Giuliano D'Amico approfondirà luci ed ombre del soggiorno romano di Ibsen, soffermandosi sulle sue ispirazioni artistiche e sul suo isolamento dal contesto culturale italiano, mentre Maria Cristina Lombardi discuterà l'opera di mediazione culturale riguardante l'opera di Ibsen che Anne Charlotte Leffler, sua amica e ammiratrice, condusse a Napoli coinvolgendo il filosofo Benedetto Croce.  L’attrice Anna Chiara Senatore leggerà da una delle opere di Ibsen.

Time and place: Nov. 6, 2023 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM, Istituto di Norvegia in Roma

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) nacque a Skien, nella Norvegia meridionale. Nel 1844 si trasferì a Grimstad, dove lavorò alcuni anni come apprendista farmacista per sostenere la famiglia dopo il fallimento dell’attività commerciale del padre. In questo periodo scrisse il suo primo dramma, Catilina, pubblicato nel 1850, l’anno in cui si stabilì a Kristiania (Oslo) per cominciare a studiare all’università.

Gli studi ebbero vita breve, perché già nel 1851 fu chiamato a Bergen per coordinare le attività del neonato teatro cittadino, incaricò che ricoprì fino al 1857, quando tornò a Kristiania per dirigere alcuni teatri della capitale. La sua carriera teatrale ebbe fine nel 1864, quando ottenne una borsa di studio per soggiornare a Roma, dove fu introdotto nel Circolo Scandinavo, ritrovo degli intellettuali nordici, e dove poté finalmente dedicarsi totalmente alla scrittura drammatica. Cominciò quindi un periodo di soggiorno all’estero che si protrasse per quasi trent’anni; Ibsen abitò a Roma fino a 1868, e tornò per un nuovo soggiorno in Italia tra il 1878 e il 1885. Nel 1891 si stabilì nuovamente a Kristiania, dove rimase fino alla morte nel 1906.

In Italia trovò un ambiente favorevole per scrivere e progettare le sue opere più famose. A Roma e Ariccia completò Brand (1866), trovò ispirazione per scrivere Peer Gynt (1867), Casa di Bambola (1879), e Spettri (1881) a Ischia, Amalfi e Sorrento.

Giuliano D'Amico e Maria Cristina Lombardi sono due studiosi di letterature nordiche e intervengono alla serata ibseniana all'Istituto di Norvegia:

Il Prof. Giuliano D'Amico: “Ibsen a Roma – un’occasione mancata?”
La Prof. Maria Cristina Lombardi: “Ibsen, Benedetto Croce e Anne Charlotte Leffler: mediazione culturale e riflessione filosofica”
 
Intervengono anche il presidente dei Parchi Letterari, Stanislao de Marsanich, e la direttrice dell’Istituto di Norvegia, Prof. Kristin B. Aavitsland.

Prenotazione obbligatoria a events@roma.uio.no

Giuliano D'Amico è professore assiciato e direttore del Centro di studi ibseniani presso l'Università di Oslo.

Maria Cristina Lombardi è professore  di Lingue e Letterature Nordiche nel Dip. Studi Letterari, Linguistici e Comparati nell'Università di Napoli "L'Orientale". 

Stanislao de Marsanich è presidente dei Parchi Letterari

Dal 2 al 28 novembre Roma svela il suo legame con le culture nordiche per la seconda edizione di Novembre Nordico, con piu di 20 eventi. Programma

Le Ambasciate di Danimarca, Finlandia, Norvegia e Svezia, il Circolo Scandinavo e i quattro Istituti culturali e scientifici nordici: l’Accademia di Danimarca, l’Istituto di Finlandia a Roma, l’Istituto di Norvegia in Roma, e l’Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma si uniscono in questa occasione per divulgare un ricco programma di iniziative per valorizzare il legame storico dei Paesi Nordici con la città di Roma e per creare nuovi momenti di scambio attraverso mostre, talk, concerti, proiezioni e le case di illustri personaggi storici aperte al pubblico. 

Maria Cristina Lombardi è professore ordinario di Lingue e Letterature Nordiche, Dip. di Studi Letterari, Linguistici e Comparati all'Università di Napoli L'Orientale. Ha un PhD in filologia germanica all'Università di Firenze. Traduttrice di testi nordici, poetici e in prosa, medievali e moderni. Membro del CdA di Ateneo, tra i suoi principali ambiti di ricerca si segnalano: le figure retoriche nella poesia del tardo medioevo islandese e della poesia nordica contemporanea; varianti redazionali di testi poetici di autori medievali e contemporanei; aspetti filologici, linguistici, storici e sociali del testo magico nel mondo nordico e germanico; il testo magico tra mito e folklore; rapporto tra letteratura, teatro e cinema nel mondo scandinavo; testi enciclopedici norreni e fonti latine; l’autobiografia femminile al tempo della regina Cristina di Svezia; antroponimia nelle tarde iscrizioni runiche gotlandesi; testi omiletici anglosassoni e traduzioni norrene. Nei suoi studi ha inoltre affrontato problematiche traduttive e traduttologiche tra le lingue nordiche e l’italiano, organizzando seminari con la partecipazione di studiosi e traduttori italiani e stranieri. E’ da segnalare la sua creazione del ‘laboratorio di traduzione dalle lingue nordiche’ all’Università di Napoli “L’Orientale” - che rende concreta l’applicazione e la conseguente verifica di tecniche e metodi traduttivi di testi poetici e in prosa.

Giuliano D‘Amico è professore associato e direttore del Centro degli studi ibseniani presso L’Università di Oslo. Ha un PhD in Lettere (Università di Oslo). La sua ricerca si concentra sulla letteratura scandinava dell’800 e include la storia della interpretazione e della traduzione degli autori nordici, in particolare Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, August Strindberg and Knut Hamsun. D’Amico è autore delle monografie  Domesticating Ibsen for Italy (2013) e Tilbake til fremtiden. Håkan Sandell og den nordiske retrogardismen (2020). Al momento sta lavorando a un libro sulla spettralità nelle opere di Ibsen.

The 2023 L'Orange Lecture: Sex and the Church. Early Modern Views on Sexuality and the Body in Eden

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Alessandro Scafi of Warburg Institute, University of London, to give this year's L'Orange Lecture. As an expert on medieval and early modern culture, Dr. Scafi will present and discuss a decisive phase in the history of sexuality. Were Adam and Eve meant to have sex in the Garden Eden? The various answers to this question had wide-ranging religious, cultural, and political consequences.  

Time: Oct. 31, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Registration for in person participation are now closed. To participate online, please register at  events@roma.uio.no before 31 October at 12 hrs. 

Abstract:

Was the distinction of genders part of the original perfection? Were Adam and Eve meant to have sex in the Garden Eden? Were they married in paradise? Is sex a gift from God or a temptation from the devil? Was forbidden fruit sexuality? During the Middle Ages these questions were highly significant. To attempt to answer them meant to clarify the role of sexuality in God’s plan and shape the concept of the sacrament of marriage. During the 16th century, the European religious landscape had radically changed, and the discussion of sex in paradise became part of the controversies that divided Latin Christianity. The tensions and ambiguities of medieval attitudes towards human sexuality emerged in different forms.

About the lecturer:

Since 2007 Alessandro Scafi has lectured on Medieval and Renaissance Cultural history at the Warburg Institute, University of London (after eight years of teaching at Bologna University). He is the author of several books on the mapping of the biblical Garden of Eden in the Western tradition (including Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth, London and Chicago, 2006, Italian ed.: Milan, 2007; Maps of Paradise, London and Chicago, 2013, German ed.: Darmstadt, 2015), and on various aspects of the history of cartography and the history of pilgrimage. His research interests include Aby Warburg, the relationship between the Italian and Hungarian Renaissances, Italian art and literature, in particular Dante and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. He has also authored publications intended for a wider readership, for example on the design of the European single currency (Milan, 2009), a survey on journeys to paradise and visions of the otherworld (Palermo, 2011), and an autobiographical novel (Milan 2022). Since 2011 he has run a series of Dante public readings aimed at a general public. 

Director's Seminar: Jostein Garcia de Presno

Blame it on the Pope. A Norwegian Revivalist on the History of God and the Errors of the Roman Church

Time and place: Oct. 24, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Visiting researcher Jostein Garcia de Presno from MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society researches the Norwegian peasant and revivalist Hans Nielsen Hauge, who at the very end of the 18th century became leader of the first national, popular movement in Norway. In his old age, he published a History of the Church to enlighten the «simple-minded». His purpose was to explain the decay of the church over the centuries and the need for his own revival. Although Hauge had never been to Rome, Rome’s bishop came to play a significant role in his narrative.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's seminar: Anna Dyakonova

In the Presence of Stone

Time and place: Oct. 17, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Visiting Fellow Anna Dyakonova is a working on an architectural design project at  Oslo School of Architecture and Design. In her work, she considers stone and rethinks its role in a contemporary building. The storyline of stone, that we build from, expands far beyond the lifespan of a building. As humans, we initiate some events throughout its infinitely long life: we extract, transport, build, dismantle, move, and build again. Dyakonova investigates the human-made events in the lifecycle of stone based on the example of Septizodium constructed under Septimus Severus in 203 A.D. and demolished in 1589: the stone used for its construction was formed millions of years ago and is still present in Rome today.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Relics and Reliquaries – Seeing Is Believing

Relics and reliquaries have been at the core of European devotional cultures during many centuries. Recent decades have seen a wide scholarly interest in the subject, expressed through several exhibitions and book publications. The European Network on the Instruments of Devotion (ENID) has chosen this dynamic research topic for this conference, celebrating the network's 20th anniversary. The conference, co-organized with the Norwegian Institute in Rome, presents papers on relics, reliquaries, and their connected devotional practices from medieval to contemporary times.  

Time and place: Oct. 11, 2023 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

The keynote session with Cynthia Hahn and David Morgan will be livestreamed.

To participate in person (for the whole or a part of the conference) or online (keynote session), please register at events@roma.uio.no before 10 October. 

The Institute is delighted to invite all in person participants to a rooftop reception after the conclusion of the programme. 

Conference programme

9:00-9:30 Coffee and registration

9:30-9:40 Kristin B. Aavitsland, Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome, and Justin Kroesen, Professor, University of Bergen: Welcome and Opening

Session 1. Chair: Justin Kroesen

9:40-10:20 Henning Laugerud (Bergen): False Relics? A Medieval Paradox

10:20-11:00 Kristin B. Aavitsland, Norwegian Institute in Rome / University of Oslo: Metrical Relics: Displays and Interactions

11:00-11:20 Break

Session 2. Chair: Kristin B. Aavitsland

11:20-12:00 Aintzane Erkizia Martikorena (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and Justin Kroesen (Bergen): Migrating Relics in the Seventeenth Century, Between the Rhineland, Flanders, and Spain

12:00-12:30 Małgorzata d’Aughton (Cork): A Highway to Heaven: Relics of the Millennial Blessed Carlo Acutis

12:30-13:30 Lunch

Session 3. Chair: Henrik von Achen

13:30-14:10 Marianne Ritsema van Eck (Rome): Containing the Titulus Crucis at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, from Medieval to Early Modern Times 

14:10-14:50 Rob Faesen (Louvain): The In- and Outsides of Reliquaries. Reflections on Ruusbroec’s Geestelijke Tabernakel

14:50-15:10 Break

Key note session. Chair: Henning Laugerud (This session will be livestreamed)

15:10-15:50 Cynthia Hahn (New York): Passion Relics as Crusader Treasure and the Arma Christi: Power and Devotion

15:50-16:30  David Morgan (Duke): “Magic in the Web of It.” Rags, Relics, and McGuffins

16:30-17:30  Debate chaired by Henning Laugerud 

About the key note speakers: 

Cynthia Hahn is Distinguished Professor of Medieval Art at the City University of New York - Hunter College. She has published extensively on medieval relics and reliquaries, contributing significantly to the understanding of the role of relics in the Middle Ages. At this occasion, she will talk about Passion Relics as Crusader Treasure and the Arma Christi: Power and devotion.

Abstract: This talk will examine triptychs, diptychs and tablet reliquaries that display Passion relics in a 2-D array, usually around the relics of the True Cross. The forms are inspired by Byzantium and the relics often represent the loot of the Sack of Constantinople – the array works hard to display the many small fragments that were distributed to Crusaders. However, these objects also reify the new ability of such relics to move – both in their translation from East to West, as well as in relation to the devotee. These reliquaries document a new presence brought from the Holy East, but they also perform a series of revelations of presentation, and perform an invitation to intimacy. Not unrelated, they became associated with newly written liturgies and prayers, and with indulgences that promised salvation through their presence. What begins as an aristocratic display of power in Passion relics, leads to a set of devotions that, although it also originates in the courts, eventually spreads through the practices of all the faithful. The striking intermediality of these devotions – passing from relic to reliquary, from manuscript to amulet, from cross to pendant, demonstrates the power of the Passion relics circulating through space, time, and imagination.

David Morgan is Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University. He has published several books and dozens of essays on the history of religious visual culture, fine art, and art theory, and developed the now flourishing research field of material religion. His talk at this conference is entitled 'Magic in the Web of It.’ Rags, Relics, and McGuffins.

Abstract: Othello’s scarf and Emile Durkheim’s discussion of flags as totems may offer some help in understanding relics. Each of these is an artifact capable of generating charisma and intense emotion. They drive plots, compel sacrifice, and generate communities. They are amulet, totem, and relic—material artifacts, on the one hand, and symbolic devices, on the other, whose power does not rest singularly within them but relies on an array of various components to produce the effects for which they are revered. This paper will discuss how relics operate as McGuffins, black boxes that are known for their effects rather than for their actual contents. A favorite device in cinema and literature, the McGuffin is an object or person who drives the plot without disclosing much if anything about itself, yet its agency is considerable.

The Piccolo Ludovisi Sarcophagus: a Seventeenth Century Forgery?

On the occasion of her 80th birthday, our former Director Professor Siri Sande will give an open lecture on a controversial topic: Is the celebrated Piccolo Ludovisi Sarcophagus really a seventeenth century forgery? The Institute is delighted to host a reception in her honour immediately after the lecture. Please join us in celebrating an extraordinary woman and great scholar!

Time and place: Oct. 10, 2023 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Siri Sande was Director of The Norwegian Institute in Rome 2003–2007. Trained as a classical archaeologist, her expertise embraces a wide range of topics, like Greek and Roman sculpture and portraiture, architecture, triumphal monuments, and iconography. Prof. Sande has led and participated in several excavations in Italy and Greece. She is known as an inspiring teacher and is one of Norway's leading experts on the Ancient World. See more here.

Registrations for participation in person are now closed.

The lecture can be followed online: https://uio.zoom.us/j/66227662194

Director's Seminar: Gunnar Liestøl

Augmented Reality Storytelling and Reconstructions of Ancient Events in situ

Time and place: Oct. 3, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

In this seminar, our Scholar in Residence Gunnar Liestøl, professor of media  studies at the University of Oslo, presents his work on situated simulations (sitsim) and their use in the understanding of ancient history. In a situated simulation two elements are linked: the user's visual perception of the real physical environment, and the user's visual perception of a 3D graphics environment as displayed on a hand-held screen. This new technology makes use of GPS, accelerometer and electronic compass which enable us to use a mobile phone as a window towards other versions of reality, for example in visualisation of the ancient past.

The talk gives an introduction to location–based media and Augmented Reality (AR) and how it has been deployed in archaeology dissemination and cultural heritage communication. It further discuss how AR may be used with motion capture to reconstruct and simulate historical actions and events. Finally, it presents the media design method and plans for a reenactment of the assassination of Julius Caesar in Pompey's Curia.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The Mesopotamian City State System: a Precursor of the Ancient Greek System

Were Mesopotamian city states precursors of the political system of ancient Greece? Prof. Iver B. Neumann, anthropologist and political scientist, aims to answer this question in a guest lecture at the DNIR. We are delighted to host this event, which is open to all.  

Time and place: Sep. 29, 2023 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

About the lecture:

The Mesopotamian system that evolved over a period of more than a millennium and a half, from the early spurt of the Uruk Expansion in the second half of the fourth millennium to the crisis of the 1700s BCE, displayed a clear set of system dynamics, evolved full institutions and reached beyond its core area. The first part of the talk presents the system and argues that its master institution was religious. The second part of the talk looks at how the system changed as a result of the emergence of The Hittite Empire, which became one of its great powers from around 1750 BCE onwards. The third part of the talk discusses the tenuous ties between the Hittite empire and its western neighbours, particularly Ahhiyawa/Mycene. In conclusion, Prof. Neumann discusses the possibilities of a genealogical link between the system and the subsequent system of Greek city states that emerged from around 800 BCE onwards. These remain weak. The case for the system as a precursor of the Greek city states can nonetheless be made, but then on analytical and not genealogical grounds.

About the lecturer: 

Iver B. Neumann is Director at The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway and Adjunct Professor at the Museum of Cultural history, University of Oslo, Norway. He holds doctorates in Politics (Oxford) and Social Anthropology (Oslo) and was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics 2012-2017. His latest book is Diplomatic Tenses: A Social Evolutionary Perspective on Diplomacy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2020).

To attend in person or online, please register at events@roma.uio.no by 28 September.

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Francesco D'Angelo

From Markland to Milan. Galvaneus Flamma and the Circulation of News between Northern Europe and Italy in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century

Time and place: Sep. 26, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

In this seminar, our Visiting Researcher Dr. Francesco D'Angelo, medieval historian from La Sapienza University in Rome, will examine and discuss how information could circulate between Scandinavia and Italy in the first half of the 14th century. The starting point will be the recent discovery, made by Prof. Paolo Chiesa, of a reference to a north-western land called Marckalada/Marchalanda in the Cronica universalis (ca. 1340) by the Milanese Dominican friar Galvaneus Flamma. Behind this name, Chiesa reasonably recognized the Markland ("Forest land"), mentioned by the thirteenth-century Norse sagas as one of the North American lands discovered by the Norsemen (perhaps today's Labrador), and argued that Galvaneus got this information in Genoa. At that time, however, there were also other Italian merchants who frequented the ports of northern Europe, and had closer relations with Scandinavia than the Genoese. This presentation therefore explores the possibility that, around 1340, Florentine and Milanese merchants could have acted as an intermediary between Scandinavia and Milan, bringing to Lombardy news of distant lands in the north-western Atlantic.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Director's Seminar: Irene Selsvold and Frida Espolin Norstein

Death in Transition: Archaeological Perspectives on Burial Practices and Societal Change 

Time and place: Sep. 19, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Visiting researchers and archaeologists Irene Selsvold (University of Gothenburg) and Frida Espolin Norstein (University of Stockholm) present new perspectives on burial practices in the ancient world. Burial practices are central for identifying, analysing, and interpreting change in past societies. Recent theoretical discussions in archaeology have affected how we approach societal change in the past. In this talk they discuss ways burials can and have been used as sources to societal change in transition periods with examples from Viking Age Scandinavia and Late Antique Asia Minor.

The Director's Seminar Series at The Norwegian Institute in Rome is open for everyone interested. Kindly register your participation to events@roma.uio.no.

Participants are invited for an aperitivo immediately after the seminar. 

Rethinking Mary in Early Modern Europe - Women's voices and the Virgin Mary 

This interdisciplinary symposium will explore the ways in which the Virgin Mary was represented in texts written by, for or about women between the 15th and 17th centuries. 

Time and place: June 21, 2023 3:00 PM – June 23, 2023 6:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The Virgin Mary is a crucial figure for Western culture and Christian worship, and has always been strictly connected to women and their status in society. A large amount of literature in Latin and the vernacular was written about Mary in early modern Italy and Europe, by both lay and religious men and women, representing her in different ways and with different purposes, transforming and adapting her traditional image.

The aim of the symposium is to increase our understanding to what extent the Virgin was presented as an empowering figure for women, or on the contrary, as a model of subjection and domesticity; how her characteristics changed in different moments and places in the early modern period; how the Reformation and the Counter Reformation influenced the ways in which the Virgin was described and connected to women; and how these transformations shaped the definitions and representations of women and the semantic of virtues. An evaluation of these aspects can shed new light on the development of women’s history, on the theorization of political and religious thought and on the construction of women’s identities in the Western world.

PROGRAMME

Organiser: Dr Eleonora Carinci eleonora.carinci@ifikk.uio.no at the University of Oslo in collaboration The Pontifical Faculty of Theology Marianum

The workshop is organised as a part of the project "Rethinking Virgin Mary in Early Modern Europe", under the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement N°101031720.

Kindly contact Dr. Eleonora Carinci if you are interested in participating, in person or remotely.

Organizer

Eleonora Carinci

Art Beyond Placeness: Narratives of Movement in the Early Modern Period
International workshop organized by Mattia Biffis, Honorary Fellow at the Norwegian Institute in Rome.

Time and place: May 31, 2023 2:30 PM – June 1, 2023 6:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Programme

If you wish to participate in all or part of this workshop, kindly register at events@roma.uio.no

About the workshop's topic:
In recent years, the new importance attributed to the biographies of objects and their global circulation has drawn increasing attention to the phenomenon of their physical transportation – in other words, to the complex sets and modes of actions required to move an object from the point of creation to its final destination.

Inspired by the growing body of scholarship, this workshop aims to develop new tools to perceive, measure and interpret the movement of things, by looking specifically at the way physical transportation has been described, inspected, and dissected in early modern sources. The material under scrutiny here may take different forms, from diaries, letters, and other prosopographical accounts recording movement in its making; to archival materials that track unusual patterns of transportation and physical delivery; to letters, treatises, and even guides or handbooks reporting ex post facto descriptions of mobility.

This workshop intends to probe this vast collection of sources in order to tease out how mobility was described and conceptualized, surveyed and explored in the long early modern period (approximately from 1350 to 1800), before the rise of modern logistics. In short, it addresses from all angles the narrative potential of mobility: how describing movement “makes a good story.”

Organizer

Mattia Biffis

Hagio-Scape! How mobility and materiality shaped pre-modern geographies of devotion (400-1700)

An international conference at the Norwegian Institute in Rome 24 - 26 May 2023, organized by Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck and Kaja Merete Hagen.

Time and place: May 24, 2023 9:00 AM – May 26, 2023 3:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Ever since fourth century CE, iconic objects and places have played a formative role in articulating Christian sacred space. This conference investigates the specific role of mobility and materiality in the creation of (trans)regional sacred landscapes and cityscapes, taking a longue durée perspective. 

In particular, our aim is to address the role of mobility of objects, texts, and persons in the creation of sacred topographies. This explicitly includes objects and materials with the potential to reference or invoke sacred topographies further afield, as well as translated sacred topographies, and sites with a multi-scalar sense of place.

Moreover, this conference aims to address to the interplay between narrative/documentary sources and material culture: what role did cross-fertilization between narratives, and iconic objects and locations play in the creations of pre-modern hagioscapes?

The conference brings together scholars specialized in different geographical areas, in order to confront and connect the process of hagio-scaping along the axes of the North and South, old and new. Ultimately, the aim is to put into dialogue practices from North Sea and Baltic area and with the Mediterranean basin, as well as Old and New World contexts.

In case you are interested in attending (in person only) please write to events@roma.uio.no no later than 19 May 2023.

Preliminary programme 

Wednesday 24 May

Session I (chair: Kristin B. Aavitsland, University of Oslo)

9:30 – 10.00 Welcome by director DNIR Kristin B. Aavitsland & opening address organizers.

10:00 -10:30 Achim Timmermann (University of Michigan): A Sacred Landscape in the  Making: The Case of Late Medieval Franconia.

10:30-11:00 Tiffany N. White (University of California, Berkeley): Christian Topographies of Pre-Christian Temples in Medieval Iceland.

11:00 -11:30 Coffee break

Session II (chair: Florian Abe, Tucher’sche Kulturstiftung)

11:30 – 12:00 Veronika Poláková (National Autonomous University of Mexico), Marian Topographies: Shaping a Sacred Space in Seventeenth-century Bohemia and New Spain (Mexico).

12:00-12:30 András Handl (University of Leuven), Migrating Materiality and the (De)Construction of Hagioscapes: Transregional Relic Translations in Late Antiquity.

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

Session III (chair: Rachel Davies, Australian Catholic University)

13:30-14:00 Simon Ditchfield (University of York), The challenges of stereoscopic vision: Seeing History with both eyes in an age of expanding horizons.

14:00-14:30 Marianne C.E. Gillion (Uppsala University), Resounding Hagioscapes in the Reformation.

14:30-15:00 Tea break

Session IV (chair: Kaja Merete Hagen)

15:00-15:30 Jan Willem Drijvers (University of Groningen), The mobility of Cross relics in Late Antiquity.

15:30-16:00 Florian Abe (Tucher’sche Kulturstiftung in Nuremberg), Die geystlich Straß (1521): Between Construction Manual and Devotional Guide to the Stations of the Cross.

16:30  Aperitivo

19:30 Conference dinner (for speakers)

Thursday 25 May

Session V (chair: Marianne Ritsema van Eck)

9:30-10:00 Margaret Cormack (University of Iceland), Hagioscapes in Iceland: Churchscapes and Landscapes.

10:00-10:30 Martin F. Lešák (Universität Regensburg), Charles IV’s Roman Inspiration. Relics, Liturgy, and the Sacred Topography of Imperial Prague.

10:30-11:00 Lucia Querejazu Escobari (Universität Zürich), Saints as ancestors: spatiality and cosmovivencia in the colonial Andean space. 1550-1650.

11:00 -11:30 Coffee break

Session VI (chair: Jan Willlem Drijvers, University of Groningen)

11:30 – 12:00 Aleksandar Savić (University of Belgrade), Into the (New) Promised Land: The Curious Voyage of a Medieval Serbian Pilgrim-Turned-Relic.

12:00-12:30 Linda Nolan (Iowa State University, Rome Program), The mobile and material history of votives at S. Maria del Popolo in Rome.

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

Session VI continued (chair: Jan Willlem Drijvers, University of Groningen)

13:30-14:00

Noria Litaker (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Tracing Global Sanctity: Roman Catacoms Relics around the World (16th-19th c.).

14:00-14:30 Steffen Birkeland Hope (University of Oslo) & Grzegorz Pac (University of Warsaw), Tracing a holy landscape on the peripheries of Latin Christendom – translation of saints in Norway and Poland in the twelfth century.

14:30-15:00 Tea break

Session VII (chair: Megan Cassidy-Welch, Australian Catholic University)

15:00-15:30 Brendan C. McMahon (University of Michigan), The Long Memory of Elephants: Ivory and Placemaking in Colonial Latin America.

15:30-16:00 Matan Aviel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), The Material Path to the Celestial City of Federico da Montefeltro's Urbino Studiolo.

16:00-16:30 Minou Schraven (Amsterdam University College), The Blessed Beads of failed saint and mystic Juana de la Cruz (d. 1534).

16:30 Aperitivo

Friday 26 May

Session VIII (chair: Simon Ditchfield, University of York)

10:00 -10:30 Raphaèle Preisinger (University of Zürich), The Incipient Cult of the Japan Martyrs in Asia and the Americas: Processions Modeled on the Via Crucis Centering on Images and Relics

10:30-11:00 Sergio Carro Martín (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), So Close, So Far: Faith, Mobility and Materiality Around the Islamic Rituals.

11:00 -11:30 Coffee break

Session IX (chaired by organizers)

11:30 – 12:00 Sandra Toffolo (Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento), Sanctity, materiality, and mobility in the Renaissance: Venice’s role in the circulation of material culture during pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

12:00-12:30 Megan Cassidy-Welch (Australian Catholic University), Liquidity, mobility and sacred space: Thietmar’s account of the cult of Mary at Saydnaya in the early thirteenth century.

12:30-12:45 Conclusion by organisers.    

12:45–13.30 Lunch

15:00 HAGIOSCAPE city walk from Trastevere into the ghetto, starting point: DNIR.

Organizer
Marianne Ritsema van Eck

P. A. Munch Lecture 2023: Preaching & the City – Towards a Social History of Early Modern Italian Sermons (c.1450-1650)

The Norwegian Institute in Rome is honored to welcome Dr. Michele Camaioni, University of Roma Tre, as this year's P. A. Munch Lecturer. Dr. Camaioni will be introduced by our postdoctoral fellow Dr. Marianne Ritsema van Eck. 

The P. A. Munch Lecture Series was introduced in 2022 to commemorate the Norwegian historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810—1863), a prominent and highly productive scholar who spent his last years working in Roman archives.

Time and place: Apr. 27, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

About the lecture:

Attending a sermon was a common, potentially memorable, experience in early modern Italian society. During the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the medieval practice of public preaching continued both as a collective religious ritual and a much-awaited urban event. The sermons delivered by preachers in churches or in the piazze maintained their centrality within the public sphere, shaping religious emotions, enforcing social behaviors, and defining Catholic identity in a changing world. The primary purpose of preaching, as a penitential ceremony to which a transformative power was attributed, was to move to repentance and conversion and to persuade people to change their lives. Sermons were nevertheless also experienced as a public spectacle, a diversionary alternative to Carnival’s entertainments, and an opportunity for social gathering and debate. It offered a staged and ritualized performance with an open ending, the outcome of which depended on the appreciation of civil and religious authorities, and on the – sometimes unpredictable – reactions of mixed audiences, which could play an active role.

Preaching mattered in early modern Italy; and sermons can reveal much about the religious culture and theological issues, and about broader society. In recent decades early modern preaching has attracted much scholarly attention, opening the field to innovative approaches which go beyond the text and content of a sermon, considering the preaching-event in a broad cultural, political, and social framework. By looking behind the scene (or rather, the pulpit), this lecture offers a deeper insight into the cultural, religious, and social landscape of early modern societies, and expands our understanding of Catholic self-fashioning strategies in the age of confessionalization and of early globalization.

About the lecturer:

Michele Camaioni (Ph.D.) is researcher in Early modern history at the University of Roma Tre, Italy. He has been post-doctoral researcher at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen (2015-2020) and has held fellowships from the Institut d’histoire de la Réformation in Geneva and the Istituto italiano per gli studi storici in Naples. His research focuses on religious culture and communication in the Renaissance period, with a particular interest in relationships between preaching, printing press and religious dissent. Among his publications are a book about the Capuchin preacher, apostate and exile Bernardino Ochino of Siena (Il Vangelo e l’Anticristo. Bernardino Ochino tra francescanesimo ed eresia, 1487-1547, Bologna, il Mulino, 2018).

To attend the lecture in person, please register at events@roma.uio.no by 25 April

To attend the lecture online: https://uio.zoom.us/j/61324152287

Organizer

Det norske institutt i Roma, Universitetet i Oslo

Cross-Cultural Contacts Between Egypt and the Roman Empire

Egypt was part of the Roman world for seven centuries, from the Roman conquest of Egypt in 31 BC to the annexation of Egypt by the Rashidun caliphate in AD 646. The period saw the exchange of languages, cultural and religious ideas and concepts across borders, including the spread the Egyptian Isis cult into the Roman West and the emergence of Christian monastic culture in Egypt’s deserts.

Time and place: Apr. 13, 2023 9:00 AM – Apr. 14, 2023 5:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

This two-day and two-venue conference aims to gather scholars across diverse disciplines such as Egyptology, Classical archaeology, art history and religious studies, to examine the ways in which cross-cultural encounters between Egypt and the Roman Empire resulted in the exchange of religions and ideas, and impacted visual and material culture. 

Conference programme

Scholarly organization: Lecturer in Ancient History Maiken Mosleth King, University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute in Rome and the American University in Rome. 

Thursday 13 April
Venue:  American University in Rome, Via Pietro Rosselli 4

Host: Dr. Maiken Mosleth King

Friday 14 April
Venue: The Norwegian Institute in Rome, Viale Trenta Aprile 33, 00153 Rome

Host: Prof. em. J. Rasmus Brandt 

Perceptions of Aging and Old Age: Thresholds and Life-Cycles

Images of old age and aging determine how we handle demographic change. This conference will explore how the stages of the life cycle have been construed throughout history in order to consciously recognise the stereotypes that emanate from these age categories. 

Time and place: Mar. 28, 2023 9:00 AM – Mar. 29, 2023 5:30 PM, Biblioteca Hertziana and The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Reflections on aging in the arts, medical texts, historical sources and literature reveal concepts of age, societal expectations, and stereotypical notions which determine how individuals approach late life, but also how these cultural assumptions of age-appropriate behavior can be subverted, changed, and expanded. By looking at socio-biological thresholds and analyzing how fluctuating models of the stages of human life have circulated in different time periods, our goal is to assess recurring patterns and continuities, new forms of expression and changes as well as complexities that provide a framework through which cultural constructions of age(ing) may be analyzed and understood. Thus the conference seeks to enrich the ongoing discussion on age and aging with new perspectives.

Conference programme

Scientific Organization: Prof. Dr. Andrea von Hülsen-Esch (Krautheimer-fellow, University of Duesseldorf, Germany) and Dr. Laura Cayrol-Bernardo (University of Bergen, Norway). Biblioteca Hertziana, Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute in Rome. 

The venues for the conference:

Tuesday 28 March
Venue: Biblioteca Hertziana, Villino Stroganoff in Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome. Online participation: Vimeo https://vimeo.com/event/2092675
Contact person at the Hertziana: rossi@biblhertz.it

Wednesday 29 March
Venue: The Norwegian Institute in Rome in Viale Trenta Aprile 33, 00153 Rome. Online partipation via zoom: https://uio.zoom.us/s/65576716260
Contact person at The Norwegian Institute in Rome: Prof. Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland 

Organizer
Biblioteca Hertziana and The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Circolo Gianicolense

Jake Tippett on Niccolo Machiavelli: The Norwegian Institute in Rome is delighted to host this term's first gathering of the Circolo Gianicolense!

Time and place: Mar. 8, 2023 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

We are happy to welcome Jake Tippett, PhD Candidate of University of Helsinki and Visiting Fellow at Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, to present at the Circolo Gianicolense, this time hosted by the Norwegian Institute in Rome. Mr. Tippett's talk is entilted

Beyond the Doxa: Paradox, Agency, and Scepticism in Niccolò Machiavelli
Everyone present is invited to a simple reception after the talk and ensuing discussion.

To register, please send an email to: events@roma.uio.no

Circolo Gianicolense is an ambulating research seminar for fellows affiliated to the foreign research institutes at the Gianicolo: DNIR,  Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, American Academy in Rome and American University of Rome. Seminars take place 2-4 times per term, alternating between the institutions involved.

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Piranesi and the Modern Age

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78), printmaker, architect, and antiquarian, has long mesmerized viewers with his panoramas of ancient Rome. But he has also been considered an interpreter of the genuinely modern, DNIR Honorary Fellow, Professor Victor Plahte Tschudi argues in his new book.

Time and place: Feb. 14, 2023 6:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

Piranesi's etchings became points of reference for artist and architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but also for photographers, writers, filmmakers, and psychoanalysts. Prof. Victor Plahte Tschudi (Oslo School of Architecture and Design) explores the complex appropriation and continual discoveries of Piranesi in the modern age. The Norwegian Institute in Rome is delighted to introduce Piranesi and the Modern Age to the Roman public! In addition to the author himself, comments will be given by the leading Piranesi experts, Prof. Mario Bevilacqua (La Sapienza) and Dr. Clare Hornsby (British School at Rome).

The event is open to all. To participate in person, please register at events@roma.uio.no 

To follow the presentation online, please enter https://uio.zoom.us/j/62080871557

Organizer

The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Passage to the Underworld – the Etruscan Way

On the occasion of his 80th birthday our former Director Professor J. Rasmus Brandt will give an open lecture on Etruscan passage to the underworld. The Institute is delighted to host a reception in his honour immediately after the lecture. Please join us in celebrating an extraordinary man and great scholar!

Time and place: Feb. 9, 2023 6:00 PM, The Norwegian institute in Rome

J. Rasmus Brandt was Director of The Norwegian Institute in Rome 1996–2002. Trained as a classical archaeologist, his expertise embraces a wide range of topics, like Greek and Roman topography, architecture, ceramics, and iconography. Prof. Brandt has led and participated in many excavations around the Mediterranean, and is one of Norway's leading experts on the Ancient World. See more here.

About Prof. Brandt's lecture: 

The only way into the world goes through a woman's womb, but there are many ways of leaving it, individually or in groups: from a natural death at old age or by mortal diseases, to accidents and natural disasters, duels, wars, and meaningless massacres. For those left behind, funerals become the meaningful framework around the disposal of dead bodies. They can be an opportunity to refrain from dealing with others, or to arrange parties, to fight or to hold sexual orgies, to cry and to laugh, in thousands of different combinations.

The Etruscans took care to secure that the soul of the deceased should reach the Underworld, where Aita (Hades) reigned, and, in good shape, be reunited with the ancestors. To arrive in there, however, the soul had to travel through a no man’s land  fighting destructive demons named Grief, Disease, Fear, Famine, Want, Distress, War, Strife, and the like. To assist the soul and to prevent the demons from penetrating into the space of the living, the participants in the funerary ceremonies made use of blood, dance, erotic actions, laughter, dirty words, and sacrifices, all represented in Etruscan tomb paintings.

This event is now fully booked for presence in person. To ollow the lecture online, please enter https://uio.zoom.us/j/64118729567

Critical legacies: Cultural and literary theory in Ukraine and Russia

Modern literary theory, which has been in constant dialogue with broader practices of cultural and political critique in Europe, is recognized as having its starting point in Russian Formalism, an intellectual movement that dates to the 1910s. This roundtable, which involves scholars who have fled Ukraine and Russia in 2022, will explore some of the overlooked historical and geographical extensions of this major epistemic shift. The speakers will uncover intellectual precedents to modern forms of knowledge and critique in Ukrainian and Russian 19th and 20th century scholarship. 

Time and place: Jan. 9, 2023 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Co-organized by

Alexander Dmitriev (EPFL Lausanne) and Boris Maslov (IFIKK, University of Oslo)

Working languages of the conference: English and Russian

ROUNDTABLE PROGRAMME

Contact Boris Rodin by email if you are interested in participating 

Organizer

Boris Rodin

2022

The Longue Durée of Cultural Heritage: Curation of the Past from Antiquity to the Present Day

While heritage is typically thought of as a modern concept with origins in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there is ample proof that pre-modern societies curated their pasts in highly comparable ways.This interdisciplinary conference, organised by the University of Oslo through the Norwegian Institute in Rome and the Heritage Experience Initiative project, relate to cultural heritage as a long-term process.

Time and place: Dec. 6, 2022 9:00 AM – Dec. 7, 2022 6:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Starting from the understanding of cultural heritage as a process, we recognize certain practices regarding the management of spaces, monuments, and objects in pre- and early modern societies as congruent to types of activity commonly placed within the heritage rubric. By adopting a long-term approach to the subject, this conference aims to create opportunities for new lines of research across disciplines. This includes examining historical examples to contextualize, interrogate, and deepen our understanding of modern views on heritage. Moreover, developments in contemporary heritage theory and practice can provide a fresh and productive framework for examining and categorizing processes in the past.

By bringing together scholars working on issues of heritage in the present day with those studying similar ideas in more remote, historical contexts, this interdisciplinary conference aims to foster a dialogue which can enrich analyses of heritage practices in the past and in the present day.

Conference programme

Pre- Conference Event Monday 5 December
18:00: H.P. L’Orange Lecture 2022: Prof. Lynn Meskell, University of Pennsylvania:
Saving the World? Reflections on UNESCO’s Mid Century Mission in Conflict
Introduction: Prof. Kristin B. Aavitsland, Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome

19:30
Reception

Conference Day 1, Tuesday 6 December

09:00 Coffee and registration

09:30 Introduction: Christopher S. Siwicki, Norwegian Institute in Rome and Unn Pedersen, Director of Heritage Experience Initiative (HEI), University of Oslo

09:45-11:15: Session 1. Chair: Christopher S. Siwicki, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Chris Whitehead, Newcastle University: New Interrogatives of Heritage

Thora Petursdottir, University of Oslo: Prolepesis: Narrating Deep Time Through Heritage Landscapes

Arnold Witte, Amsterdam University: Identity formation at work: the future heritage of corporate art collections

Discussion

11:15-11:45: Coffee break

11:45-13:15: Session 2. Chair: Kristin B. Aavitsland, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Chiara Mannoni, Università di Basilicata, Matera: Protecting heritage by law. Concepts and procedures introduced in Northern and Southern Europe in the 1600s

Armin Bergmeier, University of Leipzig: Claiming Cultural Heritage and Displaying the Ruins of the Ancient Past in Medieval Italy, Byzantium, and Seljuk Anatolia

Philip Schwyzer, University of Exeter, The Curation of Iconoclasm

Discussion

14:15-15:45 Session 3. Chair: Han Lamers, University of Oslo

Arthur Crucq, Leiden University: Restorations of ancient temples on Java: an intercultural ‘clash’ along the lines of time and attitudes

Rebecca Salem, New York University: Curating Architectural and Cultural Heritage at Ancient Corinth: A Case Study of the Architectural Terracottas of the South Stoa

Ludovica Cappelletti, Politecnico di Milano, The Impact of Italian Mannerism in XX Century Culture: The Case of Mantua

Discussion

18:00: Optional city walk looking at museification of historical urbanscapes, led by Christopher S. Siwicki and Marianne Ritsema van Eck, Norwegian Institute in Rome. Meeting point: Piazza di Campioglio, next to the equestrian statue

20:00: Dinner for speakers and moderators, Il Duca, Vicolo del Cinque, 56

Conference Day 2, Wednesday 7 December

10:00-11:30 Session 4. Chair: Marianne Ritsema van Eck, Norwegian Institute in Rome

Linn Willets Borgen, The National Trust of Norway: Accumulated Sacrality: Pre- and Early Modern Curation of the Past in the Norwegian Stave Churches

Anja Božič, Central European University: Hagiographical Heritage and the Cult of St. Jerome in the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance

Joanna Smalcerz, University of Warsaw/ University of Bern: Deploying the Sacred: Political Use and Mediatization of the Sacred Sites and Religious Heritage of Rome during the Jubilee Years of Leo XIII

Discussion

11:30-12:00: Coffee break

12:00-13:00 Session 5. Chair: Lynn Meskell, University of Pennsylvania

Birgit Meyer, Utrecht University: In Between: Unravelling a Missionary Colonial Collection

Karin Tetteris, Stockholm University: Creating history in Early Modern Sweden – heritagisation of captured military flags

Discussion

13:00-14:00: Lunch break

14:00-15:30 Session 6. Chair: Christopher Prescott, University of Oslo
Victor Castillo, Jagiellonian University, Kraków: The Creation of Persistence in the Maya Highlands of Guatemala during the Late Postclassic Period (AD 1250-1550)

Ruth Nugent, University of Liverpool: How Pre-modern Britain managed its ‘ancient dead’: attitudes and authentication

David C. Harvey, Aarhus University: Myth, reality and revelation: tracing a biography of early-modern heritage on Dartmoor

Discussion

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-17:30 Round table discussion:

Antiquities, monuments, heritage, reception: what does terminology entail?
Chair: Lynn Meskell, University of Pennsylvania
Panel:
Anne Eriksen, University of Oslo
Lars Boje Mortensen, Southern Denmark University, Odense
Han Lamers, University of Oslo
Kristin B. Aavitsland, Norwegian Institute in Rome

17:00-18:00: Conclusion
20:00: Dinner for speakers and moderators, Ristorante Lo Scarpone, Via di S. Pancrazio, 15

Saving the World? Reflections on UNESCO’s Mid Century Mission in Conflict

Professor Lynn Meskell takes the 50th anniversary of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention as an opportunity to reflect on the vast challenges that come with saving the world faced with the impossibility of calling powerful nations to account.

Time and place: Dec. 5, 2022 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The Norwegian Institute in Rome is honored to welcome Professor Lynn Meskell as this year´s L’Orange Lecturer.

In her lecture, Professor Meskell will reflect on UNESCO’s mission and agency in a conflicted world.

At the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO finds itself at an impasse, faced with the impossibility of calling powerful nations to account.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most recent example. Yet earlier instances of inertia include international conflicts in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Crimea.

More able to publicly repudiate non-state actors, such as Ansar Dine or Islamic State, than some of its own high-profile member states, UNESCO has increasingly walked a diplomatic tightrope and prioritized geopolitical alliances, financial considerations, and tactical relationships.

In response, civil society and heritage NGOs have increasingly emerged to supersede the work of UNESCO, seeking to be independent, nimble and responsive to heritage and humanitarian crises.

It is time to reflect on the vast challenges that come with saving the world, and that extends beyond the issues of monumental conservation to the needs of the multiple and highly diverse communities that are exerting greater calls for visibility, participation and power-sharing.  

About Lynn Meskell

Lynn Meskell holds the position as Richard D. Green University Professor at University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Department of Anthropology, the Historic Preservation Program and Department of City and Regional Planning in the Weitzman School of Design, and the Penn Museum as a Curator in both the Asian and Near East Sections.

She is currently A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University (2019–2025) and holds Honorary Professorships at Oxford University and Liverpool University in the UK, Shiv Nadar University, India and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Born in Australia, she has done pioneering archaeological work across the world, including research into Neolithic Turkey and New Kingdom Egypt.

Her most current work explores World Heritage sites in India, especially how heritage bureaucracies interact with the needs of living communities, and the implications of archaeological research for wider contemporary challenges of heritage, national sovereignty, and multilateral diplomacy.

Her landmark institutional ethnography of UNESCO World Heritage, A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage and the Dream of Peace (Oxford University Press, 2018) – awarded the 2019 Best Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology – rereads the politics of preservation in relation to international history and global practices of governance and sovereignty.

Archbishop Erik Valkendorf: From Nidaros to Rome in the Early Sixteenth Century.

November 2022 marked the 500th anniversary of Erik Valkendorf's death in Rome. A memorial plaque was unveiled 28th November, the day he died, in the church S. Maria dell’Anima. The following day, the Norwegian Institute in Rome invited selected speakers to a one-day international conference exploring this multi-faceted prelate and the time and places in which he lived and died.

Time and place: Nov. 29, 2022 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

In November 1522 Erik Valkendorf, the metropolitan archbishop of Nidaros, died in Rome. He had travelled to the Holy See to discuss King Christian II’s curtailment of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the realm of Denmark-Norway, and to get papal support in his fight against the expansive monarch. Arriving in Rome early in 1522, Valkendorf found the ambitious new basilica at the Vatican under construction and the chair of St. Peter vacant. It took almost a year before the newly elected Pope Hadrian VI made it to Rome and took up his office. Before the pontiff was ready to receive his archbishop from the far north, Valkendorf had left this world. The pope praised him posthumously for his loyalty and endurance in fighting for libertas ecclesiae, the freedom of the church.

The deceased archbishop had been a prolific and ambitious figure in political and ecclesiastical life in Denmark-Norway as well as in Europe at large. Valkendorf was a learned humanist, author, explorer, antiquarian, publisher, church restorer, and politician. The second to last archbishop of Norway, he was installed as head of the geographically vast see of Nidaros in 1510. When he died in Rome twelve years later, the ongoing Protestant Reformation was causing a political and religious avalanche in Europe, a development which he had observed with unease. Although the Protestant Reformation did not reach Norway during his reign, his conflict with secular power anticipated that of his successor, Olav Engelbretson, who had to flee the country on account of the Protestant king’s troops. Moreover, Valkendorf, both pioneer and traditionalist, was a reformer himself, representative of the evolving Catholic Reformation. Prospering and afflicted at the same time, he also emerges as a characteristic intellectual of his flourishing, but troubled time.

Programme

Pre-symposium programme 28th November

Venue: S. Maria dell’Anima, Via di S. Maria dell’Anima, 64
19:00 Vespers and unveiling of plaque commemorating Erik Valkendorf on the 500th anniversary of his death in Rome, 28th November 1522
20:00 Reception hosted by the Catholic Diocese of Trondheim and Collegio teutonico di S. Maria dell’Anima

Symposium programme 29th November

Optional:

08:00 S. Maria dell’Anima: Requiem Mass for Archbishop Erik Valkendorf
Transport to Istituto di Norvegia will be provided

Symposium opening

10:15 Welcome and greetings, Kristin B. Aavitsland, Director of The Norwegian Institute
Session 1: Erik Valkendorf and his time

Moderator: Francesco D’Angelo, La Sapienza (Rome)

10:45 Andrea Fara, La Sapienza (Rome):

Rome at the time of Erik Valkendorf: A Political and Economic Profile of Rome between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age

11:15 Erik Opsahl, NTNU (Trondheim):

A faithful, wise, and godly Danish royal official? Erik Valkendorf as Norwegian Archbishop 1510-1522

11:45 Coffee break

12:00 Louis Sicking, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam / University of Leiden:

Erik Valkendorf and the Netherlands

12:30 Henning Laugerud, University of Bergen:

The Archbishop and the Faith in Norway at the Eve of the Reformation

13:00 Lunch break   

Session 2: The legacy of Erik Valkendorf

Moderator: Sigrun Høgetveit Berg, University of Tromsø

14:00 Karen Skovgaard-Pedersen, Society for Danish Language and Literature (Copenhagen):

Mission at the Northern Edge of Christendom –Erik Valkendorf’’s Letter to the Pope about Finnmarken, the Norhternmost Part of his Diocese

14:30 Vigdis Evang, European University Institute (Florence):

Erik Valkendorf and Olaus Magnus: a comparative perspective

15:00 Øystein Ekroll, Nidaros Cathedral Restoration Workshop (Trondheim):

Archbishop Erik Valkendorf, Rome and Nidaros

15:30 Coffee break

15:45 Espen Due-Karlsen, National Library of Norway (Oslo):

Erik Valkendorf and his summa of five centuries of Nidaros liturgy

16:15 Sigurd Hareide, University of South-Eastern Norway (Tønsberg):

Archbishop Valkendorf and the Rescuing of the Nidaros Rite

16:45 Concluding remarks and end of symposium

17:00 Reception hosted by The Norwegian Institute

20:00 Conference dinner (by invitation only)

"Iscrizioni in latino nella Roma fascista: una panoramica"

Antonino Nastasi (independent researcher/UiO) will give a presentation of the project "Fascist Latin Texts". The presentation will be held in Italian.

Time and place: Nov. 3, 2022 6:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

This event is part of the project "New Signs of Antiquity", funded by the Research Council of Norway. Fascist Latin Texts makes available Latin texts on subjects relating to Fascism and written under Mussolini's regime (1922–1943).

It includes works of both prose and poetry, such as textbooks for school children, eulogies of Mussolini and his regime, epic poems on Italy’s colonial wars, or translations of some of Mussolini’s speeches. Facist Latin Texts also aims to offer short scholarly introductions to all authors and texts. 

Program

• Introduction by Han Lamers, University of Oslo and Bettina Reitz-Joosse, University of Groningen. The introduction will be given in English.
• Presentation of the project Fascist Latin Texts: “Iscrizioni in latino nella Roma fascista: una panoramica”, by Antonino Nastasi, independent researcher, University of Oslo. The presentation will be held in Italian.  

Registration

Please register via e-mail to: events@roma.uio.no before 2. November 2022 in order to reserve a seat at the Norwegian Institute.

To follow the lecture online (Zoom) please register by filling out this form by 3 November at 16 hrs: https://nettskjema.no/a/294921

S. Stefano al Monte Celio and Papal Legates in Twelfth Century Ireland

Dr. Jesse Harrington (University of Cork) will present his current research at the Director's seminar

Time and place: Sep. 20, 2022 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Jesse Harrington is an international postdoctoral researcher with the Irish National Institute for Historical Research and the School of History, University College Cork. He completed his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Medieval History at the University of Cambridge, with a doctoral thesis on vengeance and saintly cursing in the saints’ Lives of England and Ireland, c. 1060–1215. His research interests cover the religious cultures of the medieval Latin West (including Britain, France, Ireland, and Italy), with special emphasis on the tenth to thirteenth centuries.

Jesse Harrington is collaborating with the Norwegian Institute in Rome to develop a research project  on religious culture in medieval Rome. 

Crossing borders via translations

Linguistic paths, cultural boundaries, and transnational imaginaries

Time and place: Sep. 1, 2022, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The workshop will investigate the impact of translated texts on other translated texts, and includes a theoretical panel on cross-texts and a Petrarchan Studies Panel.

It is organised by by the Universities of Sussex, Oslo, Catania and Ca' Foscari Venezia, and is funded by the European Union. Kindly contact Dr. Riccardo Raimondo or one of the other organisers for more details if you are interested in the topic. 

Organisation and Scientific Committee

Fabrizio Impellizzeri (Associate Professor, University of Catania)
Riccardo Raimondo (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, University of Oslo)
Alessandro Scarsella (Associate Professor, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
Allison Steenson (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, University of Sussex)
Giuseppe Trovato (Senior Lecturer, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Ekphrasis

Workshop: Research and Teaching Ekphrasis Through Creative Practise

Time and place: Aug. 29, 2022 1:30 PM – Aug. 31, 2022 6:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

This workshop explores the research and teaching potential of adopting creative and imaginative approaches to historical material. It is based on the principle that we can more intensely understand the remote worlds of the past not just by writing about them, but by engaging directly with them through creative practice.

Despite increasing recognition of creative practice as forms of research and teaching that can generate knowledge and insights that are different to, but complementary with, other research and pedagogical methods, creative-led projects still tend to be limited to disciplines that fall under the creative arts umbrella.

The workshop will focus specifically on the theme of ekphrasis – here loosely defined as a self-conscious literary description of a work of art or architecture – and participants are asked to think of how new understandings of such descriptions in ancient, medieval, or early modern texts might be developed through creative practice (as opposed to more traditional methods). Such approaches might take the form of, but are certainly not limited to, drawing, modelling, photography, and digital technology.

The workshop participants present their ideas through talks or case studies or alternative formats, and will discuss the potential applicability of such methods in regard to both research and teaching.

Standardization in the Middle Ages

How did medieval people envision and enforce ideals of predictability, uniformity and order?

Time and place: May 25, 2022 9:00 AM – May 27, 2022 8:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

“Standardization” is a term usually applied in industry, technology and business. However, it is also a vital feature in much human interaction. The papers of this multidisciplinary conference interrogate from various angles and materials the historical, social, and cognitive processes related to standardization in medieval societies. The conference has a double scope:

1.           To explore how medieval institutions and individuals attempted to obtain and maintain standards across vast distances and heterogeneous social structures.

2.           To develop the theoretical term “standardization” in a tight multidisciplinary collaboration, emphasizing that standards involve both flexibility and force, resistance and silencing, cognition and materiality.

PROGRAM

Wednesday May 25

9:00 Welcome & introduction by the organizers
Session 1 Canonicity & communities
Chair Line Cecilie Engh (University of Oslo)

9:30 Philip L. Reynolds (Emory University), Toward Understanding Scholastic Theology as a Canonical Culture

9:50 Discussion

10:30 Anders Winroth (University of Oslo), How European Law Became Standardized

10:50 Discussion

11:30 Coffee

11:45 Wim Verbaal (University of Ghent), Canalising the Floods. Variance and Standardisation of Written Language in the Middle Ages

12:05 Discussion

12:45 Lunch at the institute

Session 2 Form & transformation

Chair Kristin B. Aavitsland (Norwegian Institute in Rome)

14:00 Line M. Bonde (National Museum of Denmark), A Sense of Decorum: Negotiating the Standard Fabric for the Danish Parish Church

14:20 Discussion

15:00 Emanuele Lugli (Stanford University), When Bodies Become Points: Fencing,
Standardization, and the Erasure of Matter

15:20 Discussion

16:00 Coffee

16:15 Mary Franklin-Brown (University of Cambridge), The Metamorphosis of Elephants. Medieval Chess Pieces between Play and Standardization

16:35 Discussion

17:15 Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde (University of Oslo/National Library of Norway), Standardisation of Norwegian law with the Code of 1274 (via Zoom)

17:35 Discussion

18:30 Reception at the institute’s rooftop terrace

20:00 Dinner at Il cortile (Monteverde)

Thursday May 26

Session 3 Fieldwork

9:00-12:30 Excursion led by Chris Siwicki (Norwegian Institute in Rome)

13:00-15:00 Lunch

Session 4 Creativity & flexibility

Chair Karl-Gunnar Johansson (University of Oslo)

15:00 Franziska Quaas (Universität Hamburg), How to Write a Private Charter in the Early Middle Ages: Formulaic Writing between Uniformity and Heterogeneity

15:20 Discussion

16:00 John Burden (University of New Haven), Standardizing Penances in Burchard’s Decretum (c.1023): Goals, Methods, and Limits

16:20 Discussion

17:00 Coffee

17:15 Patricia Clare Ingham (Indiana University), Artistic Humility: Originality and Emergent Style in Chaucer’s Sir Thopas and The Treatise on the Astrolabe (via Zoom)

17:35 Discussion

18:15 End of programme

Friday May 27

Session 5 Variations & convergences

Chair Jon Gunnar Jørgensen (University of Oslo)

9:00 Rory Naismith (University of Cambridge), Taming Standardisation? Money and its Use in the Early Middle Ages

9:20 Discussion

10:00 Arthur Westwell (Universität Regensburg), The Gregorian Sacramentary and Its Reputed Standardizations Before 1000

10:20 Discussion

11:00 Coffee

11:15 Abigail Firey (University of Kentucky), Between Chaos and Codification: Carolingian Manuscripts of Canon Law

11:35 Discussion

12:15 Final remarks by Mark Turner (CWRU), Francis F. Steen (UCLA), and Geoffrey Bowker (UCI– via Zoom) and concluding discussion

12:50 Info on publishing and deadlines

13:00 Lunch at the institute

Session 6 Fieldwork

14:30-18:00 Excursion led by Kristin B. Aavitsland and Line Cecilie Engh to Abbazia delle Tre Fontane (transport will be arranged)

20:00 Dinner at Capo de fero (Trastevere)

We wish to welcome interested scholars but have limited space in the conference room. Please contact Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland if you wish to participate in any of the sessions or days. 

Organizer
Line Cecilie Engh og Kristin B. Aavitsland

The P. A. Munch Lecture 2022

Prof. Mario Bevilacqua. Maps, Trees of Knowledge, and Encyclopaedias:
Cartography of Rome, 16th-18th centuries

Time and place: Apr. 4, 2022 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Prof. Mario Bevilacqua is Full Professor in History of Architecture at Università degli Studi in Florence. He is Director of the Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma. His research spans the history of Western architecture and urbanism from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century, with special attention to issues of language and patronage, models and functions, identity and interchange.

Moderator: Dr. Christopher Stephen Siwicki, postdoctoral fellow at The Norwegian Institute in Rome

To register for in-person (limited number) or online attendance, please contact post@roma.uio.no before 4 April at 12 hrs.

Director's seminar - Spring 2022

Hilde Hagen (AHO) will present her project on this weeks' seminar at the Institute.
The Director’s seminar series takes place on Wednesday afternoons, usually at 5 pm. Presentations take the format of 20 minute-papers, followed by a Q&A session and an informal reception in the garden or in the common room upstairs.

Time and place: Mar. 16, 2022 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Wednesday 26 January
Visiting fellow Francesco Maniglia, University of Oslo: Remoulding Culture: Issues of Continuity and Change in Magna Graecia Under Roman Rule

Wednesday 2 February
Prof. em. Siri Sande, DNIR: Two Neglected Roman Women

Wednesday 9 February
Visiting fellow Oscar Dahl Lein, University of Oslo: The Codex Einsidlensis 362: A Transalpine Conception of Rome

Wednesday 16 February
Guest researcher Kristian Reinfjord, University of Bergen: Medieval Quarryscapes. Raw Material Actants of Stone Technology in Medieval Norway

Wednesday 23 February: Circolo Gianicolense (venue: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Villa Lante)
Dr Samer Abdel Ghafour, American University in Rome: Looting and Illicit Trafficking of Antiquities in the Middle East and North Africa: Understanding the Minds and Motives of Looters, Traffickers and Dealers and Other Supply Chain Actors

Wednesday 2 March
Professor Kristin B. Aavitsland, DNIR: Measuring the sacred: the height of Christ and other devotional measures in medieval culture

Wednesday 9 March
Visiting fellow Sara Sveen, University of Oslo: «Wake up, proud lion». Analysis of a Renaissance Poetic Prophecy about Florence

Wednesday 16 March, 5:30pm 
Visiting fellow Hilde Hagen, Oslo School of Architecture and Design: The Conservation of the Villa of Livia

Wednesday 23 March: 3 pm: Circolo Gianicolense (venue: American University in Rome). Grace Funsten, American Academy in Rome: TBA

Wednesday 30 March
Visiting fellow Rihannon Williams, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Oslo: Examining the Identifiability of “Christian” Burials in the Dakhla and Kharga Oases (Egypt)

Wednesday 6 April
Guest researcher Courtney Ward, DNIR alumna: The Jewels of Motherhood: Markers of Maternal Identity in Roman Italy

Wednesday 13 April
Visiting fellow David Carrillo Range, University of Bergen: Performing Heavenly Delights in Medieval Barcelona: Circulation of Birgittine Texts and Affective Communities

Wednesday 20 April, 6 pm: Circolo Gianicolense (venue: AAR) Kirsi Vikman, IRF: Dirt is not just dirt - Traces of use in the late medieval confession manuals

Women in Prehistory

Gender, identity and kinship - international workshop

Time and place: Mar. 10, 2022 9:00 AM – Mar. 11, 2022 6:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

The workshop aims to stimulate new discussion and widen the interpretive possibilities for women's movement, by considering how biological and social relatedness were  experienced in prehistory.

International participants from archaeology, anthropology and related disciplines will meet in Rome to explore how data from biological evidence and archaeological material culture can be combined, with relevance to issues of gender, identity, and kinship.

The workshop is a collaboration between The Norwegian Institute in Rome, the University of Bergen and the University of York, and is generously funded by The Wenner Gren Foundation. 

Workshop organizers:
Penny Bickle (University of York) and Daniela Hofmann (University of Bergen)

2021

Wednesday 1 December: Director’s seminar

Visiting fellow Christine Marie Bruu, MA student, University of Oslo:
Dissecting La Venere Anatomica: A psychoanalytic approach to the discussion of idealized and eroticized full-length female anatomical models in Enlightenment Italy

The Basilica of St John the Lateran and the Ark of the Covenant: Housing the Holy Relics of Jerusalem

Guest lecture by Dr. Eivor Andersen Oftestad

Time and place: Nov. 25, 2021 6:00 PM–8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

Why did the twelfth-century canons at the basilica of St John the Lateran claim the presence of the Ark of the Covenant inside their high altar? In Eivor Andersen Oftestad’s study the so-called temple treasure of the Lateran Basilica is taken seriously for the first time as a central subject of scholarly research. Oftestad argues that the temple treasure played a decisive role in the Lateran canons’ response to new challenges in the aftermath of the First Crusade in 1099. She reveals a fascinating story of cultural dynamics and theological interpretations typical of the Latin West in the twelfth century. 

The Ark of the Covenant was central as part of the treasure from the Jerusalem temple, allegedly transported to Rome after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, and according to contemporary accounts depicted on the arch of Titus. Oftestad explores the history of the Lateran Ark of the Covenant through a reading of the description of the Lateran Church (Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae), composed around 1100. She follows the transmission of the text both in the Lateran Archive and in monastic settings in northern France and Belgium, comparing the claim to the Ark with similar claims in texts from Jerusalem. The alleged Ark of the Covenant is contextualized in the mental and spiritual milieu of the early crusades, of the ecclesiology of the Reform movement and of the regular canons. Central to the argument is the proposal of a “translatio templi” (drawing on medieval theories of translatio imperii), from Jerusalem to Rome. 

Eivor Andersen Oftestad is Associate Professor at Department of Humanities at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. She has pursued a wide range of research interests in medieval and early modern church history. At the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Oslo, she was an initiator and central member of the research project «Tracing the Jerusalem Code: Christian Cultures in Scandinavia» (NFR-funded, 2015-2018), and at The Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo she was a central member of «Death in Early Protestant Tradition» (NFR-funded, 2010-2013). Recent titles include The Lateran Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant: Housing the Holy Relics of Jerusalem. (With an edition and translation of the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae (BAV Reg. Lat. 712)), Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, Boydell & Brewer, 2019 and Eivor A. Oftestad & Joar Haga (eds.),  Tracing the Jerusalem Code, Volume 2: The Chosen People. Christian Cultures in Early Modern Scandinavia (1536–ca. 1750), de Gruyter 2021.

Wednesday 24 November: Director’s seminar

Visiting fellow Aksel Teigen Breistrand, MA student, University of Bergen: Ideology in Architecture: Past, Present and Future in the Forum of Augustus

Alphabet Concepts and Uniform Letters

Guest lecture by Prof. Johanna Drucker

Time and place: Nov. 18, 2021 6:00 PM–8:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Standardization of the alphabet is largely thought of in terms of the forms of the letters. The uniform identity of local hands, scripts associated with specific communities, depended on techniques of copying and training. In addition, the less obvious aspect of standardization was that the concept of the alphabet—its origins and identity—also had to assume a consensual form. In the medieval to early modern period, textual and graphical modes of knowledge production assisted in the consolidation of a concept of the alphabet through transmission of textual and visual models. The conceptual aspects of this activity are the focus of this talk.

Johanna Drucker is the Breslauer Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. She has published and lectured widely on topics related to history of writing, graphical texts and knowledge production, visualization and digital humanities. She is also known for her work as a book artist and visual poet. Recent titles include: Iliazd: Meta-biography of a Modernist (2020), Visualization and Interpretation (2020), The Digital Humanities Coursebook (2020), and the forthcoming Inventing the Alphabet (2022). In collaboration with artist Susan Bee, she also recently published Off-World Fairy Tales (2020)

Wednesday 17 November,

6 pm: Circolo Gianicolense (venue: DNIR) 6 pm
TBA

Wednesday 10 November, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

Visiting fellow Karen Kvamme Aase, MA student, University of Bergen:
Lived religion in Pompeii: lararia in private houses

Visiting fellow Sofie Amalie Ramstad, MA student, Oslo School of Architecture and Design: Hadrian's Villa: A journey back to fundamental values - Revisiting scale, proportion, and geometry through the human body.

Wednesday 3 November, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

(Chris standing in for Kristin) Visiting fellow Anne Marlene Karlsson, PhD student, University of Bergen: The politics of heritage: Discourses of policy and practise in Norway

Wednesday 27 October, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

(NB! Venue 3rd floor) Visiting fellow Anna Danilova, PhD student, University of Bergen: Neighborhoods of Ostia

Might is Not Right

Critiques of Imperial Rule and Historiographical Representations of the World

Time and place: Oct. 21, 2021 4:30 PM–Oct. 23, 2021 1:00 PM, Det norske institutt og Sapienza Universitetet i Roma

In popular wisdom, history is written by the winners, and it is certainly true that the writing of history can reflect relationships of power. In antiquity, we see the first attempts to write histories of the whole world. These ancient universal histories saw world history through the lens of imperial history; empire and conquest created a visible process of interconnection that allowed historians to write about the whole world rather than single sites of regional conflicts.

In the recent past, these universal histories have been seen as irrevocably imperialistic; by identifying imperial power with historical interconnection, universal historians would have endorsed it.

Daniele Miano (IAKH/UiO) is organising this conference in collaboration with Prof. John Thornton (Sapienza University of Rome), with support from CAS and The Norwegian Institute in Rome.

Conference programme 

Thursday 21 October – ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia,
Aula Odeion (Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5)

16:30 – Coffee break

17:00 – Institutional welcome – Prof. Kristin
Bliksrud Aavitsland, Director of the Norwegian Institute in Rome – Prof. Giorgio Piras, Director of the Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’

17:15 – Inaugural address of Hervé Inglebert
(Chair: Prof. Roberto Nicolai) – Histoire impériale, histoire universelle et sub-cultures chrétiennes durant l’Antiquité tardive : les exemples d’Augustin et d’Orose

18:15 – End of day 1

Friday 22 October – The Norwegian
Institute in Rome (Viale Trenta Aprile 33)

10:00 – Daniele Miano – John Thornton –
Universal historiography and power: complicating the relationship

10:40 – Jesper Madsen – Why Empire: motives of conquest in Cassius Dio’s Roman History

11:20 – Coffee break

11:40 – Chiara Silvagni – The universality inmodern age: the New World narrated through the works of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera

12:20 – Martial Staub – Comparison and comparability in late medieval and early Renaissance universal chronicles

13:00 – Lunch

14:30 – Michele Campopiano – Empire, Translatio imperii and the multiplicity of human polities in the high and late Middle Ages: some reflections with specific reference to the work of Paolino Veneto

15:10 – Benjamin Pedersen – The nature (and value) of universal history in Hellenistic historiography

15:50 – Coffee break

16:10 – Silvina Vidal – Tommaso Campanella’s criticism of Spanish monarchy, between politics and historiography

16:50 – Alice Borgna – Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. Pompeius Trogus and Augustus

18:00 – Wine reception

Saturday 23 October – ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, Facoltà di Lettere e
Filosofia, Aula A, second floor (Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5)

10:00 – Craige Champion – Universal Empire in Polybius

10:40 – Laura Mecella – The Decline of Pagan Universal Historiography in Late Antiquity

11:20 – Coffee break

11:40 – Blythe Alice Raviola – Giovanni Boteroand Le relazioni universali (1591)

12:20 – Pietro Vannicelli – A long way to Polybius: Universal Perspectives in Classical Greek historiography

13:00 – End of day 

Wednesday 20 October, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

Guest researcher Jesse Ophoff, PhD student, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society: Reading Under the Guidance of the Gospel: Evanglium in Regulae Benedicti et Pastoralis

Wednesday 13 October, 6 pm: Circolo Gianicolense

(venue: Villa Lante) Visiting fellow, IRF, PhD student Joonas Vanhala:
TBA

Wednesday 6 October, 4 pm: PhD workshop;

No seminar. For attendance: contact Chris

The L’Orange lecture 2021

Prof. Nino Zchomelidse will give a lecture on "Rome and the aesthetics of illusion:  the Privilegium Ottonianum and the Marriage Charter of Empress Theophanu"

Time and place: Oct. 5, 2021 6:00 PM–8:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Wednesday 29 September: Director’s seminar

(Chris standing in for Kristin) Guest researcher Lasse Hodne, Professor, NTNU, Trondheim: Winckelmann and the Art of Enlightenment

Wednesday 15 September, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

Guest researcher Sturla Stålsett, Professor, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society: Political theology of vulnerability in (post-)pandemic times. A brief presentation of work in progress

Sacred Books, Holy Relics and Godly Women: New Perspectives on Sanctity in Europe

Professor Brian Richardson (University of Leeds, UK) and Dr Ruth S. Noyes (National Museum of Denmark) will present on history of the circulation of texts and premodern migrations of sacral heritage.

Time and place: Sep. 14, 2021 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The seminar Sacred Books, Holy Relics and Godly Women: New Perspectives on Sanctity in Renaissance Europe starts from the new research findings of Emeritus Professor Brian Richardson (University of Leeds, UK), author of the recent book Women and the Circulation of Texts in Renaissance Italy (2020), and art historian Dr Ruth S. Noyes (National Museum of Denmark), currently working on a book project called Translatio. Richardson and Noyes are two key experts in the history of the circulation of texts and premodern migrations of sacral heritage across the Nordic-Baltic region and greater Europe respectively. The seminar will investigate the notion of sanctity in the Renaissance by looking at women as key actors in the circulation of religious books and objects. Richardson's and Noyes's presentations will be followed by an open discussion. The proposed seminar is related to the ongoing research on sanctity pursued at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas via the projects "The Legacy of Birgitta of Sweden" and "Women Writing Saints" which focus respectively on the circulation of Birgitta of Sweden's Revelations and the production of religious literature by women writers in Renaissance Italy, in connection with the activities of the interdisciplinary research group 'Textual Traditions and Communities in Early Modern Europe'.

Wednesday 8 September, 4 pm: Director’s seminar

Visiting fellow Mads Prøitz, MA student, University of Oslo:
Greek and Roman Victory Trophies - Adoption and Continuity

The Annual H.P. L’Orange lecture

Prof. Ulrich Pfisterer: Raphael and the Cornucopia of Antiquity 

Time and place: June 23, 2021 6:00 PM–8:00 PM, The Norwegian Institute in Rome

The Norwegian institute in Rome is honored to welcome Prof. Pfisterer as this year's H.P. L'Orange lecturerer.

His lecture will discuss the so-called Small Holy Family (Paris, Musée du Louvre) as a key work to understand Raphael’s use of antiquity, as well as his own art theoretical thinking.

This painting reveals not only Raphael’s implementation of the ancient models, but also his peculiar understanding of the relationship between autography and workshop participation in his works.

Additionally, the analysis will show how the concepts of friendship and art as a gift – both inherited from the antiquity – play a crucial role in Raphael’s self-fashioning.

The Small Holy Family thus presents itself as a painted theory of art in emulation with the classical past.

About Ulrich Pfisterer

Ulrich Pfisterer is Director of the Zentralinstitute für Kunstgeschichte in Münich. 

Image may contain: Glasses, Hair, Facial hair, Chin, Beard.
Pfisterer has taught Art History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich since 2006, and has undertaken research at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, the Getty Research Center in L.A. and at CASVA/The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

His interests encompass the fields of early modern art in Europe and beyond, as well as the methodology and historiography of Art History.

He has published books on – among other subjects – Donatello, art literature and theory in the Italian Renaissance, the Sistine Chapel, and the interplay of concepts of erotic or biological procreativity and artistic creativity in early modern Europe.

Currently, he is preparing a collected volume of essays on global artistic exchange and contact zones from c. 1300-1650.

2020

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est: Women Passing the Baton of Catholic Reformation

Presentation by Dr. Clara Stella as part of the Circolo Gianicolense seminar series. 

Time and place: Oct. 28, 2020 3:00 PM–4:30 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Dr Stella will present her research project focusing on the interlaced legacy of fourteenth-century female reformers, Birgitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena, and the experiences of the women that more than a century later found themselves in the struggle for, once again, a Catholic reform within the Romana ecclesia.

With Aldo Manuzio’s 1500 edition of Catherine’s letters, to which he added a short vita and some prayers, the sixteenth century opened its doors with ominous and apocalyptic warnings. Only two years after the execution of Girolamo Savonarola in 1498, who had regarded his prophetic mission as a continuation of Catherine of Siena’s legacy, the printer aimed to revive Catherine’s cult and ethical message in the hope that the letters ‘would spread throughout the world like solemn preachers’ and foster the reform of both individuals and the Church. Aldus’s impressive edition will be our starting point in investigating the reception of Catherine as a model of religious exemplarity, knowledge, and diplomacy - a catalyst in the search for a renewed society, amid a climate of foreign invasions, internal political strife and the wake of the Reformation movement in the Northern countries. Looking instead at the first pages of the first 1494 edition of her Dialogue, Catherine is represented on a throne, or a cattedra, as a dispenser of knowledge and spiritual guidance, giving copies of her book to two noblewomen, and replicating in her pose and gesture the authorial legacy of Birgitta of Sweden giving copies of her Rule to her Brigittines.

The latter is just one small example that brings out several factors, ranging from how the legacy of those reformers was perceived as interlaced to the circulation of their texts among the same readership. On a different level, it also stresses how Birgitta - and then Catherine - became a model of intellectual knowledge, activism, and spiritual authority for religious and laywomen alike in the centuries that follow. With a particular focus on two women living during the same years of the sixteenth-century Catholic reformation - the prophetess Domenica Narducci from the Florentine Convent of the Paradiso and Vittoria Colonna, the most powerful woman living in Renaissance Rome - this talk will consider how these women embodied the roles of reformers and intellectuals, following in the footsteps of Birgitta and Catherine both within and beyond their communities. 

About

Dr. Clara Stella: After having completed her studies at the University of Padua in Modern Philology, Clara undertook a PhD in Italian literature at the University of Leeds (UK) under the supervision of Professor Brian Richardson and Federica Pich. Her research has shed new light on the history and poetic activity of 53 noblewomen whose work is gathered in the Rime diverse di alcune nobilissime, et virtuosissime donne, the first anthology entirely dedicated to women poets of the Renaissance, edited by Lodovico Domenichi in 1559.

Clara is now a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at The University of Oslo for the research project 'Women Writing Saints in Counter-Reformation Italy' (September 2019 - September 2021). The project looks at how women authors have negotiated the legacy of female saints in their writings as both subjects as well as intellectual and ethical inspirations for their own oeuvre and authorship.

Clara is also part of the project "The Legacy of Birgitta of Sweden: Women, Politics, and Reform in Renaissance Italy"  led by Prof. Unn Falkeid at the University of Oslo. 

Opposition to Public Building in the Ancient World

Presentation by Dr. Christopher Siwicki as part of the Circolo Gianicolense seminars.

Time and place: Oct. 16, 2020 1:00 PM–2:30 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Christopher is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Norwegian Institute in Rome. His research focuses on ancient architecture and the city of Rome.

The seminar is open to the public, but due to COVID there are strict limitations to number of participants and registration is obligatory. Kindly contact post@roma.uio.no if you wish to register. 

Lions and hunting

Roman influences and depictions in the Hellenistic and Imperial Era. Presentation by Dr. Miika Remahl. Part of the series Circolo Gianicolense.

Time and place: Oct. 2, 2020 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, Downstairs lecture room at DniR

Miika Remahl is the Wihuri fellow 2020 – 2021 at the Finnish Institute in Rome. He is currently working on his doctoral thesis with the preliminary title ”The Image of Lion in Hunting Settings in Literary and Visual Sources in Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Times”.

His research focuses on the different meanings attributed to lions from a humanistic point of view. Remahl deals with the relationship between lions and hunting in Roman literature of the Republican and Imperial periods and in Roman-Campanian mosaics and mural paintings. The lion has been one of the most commonly used animals in metaphors and often represented as a part of hunting themes.

The research tries to shed light on the following questions:

• How did Romans represent lions and people as hunters?
• What kind of meanings did those representations have and what can they tell us about their authors from a cultural and social viewpoint?

The theoretical basis of the research comes especially from humanistic animal studies and the diverse social meanings of hunting.

During his year as a Wihuri fellow, Remahl will focus on the study of Pompeian mosaics and mural paintings representing lions that will be a part of his visual source material. These materials have so far been relatively little used and not well catalogued.

The Wihuri Fellowship has been awarded in co-operation with the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation since 1965.

Miika Remahl is a PhD student with a specialization in ancient animal studies at the University of Helsinki. He holds a Master’s degree in General History from the University of Eastern Finland. He has also studied at Northumbria and Harvard universities. His minors include Latin, ancient Greek, archaeology, art history, sociology and social policy.

Circolo Gianicolense

Museums as actors in cultural heritage security, and refugees trafficking antiquities - this and more at the first Circolo Gianicolense meeting and discussion this autumn. 

Time and place: Sep. 16, 2020 1:00 PM–3:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

Marie Elisabeth Berg Christensen: The securitisation of cultural heritage: The museum as an actor in global security.

Samuel Hardy: Trafficking of antiquities by refugees: Failed policy and exploited victims.

Limited number of participants due to infection control measures, please contact post@roma.uio.no to request participation.

Heritage is engagement with the past in the present. Heritage is, therefore, entangled in, and crucial for a deeper understanding of some of the most important contemporary global challenges: Migration, integration, conflict and cultural destruction, climate change and adaptation to rapid and major technological changes. 

HEI: Heritage Experience Initiative aims at developing critical heritage research in cooperation with the heritage sector and will experiment with new teaching models. For more about the project:  https://www.hf.uio.no/english/research/strategic-research-areas/hei/

Marie Elisabeth Berg Christensen is a doctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen. She is currently on a 2-month research stay at the Norwegian Institute in Rome where she will be part of HEi and collaborate with Dr. Sam Hardy and Prof. Christopher Prescott in the working group “Heritage activism and conflict”.

Christensen’s project explores the new roles and challenges museums face in relation to security matters in the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict. Here, security is not understood as personal security or security for the organization, but as security for the world’s cultural heritage. The theoretical framework of the project will discuss the discursive construction of cultural heritage as a security issue. The discussion of cultural heritage and security is inspired by the research of securitisation of climate change, development, immigration etc.

The research is based on analyzing data obtained from interviews with cultural heritage experts and museum professionals, as well as case studies of the work done by leading museums in the field alongside written research material on the activities of museums related to security of cultural heritage. It will also include an examination of the research literature that directly or indirectly touches upon security and cultural heritage issues.

The PhD is increasingly relevant due to the fact that cultural heritage protection is becoming a transnational and non-traditional security issue and museums have become important actors in the international protection of the world’s cultural heritage. In relation to cultural heritage protection, we also see fundamental changes in the understanding and management of cultural heritage as an area of legal, political and governmental significance. There is a decentralization and redistribution of the responsibility of protection of cultural heritage, and here the museum, as a civilian actor, plays an important role. 

Samuel Andrew Hardy is a post-doctoral fellow with HEI. He examines the relationships between illicit trafficking of cultural objects and political violence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. He explores the practice of looting; the interconnections between cultural property crimes and other crimes; and the politics of policing in the Eastern Mediterranean.

He is also reviewing the evidence for conflict antiquities trafficking; the use of heritage propaganda; and the interconnections between antiquities trafficking and the refugee crisis in West Asia and North Africa. Hardy is also exploring transnational networks that bridge conflict zones and antiquities markets. The aim of Hardy’s research is to produce evidence that will inform efforts to reduce the loss of cultural heritage and the income of violent organizations.

Organizer

Det norske institutt i Roma

The uses of “Italian Theory” and Gaetano Mosca in media studies

Francis Therrien will present his exploratory threefold research project.

Time and place: Feb. 18, 2020 1:30 PM–2:15 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma

On the one hand, the notion of “Italian Theory” will be addressed on the question the label itself and on the potential genealogy of thinkers within it. It will be followed by a description of Mosca’s “ruling class” and his place in regard to “Italian theory”.

Finally, the framework for a more quantitative approach to the subject, an analysis of the references from the scholarly journal, Comunicazione politica, will be presented

Patristic Books in the High Middle Ages

Nick Pouls (PhD, University of Bergen) will present his research project "Writing and Reading Texts of the Church Fathers: a Quantitative Codicological Approach to the Legibility of Patristic Books in the High Middle Ages"

Time and place: Feb. 11, 2020 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Det norske institutt i Roma