Event
New date Feb. 10! Penn’s Department of Italian Studies and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies are delighted to invite you to a seminar by the 2015-16 SIMS Visiting Research Fellow Angelo Piacentini (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore), "A Chapter of Early Italian Humanism in Philadelphia Manuscripts".
The lecture will focus mainly on UPenn MS Codex 693, written in Milan about 1450, witness of the Moralis philosophie dyalogusby Uberto Decembrio (ca. 1360-1427), one of the most important figures of the early generation of humanists after Petrarch’s death, father of Pier Candido Decembrio, the most celebrated humanist in Milan in the age of duke Filippo Maria Visconti. Uberto is considered a pioneer in the introduction of Greek literature in Italy and in Western Europe, because of his collaboration with the Byzantine diplomat Manuel Chrysoloras translating Plato’s Republic into Latin. Analyzing the structure of the Moralis philosophie dyalogus and his Classical sources, we shall try to answer this question: what was his role in the translation of Plato? In addition, UPenn LJS 267, copied in 1409 probably in Romagna, will be examined. It contains a rich anthology of rare humanistic texts, including the only witness of four letters and a Latin oration by Donato Albanzani, a humanist from Ravenna and very good friend of Petrarch and dedicatee of Boccaccio’s Buccolicum carmen.Both manuscripts will be on view before (from 5pm) and after the seminar (until 7pm).
All are invited but we ask that you please rsvp here to ensure seating.
