« Epic Encounters. Literature and the Visual Arts around Ariosto and Tasso »

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Furioso’s first edition, this session aims to reassess the exchange of ideas, theories and modes of representation between epic poetry and the visual arts in the Cinquecento. We seek to extend our inquiry beyond the depiction of iconographic motifs from the Orlando or the Gerusalemme in order to investigate more broadly the intersection of visual and verbal worlds that characterized the production of epic and chivalric literature in the Renaissance. We welcome contributions that, rather than addressing issues of reception, seek to integrate the visual discourse within the culture in which Renaissance epic originated.

An essential aim of this session is to launch a discussion of these themes in view of the exhibition on Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso that will open at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara in the Fall of 2016.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:
– The relevance of epic theory for the figurative arts in the Cinquecento
– The poetics of epic masculinity and its representational strategies
– The armored body and its aesthetics
– Time and temporalities of epic representation
– Ekphrasis and representation
– Duels, battles, and sieges: their visual and verbal depiction
– Desire and madness; verisimilitude and marvel

If interested, please send an abstract (150-word maximum) with paper title, keywords, and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum) by May 15 to Francesca Borgo (borgo(at)fas.harvard.edu) and Guido Beltramini (gb(at)cisapalladio.org).
Submissions must be in English.

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