Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INSPIrE (Intellectuals in History: Political Process and Cultural Impacts in Medieval Europe (14th and 15th centuries))

Teaser

INSPIrE - Intellectuals in History: Political Process and Cultural Impacts in Medieval Europe is a project devoted to the evolution of political thought between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The principal aim of INSPIrE is to give an overview of the relationship between...

Summary

INSPIrE - Intellectuals in History: Political Process and Cultural Impacts in Medieval Europe is a project devoted to the evolution of political thought between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The principal aim of INSPIrE is to give an overview of the relationship between politics and written culture in the 14th and 15th-century Europe, focusing on the Franco-German and Italian geographical areas. The project aims at identifying the development lines, breaking points, peculiar cases and matching patterns of the relationship between politics and written culture, reckoning with five key features: the combination of events, places, times, languages, gender (if possible) and literary genres will allow to map the networks of texts linked to historical events. INSPIrE is based on two pillars: first, texts and sources are analyzed in connection with their historical context, so that every intellectual reaction to political facts will be linked to historical data. Secondly, the network of texts that form the case studies of INSPIrE are not composed only of philosophical texts, but of different genres such as preaching, poetry, prophecy, chronicle, juridical texts, letters of the city chancelleries, and, in some cases, of iconographic testimonies.
INSPIrE is born as a Medieval Studies project, but it also constitutes a ground-breaking chance to fill the gap between past and present, since it clarifies the roots and history of the connection between politics and culture in Europe, focusing on a period in which the national consciousness and the notion of ‘state’ were established. Furthermore, INSPIrE provides a paradigm for approaching cultural phenomena that can also be used to investigate later historical moments and modernity.

Work performed

First year: the ER has organized her work in accordance with the Supervisor in order to meet the training, skills, and research deliverables as stated in the project: collection and organization of data on the selected case studies. With the Supervisor she has organized three seminars, Trois rencontres de philosophie. Humanisme et Renaissance at HI; she has given presentations of her project in Strasbourg and Aix-en-Provence and she attended conferences and seminars at the FRIAS in Freiburg i.Br. and at the Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
The ER increased her scientific skills in history of political thought, Medieval concept of power, Latin and Vernacular in Medieval philosophy, French Medieval philosophy, female political treatises; she enriched her knowledge of the methodologies of the historical research, and she developed the capacity of critical analysis and evaluation of her own work. Training: the ER brought her own competencies (especially on medieval philology, digital resources for the humanities and renaissance studies) to animate the seminar on medieval philosophy organized and led by the Supervisor at the HI in 3 different occasions. She gave two lectures in the ‘Travaux dirigés’ course of the Faculty of Philosophy on Renaissance philosophy.
The ER attended webinars on transferable skills (gender bias, project management, leadership in research groups) and in she worked with the group ‘Centre Aixois d’Études Romanes’ of the University of Aix-Marseille for a proposal preparation (call ANR 2018).
During the second year of the fellowship, she focused on the incoming international congress The Making of Political Thought. Ruptures, Trends, and Patterns between Henry VII and Louis IV the Bavarian, held at the University of Strasbourg in 2018. Each invited speaker was the representative of a specific discipline such as philosophy, philology, the history of thought, institutions and law. This allowed to reconstruct the period (1310-1338) with due complexity by creating a synergy of information and data. The ER focused on publications and research activity, and she gathered the materials for a volume on the subject of the project.
The ER presented her project in Venice, London, Florence and Toronto and and she also shared her working experience (‘témoignage’) as applicant for a IF-MSC in Strasbourg and in Paris. She acquired a remarkable capacity of communicating her research results in French improving her knowledge of this language.
Results/ Publications linked to INSPIrE project
‘E vale altanto questa parola monarcie in franciesco quanto sengnoria d’un uomo tutto solo’. Il volgarizzamento toscano anonimo del Defensor pacis in «Philosophical Readings», X.3 (2018), 203-12.
«Venne copioso di tesoro, di gente d’arme & d’artiglieria». Charles VIII of France and Late Medieval Political Thought, in Praxis des Philosophierens, Praktiken der Historiographie Perspektiven von der Spätantike bis zur Moderne, eds. M. Meliadò, S. Negri, Verlag K. Alber, Freiburg i. Br., 2018, pp. 197-220.
La coturnice e la manna. Metafore del cibo nella predicazione quaresimale di Girolamo Savonarola, in I sermoni quaresimali: digiuno del corpo, banchetto dell’anima, a cura di P. Delcorno, E. Lombardo, L. Tromboni, Nerbini, Firenze, 2017, pp. 261-76.
The Making of Political Thought. Ruptures, Trends, and Patterns between Henry VII and Louis IV the Bavarian, Congrès terminus, in «Bulletin de philosophie médiévale», 60 (2018), 287-81
La discesa di Carlo VIII in Italia: l’impatto culturale di un evento politico tra XV e XVI secolo accepted in «Rinascimento», LIX (2019), in press.
Dissemination activities:
The ER promoted her work in public events and in communication & dissemination activities. She shared the results on social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Academia, ResearchGate), created a Fb page for INSPIrE project. A web site with all the information about

Final results

INSPIrE fostered a discussion on the evolution of political thought in Europe from a peculiar point of view, the aim of this project being to link political thought to historical events by going beyond the traditional subdivision within the historical disciplines: that allows to exploit the elements provided by all the pertinent sources, be they historical, philosophical, juridical, iconographic.
As shown in the publications, it is just in times of harsh conflicts that historians can detect the birth of new ideas and visions of politics and society: concerning the 14th century, the work conducted during the congress The Making of political thought showed a tendency to treat the most disruptive political events with a certain distance, together with the continuous re-statement of a peace rhetoric in times when conflicts marked the daily life. On the other hand, 15th century authors and texts reveal a rising reflection on the national identity, especially in the Mediterranean context; prophetic features keep playing a relevant role in the political discussion and in diplomacy. Latin and vernacular languages find their own spaces and shape different ways to discuss about politics and culture.

Website & more info

More info: https://inspirehorizon2020.wordpress.com/.