On Wednesday 14th February 2018, at 5 pm, our Institute will host a conference which aims to make a point about the presence of silence and prayer rooms, as well as houses of religions today between Italy and Spain: that is places where, especially inside public institutions, the believers in different faiths can gather together in meditation and worship. Chaired by Alessandro Bedini of the Corriere della Sera, the speakers will talk about religious freedom as well as mutual understanding and respect. Download here the program for more details.
Next Tuesday 6th February 2018, 6 pm, at our Institue, Lucia Frattarelli Fischer (University of Pisa) and Vincenzo Lavenia (University of Bononia) will discuss the book of the winner of our Award for the religious history, 2015 edition, Samuela Marconcini, ‘For heaven’s sake. Becoming Christians in Florence, XVIIth-XVIIIth Centuries’, Firenze University Press 2016. The launch will be chaired by Maria Pia Paoli, Scuola Normale Superiore. Download here the program for more details.
The concept of identity is one of the most debated in social science. Coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean during the Medieval and Modern era is a perfect geographical and chronological setting to question the utility of this concept. Thanks to some European researchers’ works, a global revision of the concept is analysed in this book through history, history of arts and literature. Which role will religions and politics play in the re-affirmation of Mediterranean peoples’ different identities? Which myths marked religious otherness studies? Which role will art play as a catalyst for those conflicts? These are some of the focal questions of this book, and the authors will try to answer.
edited by: Borja Franco Bruno Pomara Manuel Lomas Bárbara Ruiz
Identidades cuestionadas : Coexistencia y conflictos interreligiosos en el Mediterráneo (ss. XIV-XVIII)
Universitat de València, Valencia 2016
In this work, the author examines the phenomenon of conversions to Catholicism in Florence between XVIIth and XVIIIth century, starting from the reconstruction of the catechumen’s House history. In the second half of the XVIIth century, thanks to a Florentine aristocrat woman’s will, the institution hosted infidels of every origin, and the number of conversions grew considerably. Such liberality led to a difficult economic crisis that the grand-dukes of Lorraine tried to fix, by limiting the actions just for Tuscan subjects. However, priests did not stop abusing or interfering, most of all against Jews.
Samuela Marconcini
Per amor del cielo
Farsi cristiani a Firenze tra Seicento e Settecento
Firenze University Press, Firenze 2016
The work’s purpose is to explain which causes contributed to the success of Lourdes and its devotion. This analysis starts from the comparison between the 18 Marian apparitions in Lourdes and other similar events happened in France, which had different results. After an initial contextualisation, some key aspects of Catholic Church of that age are analysed. In this study, two fields are examined in depth, according to the purpose of the text: medical science and literature, both connected with the topic of miracles.
Alessandro Di Marco
Lourdes: storie di miracoli
Genesi e sviluppo di una devozione planetaria
Firenze University Press, Firenze 2016
Here is the report, due to prof. Simona Negruzzo about the seminar organised in honour of prof. Xenio Toscani, full professor first at the University of Pavia, then at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Brescia; he is also the current general secretary of the Istituto Paolo VI in Concesio (Brescia). The event was organised in the headquarters of our Institute in Florence on the 25th of November 2016, in collaboration with the Istituto Paolo VI.
An international colloquium in order to deepen the knowledge of one of the most representative figures of the religious and political Seventeenth Century: Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Charles V’s counselor, viceroy of Naples, cardinal, ambassador and archbishop of Malines. Prepared during the last year, at 5oo years since his birth, in collaboration with the Medici Archive Project, the conference will gather, next 25th and 26th January 2018, renowned scholars from all over Europe debating the multiple aspects of an outstanding personality: the art collector and patron, the refined politician, the diplomat, the mediator, the churchman. Download here the program for more details.
Next Thursday 18th January 2018, the Accademia dei Ponti will organize, in collaboration with our Institute, an occasion to meditate on the need for dialogue and debate in order to re-establish a new culture of peace, in a world full of violent conflicts. Our actual fellow Babere Kerata Chacha, Laikipia University, will participate talking about the complicated ethnic and religious situation today in Kenya. Download here the program for more details.