Thursday 21 October, Thirkill Room, F5 Old Court
HANDLING DEMANDING TEXTS:a round-table seminar which will examine the challenges of demanding neo-Latin texts and present various strategies for their interpretation.
- From Poliziano's 'Oratio super Fabio Quintiliano et Statii Sylvis'
- From Budé's De asse
- Dedication from Turrecremata's Expositio super toto psalterio
(1478): http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0004/bsb00044186/image_5
AND
(1471): http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0004/bsb00044170/image_7 - http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k70791g.image.r=melchior+volmar.f29.langEN
Thursday 4 November, Latimer Room, E Staircase, Old Court, Clare College
PETER MACK (Warburg), 'The Impact of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620'.
Peter Mack has just completed A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620, concentrating mainly on the Latin tradition from Antonio Loschi to Nicholas Caussin, but including some discussion of vernacular rhetoric textbooks. In this paper he will outline the shape of the book and discuss some of the conclusions he has reached.
Thursday 18 November, Godwin Room, D staircase, Old Court
MICHAEL ALLEN (UCLA), 'The Shade of Hercules: Ficino and Orphic Theology'.
The myth of Orpheus and the musical, magical and even philosophical ideals he represents has had a long and complex history that is indeed still with us. In particular, I am trying to unravel some of the Renaissance interpreters' reactions to the challenging Platonic notion that Orpheus had been weakened by music and had become a failed lover. How was this reconcilable with the Neoplatonic veneration of Orpheus - a veneration that Ficino at least ardently embraced - as the third luminary in the six-link chain of ancient sages that had culminated in Plato? In attempting to account for these opposing views, these opposing Orpheuses, I turn to what the Renaissance Platonists had determined were the basic principles of an Orphic theology.
