Event

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and the Center for Italian Studies are pleased to present Dr. Stefano Dall'Aglio (Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leeds and SIMS Fellow). The title of his talk is: "Preacher's Lost Voice: The Roman Inquisition and Oral Sermons in Early Modern Italy." The colloquium takes place in the Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion in the Kislak Center, Van Pelt Library (6th floor), on Thursday, November 16, at 5:30pm. 

Here are a few words from Dr. Dall'Aglio about his research as SIMS fellow:

Using the manuscript collections of the Henry Charles Lea Library (Inquisition Collection, MS Coll 729), this project will support my ongoing research on Italian preachers and the Roman Inquisition in the broader context of the work I am doing for my book Reading the Preacher’s Voice, which focuses on the orality of early modern Italian preachers and on the relationship between their spoken and written words. By means of Inquisition sources and other sources, I am analyzing and comparing the various written traces that survive for spoken sermons, and I am demonstrating that it is not impossible to reconstruct a great deal of early modern orality. I also aim to challenge the widespread assumption that a sermon coincides with its printed version. I am very interested in exploring the reasons for the differences between orality and writing in terms of content, language and reception.