Conferences

The “Majesty” of Power in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ritual, Representation, Art

Date/Time
Friday, November 16, 2007–Saturday, November 17, 2007
All Day

Location
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2520 Cimarron Street

—a conference organized by Matteo Casini, Suffolk University

All throughout the Italian territory in the seventeenth century, kings, princes, republics, and single preeminent groups or persons adopted various forms of representation for displaying the distinctive “majesty” of their power. The political, social, artistic, and cultural activity patronized by princes and aristocracies remained very much alive, notwithstanding the economical crisis. Therefore the representations of majesty could follow multiple paths – ritual, religious, visual, literary, spectacular, etc. With an interdisciplinary and wide geographical approach, the conference aims to understand the several symbolic and concrete facets of power in Baroque Italy.

Program
Introductory Remarks
Geoffrey Symcox, University of California, Los Angeles
Session 1: The Power in Space

Andrew Hopkins, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila
“Stately Spaces: ‘Seicento’ Ceremonial for the ‘Serenissima’”

Diane Bodart, Université de Poitiers / Harvard University, Villa I Tatti
Royal Statues in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily

Geoffrey Symcox, University of California, Los Angeles
“The Changing Face of the Prince: Public Ceremonies in Seventeenth-Century Turin”

Session 2: Ritual and Competition

Matteo Casini, Suffolk University
“The Baroque Rites of the Medici”

Thomas Dandelet, University of California, Berkeley
“Spanish Ritual in Seventeenth-Century Rome”

Pablo Vázquez Gestal, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
“Being a ‘King’ in a Competitive Society: Viceroyal Ceremonies in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Naples”

Session 3: Searching Identities

George L. Gorse, Pomona College
“A Republic Becomes a Monarchy: Genoa and the Virgin Mary in 1637”

James G. Harper, University of Oregon
“Magnificence & Responsibility: Famiano Strada, Ludovico Ludovisi and the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome”

Alice Jarrard, Harvard Graduate School of Design
“Between Document and ‘Idea d’un principe Eroe’: Printmaking and Princely Image at the Este Court in Modena”

Closing Remarks
Matteo Casini, Suffolk University