Conferences

On Thursday 6th June 2019, at 4.30 pm, the launch of the book ‘Scrivo all’amico. Carteggio (1930-1963)’ will take place in the prestigious Palazzo Theodoli-Bianchelli in Rome, one of the headquarters of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Piazza del Parlamento 19. Pier Luigi Ballini, University of Florence, and Eliana Versace, LUMSA University in Rome, will discuss about the letters exchanged in the central decades of the Twentieth century between Giorgio La Pira, Mayor of Florence, and Giovanni Battista Montini, the future pope Paul VI. The critical work on the letters was edited by Maria Chiara Rioli and Giuseppe Emiliano Bonura, taking advantage of a scholarship of our Institute. The launch will be chaired by On. Flavia Piccoli Nardelli, together with the inaugural greetings by the three institutions involved in the project, besides our Institute, the Fondazione Giorgio La Pira of Florence and the Istituto Paolo VI of Concesio (Bs). Download here for more details.

On Monday 27th May 2019, at 3 pm, our actual fellow Olga Kusenko will have a lecture at the Dipartimento FORLILPSI of the University of Florence on the reception of the interpretations of the Italian Renaissance, from a literary and philosophical point of view, within some Russian writers of the Twentieth century who had personal and epistolary contacts with some Italian scholars of the same period. It will be a relevant contribution to a better knowledge of the Italian Studies in Russia during the contemporary era. Marcello Garzaniti, professor of Slavonic Studies at the same university, will introduce and chair the presentation. Download here for more details.

On Monday 20th May 2019, at 6 pm, our Institute will host the launch of the book ‘Un romanzo per gli occhi. Manzoni, Caravaggio e la fabbrica del realismo’, by Daniela Brogi, Carocci 2018. Riccardo Donati and Tomaso Montanari, chaired by the Rector of the University for foreigners of Siena Pietro Cataldi, will discuss on the relations among words and images; on the impact of the Lombard figurative tradition in the works of the most famous writer of that region; and about themes and issues of the Borromaic age of reformations in customs and behaviours of the religious and ecclesiastical institutions and of the people. Download here for more details.

Next 10th and 11th May 2019 the first appointment of the project ‘Removing obstacles. Fundamental Rights and Constitutions’ will take place. Conceived and organized by our Institute and financially supported by the Fondazione Marchi in Florence, under the auspices of the Società italiana per lo studio della storia contemporanea (Sissco) and in collaboration with the Fondazione Intercultura of Colle di Val d’Elsa, some tens of students coming from the high schools of Florence, Prato and Pescia will gather at the Istituto alberghiero ‘Aurelio Saffi’ of Florence to hear and discuss with renowned university scholars on the Constitutional Committee and the Italian Constitution during the post-WWII period, on fundamental rights, freedom and equality, faiths and religions in our Constitution, on the Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of the United Nations. Together with this full immersion about the basis of our civil coexistence, the students will begin a road map in order to work together in creative laboratories during the next Autumn. A new important project of our Institute, among the initiatives for the anniversary of the Italian Constitution in 2018. Download here for more details.

Next Tuesday 9th April 2019, at the Sala storica ‘Dino Campana’ of the Biblioteca comunale delle Oblate in Florence, under the auspices of the Department for Libraries of the local Municipality, the launch of the book “Parole apte et convenienti”. La lingua della diplomazia fiorentina di metà Quattrocento, by Andrea Felici, edited by the Accademia della Crusca, will take place. Chaired by Giovanna Frosini, University for foreigners of Siena, the book will be presented by Antonio Corsaro, University of Urbino, and Jean-Jacques Marchand, Université de Lausanne. An important occasion to deepen the development of the Florentine vernacular as the language of the political-diplomatic relations. Download here for more details.

Next Tuesday 26th March 2019 our Institute will dedicate a one-day conference to the digital humanities applied to the correspondences of the cardinals of the Italian and European Renaissance: experiences and projects of digitization and creation of databases will be compared, in collaboration with the Medici Archive Project in Florence, with the financial support of the Cultural National Department, and under the auspices of the National Library and the State Archives in Florence. The idea of a new project will be launched by our Institute in order to improve the fruition and the knowledge of relevat documents for the Italian and European history, taking avantage of the modern IT methodologies. Download here the program for more details.

Next Friday 15th March, on the occasion of the month dedicated to women, from 6 pm, at our Institute will take place a round table on a very topical and little known issue: the role of women today in the interpretation of the Qur’an; the presence of women as imam; the real experience of muslim women theologians in the United States, South Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Izzeddin Elzir, imam of Florence; Letizia Tomassone, chief of the Waldensian Florentine Church and Margherita Picchi, researcher on the contemporary islamic thought will be chaired by Debora Spini, NYU Florence. Download here the program for more details.

Almost at the same time, on Thursday 13th December, at 4.30 pm, in Milan, at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, don Stefano Caprio, Giovanni Codevilla and Renato Pettoello will present the book ‘Kant e l’ortodossia russa. Accademie ecclesiastiche e filosofia in Russia tra XVIII e XIX secolo’, by Vera Pozzi, the winner of our Award for the Religious History 2016. An outstanding contribution to the reconstruction of the reception of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant in the Empire of the Czars; to the relations among West and East;  to the role of the ecclesiastical academies in accepting some aspects of that philosophy and modifying some others, facing the reasons of the Orthodox religion. Cesare Alzati, Accademia Romena in Bucarest, will chair the book launch. Download here for more details.

On Thursday 13th December, at 5 pm, at the Institute, our Director Massimo Carlo Giannini and Francesco Martelli, Florence State Archives, will present the book ‘Los Medici y España. Príncipes, embajadores y agentes en la Edad Moderna’, by Paola Volpini. A new perspective on the history of the political-diplomatic relations, as well as the cultural exchanges between Tuscany and Spain in Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries: kings, princes, ministers and ambassadors exchange information and confront each other in the scenery of the relations among the Medici and the Hapsburgs during the early modern era. Maria Pia Paoli, Scuola Normale Superiore, will chair the book launch. Download here for more details.

Our Institute will organize an entire week dedicated to the two anniversaries of the Italian Racial Laws in 1938 and of the Italian Constitution in 1948. From November 22th to 28th 2018 the high schools of Florence and Siena, the university students and the young researchers, together with the citizenry, will be involved in conferences, teamworks, round tables and theathral shows. These initiatives are organized in collaboration with the Università per Stranieri di Siena, the Jews and Waldensian Communities of Florence, Rai Toscana, Cinema La Compagnia, and are financially supported by Regione Toscana. Download here the complete program and the posters of every single initiative.