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#97 The Carnival of Venice, The Unknown Story: A Conversation with Matteo Casini

Writer's picture: paola50122paola50122

Updated: Feb 4

Saturday, February 22nd Live on Zoom

7pm Italy, 10am Los Angeles, 1pm New York


Even if the origins remained obscure, in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period (1400s-1600s) the Carnevale of Venice was one of the most significant in Europe. In time, a great celebration developed with multiple and complex aspects. First, the rituals and games of Fat Thursday in Saint Mark square became the real heart of the Carnival, dominated by the doge and government of the nobility. Second, the festival spread out in other parts of the city, at first inspired by the ruling classes, then evolving into a more popular event.

The talk will present a vision of the Venetian Carnival substantially different from the current, simplistic and touristic view, which developed only in the last part of the history of the “Most Serene” Republic.

 

Matteo Casini, born in Parma, received his doctorate in history from the University Ca' Foscari, Venice, and is a scholar of Italian Renaissance and Baroque history. He was a fellow at the Warburg Institute, Harvard University in Florence, the Folger Shakespeare Library and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Universities of Florence and Padua, the University of California Los Angeles, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.  He has published many articles in Italian and international journals, and the book The Gestures of the Prince: Political Festivals in Florence and Venice in the Renaissance (Venice, 1996). He has taught in Venice, Padua, Florence and Boston, and is currently a lecturer of Renaissance, Mediterranean, and European history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.


Minimum suggested donation: $28

This talk is free for Friends of Paola's Studiolo!


Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!



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