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EME ONLINE WORKSHOP: Poetic Exchanges at the Cardinals’ Courts of Sixteenth-Century Rome

29 June 2021, 2:00 pm–4:00 pm

Portrait of Cardinal Antonio Maria Ciocchi del Monte (c. 1512-15), detail, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

UCL Early Modern Exchanges is pleased to invite you to a workshop on poetic exchanges at Roman cardinals' courts in the sixteenth century, with two keynote papers from Prof. Abigail Brundin (Cambridge) and Prof. G. Hugo Tucker (Reading).

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Jack Hayes

A range of scholars — Clare Robertson on visual art; Flaminia Bardati on architecture; Giuliano Danieli on music — have demonstrated the key social functions of various artistic endeavours at the cardinals’ courts of sixteenth-century Rome. Recently, too, we have seen the publication of a number of important works touching on literary cultures in similar environments. From Stefan Bauer’s The Invention of Papal History (OUP, 2019) and Paolo Sachet’s Publishing for the Popes (Brill, 2020), to Brill’s Companion to Early Modern Rome (2019) and Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal (2020), we now possess a deeper understanding of the functioning of the city’s cardinals’ courts and of the Roman production and dissemination of literary texts in prose.

Yet where poetry is concerned there has been a relative lack of scholarly attention, especially after the Sack of Rome in 1527. The aim of this workshop is to examine the social functions of poetry in cardinals’ courts across the century, taking a specifically plurilingual approach. Discussion will consider, but not be limited to, the following questions:

  • What sort of poetic exchanges took place in the city’s numerous cardinals’ courts? How far were such exchanges documented?
  • What were the social uses of poetry for those resident in such an environment?
  • What topics were treated in verse?
  • How was such poetry disseminated – orally, in manuscript, in print?
  • In which languages was poetry produced, and how was this linked to its social uses?
  • How did the often distinctly single-gendered environment of these courts impact on poetic production?
  • How did processes of religious reform alter poetic production?

Keynote papers:

  • Professor Abigail Brundin (University of Cambridge): "Poetry and Reform at the Court of Reginald Pole."
  • Professor G. Hugo Tucker (University of Reading): "Of villas, gardens and ruins. Neo-Latin poetic monuments to cardinals and the papacy in High Renaissance Rome."

Organiser/Chair: Jack Hayes (University College London)

This event will be hosted via Zoom, and is free to attend. The link to access the workshop will be sent via email once participants register via Eventbrite.

Image: Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Cardinal Antonio Maria Ciocchi del Monte (c. 1512-15), detail, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin