Society and Culture in the Baroque Period

LocandineInternational Conference

Rome, 27-29 March 2014

PROGRAMMA DEI LAVORI

 

 

Sapienza Università di Roma – Aula Magna del Rettorato (Palazzo del Rettorato) 27 marzo 2014 h. 9.00-13.00

Presentation of the ENBaCH, Renata Ago (Sapienza Università di Roma)

What is “Baroque”? Defining Baroque in the history of art, literature, music, science, society, etc.

Chairperson: Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Andrea Battistini (Università di Bologna), Dal cerchio all’ellisse: dal Rinascimento al Barocco
Francesco Benigno (Università di Teramo), La visione barocca: alle radici di una sensibilità condivisa

h. 11.00 Coffee break

Marcello Fagiolo (Centro studi per l’immagine di Roma), Barocco: il potere delle immagini e la festa delle arti
Christian Jouhaud (EHESS – Parigi), Autour de la notion de « baroque », enjeux polémiques, enjeux politiques

13.15 Lunch break

 Aula III (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, piano terra) 27 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

1. Diplomatic networks

Chairperson: Rosario Villari (Accademia dei Lincei)
Diana Carriò Invernizzi (UNED – Madrid), The ambassador Marquis de la Fuente. A new Spanish  diplomacy in Europe after the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659)
Massimo Carlo Giannini (Università di Teramo), Cesare Monti nunzio a Madrid (1628-34) e arcivescovo di Milano
Antonella Viola, (Centro de História de Além-Mar – Lisbon), Granducal agents in Lisbon. Diplomatic  networks and the circulation of information between Portugal and Tuscany (1660-1700)
Paola Volpini (Sapienza Università di Roma), Sfiducia e controllo. Difficili relazioni di reciprocità tra gli agenti medicei a Madrid

Aula del Museo di Storia della medicina (Istituto di Storia della Medicina. piano terra) 27 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

2. Baroque bodies

Chairperson: Sonia Horn (Medizinische Universitaet Wien);
Benedetta Borello (Sapienza Università di Roma), Temperamenti umorali e identità familiare nella Roma barocca
Maria Conforti (Sapienza Università di Roma) – Silvia De Renzi (Open University – UK), Baroque  surgery. Riva’s anatomical tables
Regina Deckers (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Frightening Fragments – The Representation of the Rotten  Corpse in Baroque Sculpture
Fabio Cafagna (Sapienza Università di Roma), Landscapes of Inner Body. The Baroque Myth of  Transparency in the Teaching of Artistic Anatomy
Stefania Macioce (Sapienza Università di Roma), Figure del tempo e della morte: il senso del macabro in  età barocca

Sala degli Organi collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 27 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

3. Epistolary exchanges

Chairperson: Federica Favino (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Clizia Carminati (Università di Bergamo), La lettera come strumento di informazione nelle relazioni letterarie del Cinquecento e del Seicento: il progetto Archilet – Reti epistolari
Caroline Castiglione (Brown University), Women as Witness: From Seeing the World to Changing it in  the Baroque Age
Emilio Russo (Sapienza Università di Roma), Scambi e reti epistolari tra Italia e Francia nel primo Seicento
Carmen Serrano Sanchez (Universidad de Alcalá) «Arriba el telón». Cortesía y representación en la  teoría epistolar del barroco

Aula XV – Ex Officine Ortopedia 27 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

4. Artists on the move I

Chairperson: Joan Lluis Palos (Universitat de Barcelona) Michael North (Universitaet Greifswald), Baroque on the Baltic
Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira (Universidad Nova de Lisboa), A young artist in the Rome of Clement XI:  Vieira Lusitano and the origins of Roman Taste in John’s V Court
Mayte García Julliard (Musée d’art et d’histoire de la Ville de Genève), A different Velázquez? Philipp  IV’s painter far from the Spanish court
Miguel Hermoso Cuesta (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Some considerations on Neapolitan  Painting of the second half of the 17th Century
Peter Mason (Roma), Ribera and the Antique

h. 16.40 Coffee break

Aula III (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, piano terra) 27 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

5. Diplomatic networks-Rome

Chairperson: Diana Carriò Invernizzi (Universidad telematica)
José María Domínguez (Universidad de La Rioja), Diplomacy as performance in late 17th-century Rome:  A controversy on the Spanish immunity in 1692
Isabella Iannuzzi (Sapienza Università di Roma), L’ambasciata spagnola a Roma e la politica religiosa del Conde-Duque de Olivares
Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (Università di Chieti-Pescara, Bibliotheca Hertziana), “La mia posterità […] co n me stesso è dedicata a servire et ubidire eter namente Vo stra Maestà Cesarea.” Il Principe Pao l o   Savelli, ambasciatore imperiale alla corte di Roma, e la sue rete di relazioni europee
James Nelson Novoa (Universidade de Lisboa/CLEPUL), The Changing face of Portugal’s man in  Baroque Rome (1580-1640)

Aula del Museo di Storia della medicina (Istituto di Storia della Medicina, piano terra) 27 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

6. Baroque souls

Chairperson: Lisa Roscioni (Università di Parma)
Tessa Storey (Royal Holloway-University of London), “It is the duty of the diligent doctor to investigate just how deeply it has penetrated his soul”: Managing melancholy in late sixteenth-century Rome
Federica Molin (Venezia), “La parrucca, la cosa più barocca del barocco”. Usi costumi ed eccessi della  società del ‘600
Berthold Over (Universitaet Mainz), E le passioni colla ragione si temperino”. La cantata da camera  come strumento del controllo delle passioni
Aneta Markuszewska (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Between sensuality of music and religious ecstasy – Maria Clementina Sobieska Stuart (1702-1735)

Sala degli Organi collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 27 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

7. Arts and sciences in translation I

Chairperson: Marco Ruffini (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Laura Facchin (Università dell’Insubria), Ludovico Settala: un intellettuale barocco fra scienza e arte
Federica Favino (Sapienza Università di Roma), Un re sole, un sole re: ‘nuova’ scienza e teoria dello Stato nella Roma barocca
Itay Sapir (Université du Québec à Montréal), Baroque Science, Experimental Art? Reflections on Early  Seventeenth-Century Epistemological Culture
Andrea Spiriti (Università dell’Insubria), La ‘Galeria’ di Giovanni Battista Marino fra arte e poesia:  sogno, utopia, gioco nel primo Seicento

Aula XV- Ex Officine Ortopedia 27 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

8. Artists on the move II

Chairperson: Paola Besutti (Università di Teramo)
Francesco Cotticelli – Paologiovanni Maione (Seconda Università di Napoli -Fondazione Pietà dei Turchini, Napoli), Tra le carte della diplomazia napoletana: la musica e il teatro “viaggianti” nell’Europa  del Settecento
Maria Alexandra Trindade Gago da Câmara (Universidade de Aberta), Models and representations of  the portuguese world of baroque: The Tile (Azulejo) and the staging of everyday
Maria do Rosario Salema de Carvalho (History of Art Institute, University of Lisbon), How prints were  used by azulejos’s painters. The example of Gabriel del Barco
Anna Tedesco (Università di Palermo), Due networks per la circolazione del teatro spagnolo nell’opera  italiana: corti spagnole e teatro impresariale

 

Auditorium della Cappella Universitaria h. 20.15

Concerto dell’Ensemble “Diletto Barocco”: in programma musiche di Lully, Lotti, Telemann, Haendel

Aula del Museo di Storia della medicina (Istituto di Storia della Medicina, piano terra) 28 marzo 2014 h. 9.00

9. Baroque architecture and urbanism

Chairperson: Mario Bevilacqua (Università di Firenze)
Fabio Colonnese (Sapienza Università di Roma), Galileo, Bernini and Gaspari. Notes on the controversial  association between Ellipse and Baroque
Denis De Lucca (University of Malta), Jesuits and Military Architecture
Mehtap Serim (MAU), Ottoman Architecture in the Age of Encounters
Marisa Tabarrini (Sapienza Università di Roma), Riforma religiosa del clero regolare e politica urbana  sotto Innocenzo X Pamphilj
Federico Vizzaccaro (Sapienza Università di Roma), La musica sacra a Roma, un'”immagine sonora” dell’età del Barocco?

Sala Odeion (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, piano seminterrato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 9.00

10. Art for power / The power of art I

Chairperson: Claudia Cieri Via (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Ida Mauro (Universitat de Barcelona), Emblemi vicereali. Le serie a stampa dei ritratti di viceré e  governatori
Giacomo Montanari (Università degli Studi di Genova), La Parola e l’Immagine. Cultura del libro e  collezionismo artistico nella Genova del XVII secolo
Milena Viceconte (Universitat de Barcelona), Il duca di Medina de las Torres e alcune note sulla sua  collezione di ritratti
Stefano
Pierguidi (Sapienza Università di Roma), Tanto che basti: arti figurative e notomia in età  barocca

Sala degli Organi collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 9.00

11. Arts and sciences in translation II

Chairperson: Amedeo Quondam (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Meike Beyer – Anja Schwitzgebel (Technische Universitaet Dresden), Books – Drafts – Spaces.  Circulation and Materialisation of Knowledge in the Baroque Era. The case of M.D. Pöppelmann
Gabriele Quaranta (Sapienza Università di Roma – Université Paris 1), Traduzione, riscrittura,  raffigurazione. La fortuna figurativa delle opere letterarie come fenomeno “barocco”
Donato Verardi (Université Paris Est – Creteil CRHEC), La demonologia barocca e le sue radici  medievali. Della Porta, Vanini, Campanella
Piotr Salwa (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Old ideas-new concepts. Ortensio Lando and pre-baroque subversive thinking

Aula XV- Ex Officine di Ortopedia 28 marzo 2014 h. 9.00

12. Baroque law

Chairperson: Irene Fosi (Università di Chieti-Pescara)
Francesco Di Chiara (Università di Messina), Le decisiones dei Supremi Tribunali del Regnum Siciliae.  Fonti di un diritto “siciliano barocco”
Serena Falletta (Università di Trapani), L’editoria giuridica barocca siciliana. Un percorso tra immagini,  testi e censure
Simona Feci (Università di Palermo). Cartari e Zacchia: due famiglie di giuristi nella Roma barocca
Maria Fusaro (University of Exeter), La cultura giuridica del marinaio nel Mediterraneo Seicentesco

h. 10.40 Coffee break

Sala degli Organi Collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 11.00

13. Baroque Poetry

Chairperson: Piotr Salwa (Uniwersytet Warszawski)
Dvora Bregman (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), Hebrew Baroque Poetry in its European Context
Aminadav Dykman (Hebrew University, Tel Aviv), Representing Baroque poetry through translation
Yehoshua Granat (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), The Baroque spirit in European Hebrew poetry  of the 17th Century: Some new considerations
Dinah Ribard (EHESS – Paris), Poésie ouvrière, poésie baroque ?
Piotr Wilczek (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Baroque Visual Poetry in Poland

Sala Odeion (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, piano seminterrato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 11.00

14. Art for power / The power of art II

Chairperson: Francesca Gallo (Università di Teramo)
Aleksandra Koutny-Jones (University of Exeter), Depicting the spiritual body: Royal precedents for  funerary practice in baroque Poland-Lithuania
Tomaso Montanari (Università Federico II – Napoli), Caravaggio barocco
Milena Ulčar (University of Belgrade), Immobility in motion: Saint Triphon’s reliquaries and their  performativity
Daniel M. Unger (Ben Gurion University), Between Fact and Fiction: Constructing the Iconography of a  Counter-Reformation Saint in the Baroque: The Case of Carlo Borromeo in Bologna
Maddalena Spagnolo (Università Federico II, Napoli), Le metamorfosi di Pasquino: effimero, infamia e  artificio nella fortuna seicentesca del gruppo di Parione

Aula del Museo di Storia della medicina (Istituto di Storia della Medicina, piano terra) 28 marzo 2014 h. 11.00

15. The circulation of culture I

Chairperson: Elisabetta Corsi (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Giulia Calvi (Università di Siena), Corpi nello spazio. Libri di costumi, cartografia, abiti fra l’Italia,  l’Europa e il Giappone (XVI-XVIII)
Máximo
García (Universidad de Valladolid), Siempre entre objetos: pobres o simbólicos. Cultura material  y civilización populares en la Castilla Barroca
Pedro Luengo (Universidad de Sevilla), China in the European Baroque Culture: The Andalusian role in  its diffusion

Aula XV- Ex Officine Ortopedia 28 marzo 2014 h. 11.00

16. Baroque libraries

Chairperson: Elisabeth Tiller (Universitaet Dresden)
Giovanna Benadusi (University of South Florida), Reading as Political Practice: The Eclectic Library of a  Grand Duchess in the Baroque Age”
Lorenzo Geri (Sapienza Università di Roma), L’epistola eroica nell’Europa barocca (1590-1717)
Ana Celeste Gloria (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas – Lisboa), A private library in the Mateus  Palace (Vila Real). The D. Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão (1722-1798) books’ collection
Sara Elisa Stangalino (Università di Bologna), “Caprices héroïques” di François de Grenaille e la  diffusione dell’opera di Giovan Francesco Loredano in Francia
Elena Valeri (Sapienza Università di Roma), La biblioteca di Cassiano dal Pozzo

h. 13.15 Lunch break

Aula del Museo di Storia della medicina (Istituto di Storia della medicina, piano terra) 28 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

17. Baroque performances:

Chairperson: Federico Vizzaccaro (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Giulia Giovani (Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom), Un agente veneziano a Roma per conto dei  Grimani: Polo Michiel e il viaggio del 1674-75
Antonio Castillo Gómez (Universidad de Alcalá), Entre la voz y el texto. La comunicacion politica y  religiosa en la Espana barroca
Consuelo Gómez (UNED – Madrid), Journeys and spectacles: the cross-cultural relationship for the  internationalization of visual language in the courts of the baroque era
Stefano Tomassini (Università di Venezia), «L’infinito in cartellone». Il paradigma dello spettacolo nel  Seicento italiano
Nicola Badolato (Università di Bologna), Matteo Noris «L’animo eroe» (1689) e alcuni drammi per  musica del secondo Seicento

Sala Odeion (Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, piano seminterrato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

18. Informal diplomats, noble ladies, spies

Chairperson: Paola Volpini (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Angela Ballone (Scuola Normale – Pisa), The Risky business of unrequested informal diplomacy in  baroque times: The case of the Mexican Gazettes by Bernardino de Urrutia
Anne-Madeleine Goulet (Centro Musica Barocca – Versailles), La principessa Orsini a Roma (1675-  1701): Gli usi dello spettacolo, o la diplomazia «francese» al femminile
Giuseppe Mrozek (Università di Teramo), The Faults of a Spy. The Espía Mayor Andrés de Velázquez and  the trial against the Duke of Osun
Cloe Cavero de Carondelet (European University Institute), An Ecclesiastical Court in Seventeenth-  Century Spain: Cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Príncipe de la Iglesia

Sala degli Organi collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

19. Academies and their networks

Chairperson: Maria Pia Donato (Università di Cagliari)
Iordan Avramov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia), The country correspondent as source of  knowledge at the early Royal Society of London: The evidence of the correspondence of Henry Oldenburg,  1660-1677
Miriam Di Penta (Independent Art Historian – Roma), Il signore di Locko Park. Un curioso ritratto di  Fabio Colonna, Linceo napoletano (1567-1640)
Joanna Kostylo (British School at Rome), Bodies of Knowledge: Early Modern Physicians as Cultural  Mediators

Aula XV- Ex Officine Ortopedia 28 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

20. Devotional practices

Chairperson: Laura Ronchi (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Sara Caredda – Ramon Dilla Martí (Universitat de Barcelona), Devozione e santità. Salvatore da Horta  nelle arti del barocco
Alina Nowicka-Jeżowa (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Il senso della morte nella cultura sarmatica del barocco polacco
Henar Pizarro Llorente (Pontificia Universidad Comillas, Madrid), Un trozo de Roma en Madrid. La  beatificación del IV duque de Gandía Francisco de Borja (1624)
Lisa Roscioni (Università di Parma), “Maledette canzoni profane”. Spiritualità barocca e contrafacta a Brescia nel XVII secolo
Antonio Vannugli (Roma), Sigismondo Laire e la diffusione dell’iconografia devozionale romana  nell’Europa cattolica agli albori del Barocco

Aula di Paleografia (Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, secondo piano) 28 marzo 2014 h. 15.00

21. Baroque Rome

Chairperson: Marina d’Amelia (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Sabina Carbonara Pompei (Università di Ferrara), Fra arte e architettura: il ruolo di alcune  congregazioni religiose femminili nella Roma barocca
Natalia Gozzano (Accademia Nazionale di Danza), «La luce dell a Co rte, & de’ Co rtegiani …». Il maestro di  casa alter ego del principe nella Roma del Seicento
Annick Lemoine (Accademia di Francia, Roma), Bassifondi del Barocco. Roma dei vizi, della miseria e degli eccessi
Manuela Militi (Sapienza Università di Roma), Cultura materiale barocca nel ghetto di Roma  Antonella Pampalone (Archivio di Stato di Roma), Le botteghe dei barbieri nella Roma del Seicento Raffaele Pittella (Archivio di Stato di Roma), Custodire la memoria. Notai e archivi nella Roma barocca
Luca Topi (Sapienza Università di Roma), Forme di controllo in una città “appestata”: Roma 1656-1657

h. 16.40 Coffee break

Aula XV-Ex Officine di Ortopedia 28 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

22. Making politics through writings

Chairperson: Giulia Calvi (Università di Siena)
Carlos González Reyes, (Universitat de Barcelona), Il manoscritto inedito di Gaspare di Reggio (1599),  Manuale per un viceré o semplice radiografia politica di una capitale?
Roberto López Vela (Universidad de Cantabria), La biografía de Carranza y la propuesta de otra política  confesional a principios del siglo XVII
Blythe Alice Raviola (Instituto Universitario “La corte en Europa” – IULCE, Madrid), Le Relazioni  universali di Giovanni Botero
Nicolas Schapira (Université Paris-Est Marne-la Vallée), Secrétaires français de l’âge baroque
Svorad Zavarsky (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ján Stanislav Institute of Slavonic Studies), Stephanus  Tarnoczy’s Elogia on Sts Stephen, Emeric and Ladislaus of Hungary (1680-1681) considered in the  contexts of Jesuit political thought and polemical theology

Sala Odeion (Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia, piano seminterrato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

23. Civic and religious pageantries

Chairperson: Nicoletta Bazzano (Università di Teramo) Martine Boiteux, Funerali romani: papi e sovrani stranieri
Claudio Rosso (Università del Piemonte orientale), Il Barocco come categoria periodizzante: il caso del  Piemonte nel Sei-Settecento
Silvia Mantini (Università dell’Aquila), “Non contenta l’Aquila di havere applaudito al suo Giove con  l’Armi, volle anco ossequiarlo con le Lettere”: onore e feste per la pubertà del giovane Carlo II di Spagna
Esther Jimenez Pablo (Università di Teramo), The use of the Royal Chapel during the Spanish Baroque: piety or political justification?

Sala degli Organi collegiali (Palazzo del Rettorato) 28 marzo 2014 h. 17.00

24. The circulation of musical culture

Chairperson: Franco Piperno (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Paola Besutti (Università di Teramo), La vita musicale nelle corti dei cardinali non romani
Cristina Fernandes (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Lázaro Leitão Aranha and the circulation of cultural  and musical models between Rome and Lisbon
Elodie Oriol (Université de Aix-Marseille – Sapienza Università di Roma), Plurality of careers and  diversity of itineraries of musicians in 18th century Rome
Giulia Anna Romana Veneziano (Conservatorio “San Pietro a Majella”, Napoli), Le multiformi carriere  dei musicisti nella Napoli spagnola: il caso Gaetano Veneziano (1656-1716)
Alina Zorawska-Witkowska (Uniwersytet Warszawski), I cantanti italiani alla corte reale polacca nella prima metà del Settecento

 

29 marzo h. 9.30 – 13.30

Visita al Museo del barocco di Ariccia

Sapienza Università di Roma Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5
00185 Roma

Segreteria della Conferenza  info@enbach.eu www.enbach.eu

International Conference on the Baroque Period

In March 2014, Rome will host the final conference of ENBaCH (European Network for Baroque Cultural Heritage), a project which kicked off in June 2009 and will end in May 2014.

The aim of this conference will be not only to discuss the research results produced by the eight project partners, but also to serve as an opportunity for a multidisciplinary meeting of groups and individual researchers studying the Baroque Period from every possible perspective: from politics to literature, from society to art and from music to science.

The key word envisioned in our approach is multiplicity: not only a multiplicity of issues and approaches, but also that of the very notion of Baroque society and culture. We do not believe it is fruitful to limit the notion of “Baroque Period” with a precise and univocal definition.

In view of the fact that the very notion of the Renaissance has recently been reinterpreted, “leaving behind the old interpretative traditions centring on the principles of equilibrium and harmony” and shifting our attention to its “nocturnal, dark and obscure side,”[1] it seems completely misleading to attribute an incontrovertible definition to Baroque.

J.A. Maravall’s attempt to resolve this issue by grounding the Baroque in a temporal-spatial matrix and emphasising the culture of an epoch characterized by “individual and social instability”[2] produces more issues than it resolves. In fact, financial-economic crises, wars, social inequality and economic, political and social turbulence are characteristic of the entire modern era, not just the seventeenth century.

Moreover, we know that different disciplines ascribe vastly different stylistic elements and time ranges to the Baroque. Indeed, in a recent article published on the Piccola Storia dell’Arte (Einaudi), T. Montanari posits that Baroque may only be used to define the “figurative art that began to develop in Rome about 1600.” Elsewhere, the Baroque is found not on account of a generic esprit du temps, but “following the journeys of artists, the circulation of works and sketches and other ascertainable historical phenomena [… ] without forgetting the degree to which the intelligentsia of Europe expanded its communication channels in the seventeenth century.”[3]

In the history of Literature, or at least of Italian Literature, the precocious identification of the Baroque with Marinism led to a similarly precocious condemnation; so much so, that the phenomenon may be limited to the first half of the century. Only Emanuele Tesauro’s Aristotelian Telescope (1670) or Meninni’s Ritratto del sonetto e della canzone (1677) would allow us to extend it to the second half of the seventeenth century[4], when the figurative arts were still fully dominated by the “heroic” figures of the founding fathers[5]. With regard to the literary historiography of other European countries, the idea of the Baroque attracted the interest of W. Benjamin in the 1920s, but his book on the origins of German Baroque drama[6] was not well received by academia[7]; in France, researchers ignored the notion of Baroque until well after the Second World War[8].

The use of the term Baroque is even controversial in musical historiography. Since the mid nineteenth century, there have been countless discussions on its meaning, although no universally accepted definition has ever been reached to define “Baroque Music” – or better – “the music of the Baroque Period.” (Indeed, some musicologists have serious doubts about the concrete meaning of such a term and tend to avoid it.) Nonetheless, by convention, the connotation of the term that overflows its original meaning (extravagant, ephemeral) is widely applied. While, on the one hand, there is the notion that it is illogical to use a single label to encompass a century and a half of musical production and evolution characterized by great variety and differences; on the other, it appears inevitable to recognize the wider meaning that the term has come to acquire.

So, what do we intend by “Baroque”? Why, notwithstanding all of this, have we decided not only to use the term, but also to insert it in the title of our research project?

The main reason to use the term “Baroque” is grounded in its force and rhetorical valence, as well as its immediate instinctive contraposition to the term “Renaissance” as the stereotypical founding moment of the “modern individual” and the “modern age”. Emphasising a concept that is traditionally juxtaposed to that of order and harmony, underlines how modern Europe is the result of a complicated and contradictory process that was not governed by a red thread or a teleological process. Europe was not born from a linear process, but from a curving, elliptical and spiralling one. Its history, just like the Baroque Period, has been “intensely dramatic due to its intrinsic and deeply rooted contradictions, building on antinomies that have not yet been reconciled – as has been possible with Romanticism – by a skilful use of dialectics.”[9]

At the same time, we felt that the notion of Baroque was capable of evoking the great movement of men and objects alluded to by Montanari. This mobility conquered intellectuals and workers and provided them with new communication instruments ranging from the exchange of letters, typical of the Republic of Letters, to the relatively easier circulation of handiwork, books and paintings that could divulge news.

ENBaCH has concentrated significantly on these different forms of mobility. A number of units (Barcelona, Greifswald, Paris, Rome, Teramo) have worked on the movements of artists and literati, as well as viceroys, diplomats, doctors, informers and more or less official spies. Other units (Dresden, Greifswald, Vienna) have concentrated on the circulation of handiwork and representations of the crafts that could be used as models for workers far removed from the site of origin. Some privileged the circulation of ideas fuelled by books and at times by human beings (Paris, Rome, Teramo, Warsaw, Vienna), while others turned to the performance and circulation of ceremonial and scenic designs from religious rituals to theatrical stage designs and other ephemeral uses (Dresden, Rome, Teramo).

All of these perspectives will be addressed through the organisation of issue-specific panels. A preliminary version of the draft agenda is attached. However, as we have already mentioned, we also intend to convene all those who are interested in these issues and ask them to present their research work and discuss it together with our work and us.


[1] M. Ciliberto, Rinascimento e Controrinascimento, in Figure in chiaroscuro. Filosofia e storiografia nel Novecento, Roma, Storia e Letteratura, 2001, pp.185-205, p.189.

[2] J.A. Maravall, La cultura del Barocco, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1985, p.17.

[3] T. Montanari, Il Barocco, Torino, Einaudi, 2012, p. 12.

[4] E. Russo, Sul barocco letterario in Italia. Giudizi, revisioni, distinzioni, http://www.enbach.eu/en/from-the-universities/history-of-the-literary-.aspx

[5] T. Montanari, Il Barocco, cit., p.13.

[6]Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, Berlin, Rowohlt, 1928 (tr. it. Torino, Einaudi, 1971).

[8]G.Catusse,Aux origines du « baroque littéraire » en France : 1935-1950. Aperçus historiographiques, http://www.enbach.eu/en/from-the-universities/history-of-the-literary-.aspx

[9] A. Battistini, Il Barocco, Roma, Salerno, 2000, p.8.

“European Networks in the Baroque Era” – International Conference hosted at the “Josephinum”, Vienna, 26-29 September 2012

The first general conference of the ENBaCH Project is intended to bring together research on Baroque forms of exchange and networking, as a basis for a modern network of researchers working on themes related to the cultural heritage of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The European Network for Baroque Cultural Heritage (ENBaCH) – is a research project supported and funded by the European Commission.

“Baroque” of course has various connotations depending on regions and cultural contexts but also on various approaches in different research fields. As ENBaCH is defined as an interdisciplinary project it is intended to confront these aspects and discuss their impact on what might be defined as “European Cultural Heritage”

A well-known historiograpical conundrum is the question of periodization. One useful, practicable approach is the collection of characteristics of an epoch from the cultural point of view: works of art, intellectual activities and developments, societal structures and contemporary ways of coping with diverse challenges in a specific society. Baroque culture was influenced by war, famine and epidemic diseases, and the resulting urgency of finding collaborative solutions for survival. New environments and infrastructures, increased mobility of craftsmen, artists and workers as well as the trade of artefacts and goods, and a vivid exchange of knowledge mark the period as much as its art, which represents a reaction to these threats to life in various ways.

We welcome papers on the following aspects of Baroque culture and exchange in particular:

•    formal and informal networks of politics (e.g. the role of courts, diplomacy, agents) in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
•    the Baroque circulation of ideas and knowledge (e.g. the Republic of Letters)
•    the development of arts and cultural practices (“artists and artefacts on the move”,
baroque festivals and piety, fashion, cooking, etc.)
•    (with particular relevance to the venue of the conference): the Baroque perception of the
human body in various works of art, death and dying in relation to confessional
    frameworks, coping with disease and disaster from a medical point of view (e.g. health
care provisions, facing famine and epidemic disease) and collaboration in medicine
    and health care

Conference language: English. The papers should be given in English and should take max. 20 minutes. Discussions and commentaries by attending delegates may include also other languages.

Abstracts of one page max., in English, accompanied by a very short CV, should be sent to baroquebodies@meduniwien.ac.at  by the end of April 2012

We will be able to cover moderate travelling costs and accommodation for invited speakers other than those involved in the ENBaCH project. Please enquire for details.

Programme details:

26.9.2012: 6.30pm: reception and Baroque concert by the “Camerata Medica”, an orchestra of Viennese physicians performing in aid of charitable projects.
27.9.2012: conference panels
28.9.2012: conference panels,
   afternoon: excursion to the Abbey of Melk coffee in the historical garden pavillon, followed by a guided tour; evening: dinner at a “Heurigen” in the World Heritage Cultural Landscape Wachau.
28.9.2012: conference panels

We have reserved rooms at two hotels at a convenient location; speakers and conference delegates will benefit from a reduced room rate. Rooms are limited and available on first come, first served basis only.

For any further questions about the conference practicalities please contact
Paul Zogmann (paul.zogmann@meduniwien.ac.at)

Practical Information Conference Vienna