2023 Programme
Event #17 BIS
Sunday 3 September, 10.00 am
Teatro degli Impavidi2 - euro 4,50
Find this place on the map
Alessandro Barbero
1204: the Crusaders discover Constantinople
The Christian world was astonished when news spread that the knights who had left for the Fourth Crusade did not land in Egypt as planned. Instead, they had headed to the Balkans to help the Venetians in their affairs, and ended up conquering Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. But the wonder was even greater when the Crusaders discovered a millenary capital with no equal splendour to be matched elsewhere in the West. A discovery that resulted in systematic pillage: as would happen again several times in the following centuries. After discovering the wonders of the East, the Westerners felt above all the urge to appropriate them.
Alessandro Barbero is a historian and a writer and a tenured professor of Medieval History at Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale e Vercelli. He writes for La Stampa and Tuttolibri. He is a contributor on the television program Superquark and the shows Il tempo e la storia and a.C.d.C., broadcast by Rai Storia. His publications include: Benedette guerre. Crociate e jihad («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2009), Lepanto. La battaglia dei tre imperi («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2010), Donne, madonne, mercanti e cavalieri. Sei storie medievali («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2013), published by Laterza; Gli occhi di Venezia (Mondadori, 2011); Il divano di Istanbul (Sellerio, 2011); Dietro le quinte della Storia. La vita quotidiana attraverso il tempo, written with P. Angela (Rizzoli, 2012); Le Ateniesi (Mondadori, 2015); Costantino il vincitore (Salerno Editrice, 2016); Le parole del papa (2016) and Caporetto (2017), published by Laterza. Il divano di Istanbul (2011), Alabama (2021) and Poeta al comando (2022) and Brick for stone (2023), published by Sellerio.
Event #15
Martina Mazzotta
Wunderkammer: art, science, wonder. From the Renaissance until the present day
Event #20Approfonditamente
Marianna Aprile, Maurizio Careddu, Enrico Casale, Cristiana Farina, Gianluca Guida
Wonder inside: stories of art and beauty from Italian prisons
