2011 Programme
Evento n.7
Alessandro Barbero
How did Middle Ages men think? The friar
Salimbene from Parma was a Franciscan friar who as ashamed to beg because, an aristocrat of birth, he was supposed to ride horses, have a good time at tournaments, and courting beautiful women. As a young man, Salimbene had blindly believed end-of-the-world prophecies, and had been terribly disappointed to find out they were not true. He was moved to tears by the humanity of Saint Louis, the king of France, but could not refrain from admiring the brilliant excommunicated emperor Frederic II. Salimbene wrote in Latin interspersed with biblical quotations, but thought in a Po River Valley dialect. He had no regard for anyone and he was inclined to make politically incorrect statements, as when he dubbed southern Italians homines caccarelli et merdaçoli. Through his monumental work entitled Cronaca we discover that a Middle Ages friar could be far more entertaining and unprejudiced than we would ever expect.
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.
Evento n.6
Zygmunt Bauman
Reflections on the notions of community and network, on social networks and Facebook
Evento n.14
Gian Carlo Calza
Different, eccentric, extraordinary: aesthetics and creativity between Asia and the West
Evento n.26
Franco Borgogno
In other people’s hearts and minds. A psychoanalyst between tradition and creativity
Evento n.37
Sonia Bergamasco, Fabrizio Gifuni
A quiet sunny day. Attilio Bertolucci and Pier Paolo Pasolini, a friendship in verse
