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The Ghetto of Florence has been for more than two centuries the architectural-material baricentre of Florentine Jewry, being established by Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1570-71, and being then demolished at the end of the 19th century as part of a major urban renewal plan known as “Risanamento” (lit. “the healing”) aiming to change the physiognomy of the old town and turn it into a modern and fully “Italianised” city. The making of the ghetto in Florence represented a major diversion from the “old” Medici’s tolerant standing on the Jewish minority, the implementation of canon laws aiming to mark a physical, material border between the two communities. While officially conceived to marginalise the Jews, the ghetto in fact served as a geographical barycentre, segregating but also protecting its inhabitants, offering them a “physical/material” dimension and point of reference that in the pre-ghetto time the Jews of Tuscany, like those of Italy and of the Diaspora on the whole, had been aprioristically and sistematically denied.

Piergabriele Mancuso received his doctoral degree in Jewish Studies from University College London, 2009. He also studied in Oxford (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) as a Phd student fellow (2004) and at the Warburg Institute, London (Sophie Fellowship Programme, 2006). He has been Senior Lecturer on History of Music and Venetian History at Boston University Study Abroad and was visiting lecturer at University of Kentucky (College of Fine Arts), “Cà Foscari” University, Venice (Department of Oriental Languages), at Università dell’Insubria in Como, and University of Padua. In 2001 he graduated in music (viola) and for many years he has been a professional contemporary music performer. His research interests include Jewish music and ethnomusicology, Venetian history (that he taught for almost 20 years to American students!) and history of the Jews in Medici Florence. In June 2013 he was appointed director of the Eugene Grant Jewish History Program at the Medici Archive Project. In 2018 he launched the Ghetto Mapping Project, a major research program aiming to reconstruct, on the basis of archival documents, the architectural, demographic and nonetheless artistic-cultural features of the ghetto of Florence. His book on the making of the Florentine ghetto – Before the Ghetto – Cosimo I de’ Medici, the Grand Duchy and the Jews – 1569-1570, will soon be published by Brepols.

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Photo credit: Telemaco Signori, a Florentine painter (1835-1910) showing a portion of the ghetto a few years before its demolition. The work is now at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.

Bookings for this event will open at a later date.

There are few places in the world where art and national identity are as intertwined as at the Venice Biennale. It remains unique, not only because it is the oldest international art exhibition and takes place in such an extraordinary setting, but because its collection of national pavilions encourages pluralism, diversity, and the surprising. Set within the beautiful Giardini, the pavilions proclaim their origins with an exaggerated air of national stereotyping, and in this talk, Andrea Rose shows how these distinctive buildings have lent piquancy and purpose to the art shown in them. From Mondrian in the limpid Dutch Pavilion to Hans Haake in the German Pavilion, where in 1993 the artist exhibited his critique of national history by smashing up the floor. Transitioning from an association of western nations at the end of the nineteenth century to the global phenomenon it is today, Andrea Rose describes how the Biennale has evolved, its relationship to the city, and its importance in an increasingly polarized world.

Andrea Rose was Director of Visual Arts and Strategic Programmes at the British Council from 1994 to 2014 . During this period she was responsible for Britain’s representation at Venice Biennale, commissioning and curating exhibitions by Leon Kossoff, Rachel Whiteread, Gary Hume, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, Gilbert & George, Steve McQueen, Mark Wallinger, Jeremy Deller and Sarah Lucas among others. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Burlington Magazine, a Trustee of Pallant House Gallery and Deputy Chair of Koestler Arts.

A drinks reception will follow the talk.

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‘Con un non so che del frizzante’ (‘with a little something sparkling’) is how the poet Giulio Strozzi (1574) described the essence of the madrigal: a short poem, flexible in rhyme and rhythm, ideal for brief, touching scenes of love and longing. In its musical form, it came to take on an extraordinary life of its own, and in The Madrigal Reimagined we present a striking range of settings, from solo voice and lute to a full string band, showcasing every facet of the madrigal’s transformative journey from gentle part song to one of the cornerstones of opera.

Works by Monteverdi, De Rore, Palestrina, Caccini, and others are embellished with remarkable vocal and instrumental ornamentation, and – in this special live presentation to celebrate the CD release – framed by pithy, contemporary readings featuring writers from the Classics to Monteverdi’s contemporaries

Performed by MONTEVERDI STRING BAND with guest artists Hannah Ely (soprano) and Toby Carr (lute, theorbo). Directed by Oliver Webber.

– We do not issue physical tickets. Your name will be added to our Event Guest List.

– Online bookings close the day before the event. If you need to make a booking on the same day, please contact us to check availability.

We are not making a formal charge for participation in this event. Traditionally we offer attendance at the Leconfield Lecture free of charge to those members who have paid their subscription for the current year. We strongly encourage all others attending to make a minimum donation of at least £15 per participant. If any members would also like to make a donation to help offset our costs, that would be much appreciated.

From the ashes of the war and the first experiments in neorealism, Italian cinema rose to become one of the most important and influential in the world. With directors like Visconti, Fellini, Antonioni and many others it became a byword for art and innovation. This lecture will examine two people who played a vital role in this success; the producer Dino De Laurentiis (1919-2020) and the prolific screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico (1914-2010) Each thought more of the industry than art and worked not only with artistic directors but with the makers of the comedies and genre films that were the bread and butter of Italian film production. Their ways of operating could hardly have been more different: flamboyant and visionary in the case of De Laurentiis, discreet and modest in the case of Cecchi D’Amico. It will be suggested that these modes corresponded to the pattern of gendered labour in the industry, in which female contributions – no matter how important – tended to be invisible. While producers historically received far less credit than directors, the achievements of De Laurentiis are today more widely acknowledged. Yet it is hard to overestimate the role of Cecchi D’Amico in impressing the marks of quality and humanity on Italian cinema that were essential to its worldwide successes in the postwar decades.

Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at Warwick University. He held academic positions at Cambridge, Nottingham, Oxford and London before moving to Warwick in 2008. His research interests lie in the fields of film and cultural and political history, with a special emphasis on Italian cinema and other media and he is author of books including Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy (2007) and Glamour: A History (2008), Mussolini’s Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy (2013) and Fame amid the Ruins: Italian Film Stardom in the Age of Neorealism (2019). Several of his books have also been published in Italian. In recent years, he has directed two major research projects on producers and production practices in the Italian film industry.

Photo credit: Camera, Cinecittà Studio, by Sonse at https://flickr.com/photos/34585612@N00/46760148102

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