Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AGRELITA (The reception of ancient Greece in pre-modern French literature and illustrations of manuscripts and printed books (1320-1550): how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities)
Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2023-12-31
Until now the reception history of ancient Greece in pre-modern Western Europe has focussed almost exclusively on the transmission of Greek texts. Yet well before the revival of Greek’s teaching, numerous vernacular works, often illustrated, contained elaborate representations of ancient Greece. AGRELITA will study a large corpus of French-language literary works (historical, fictional, poetic, didactic) produced from 1320 to the 1550s in France and Europe, before the first direct translations from Greek to French, as well as the images of their manuscripts and printed books.
The study of these works and their illustrations (text and image’s dialogue and powers of each) will analyze the representations of ancient Greece from the unexplored perspective of the elaboration of a new memory. It will reveal its structure, its meanings, and the various uses that authors made of it with respect to national, regional or European communities they depicted in their works. It will allow to better understand how, at a time which inherited negative preconceptions about the Greeks, Europe nevertheless began to claim ancient Greece as one of its legacies; and lead to a reassessment of the role played by Greece in Western European identities shaping processes. This promises considerable advances in our understanding of the new representations of these communities in this period. AGRELITA also aims to contribute to a general reflexion on the formation of heritages and identities. Its results will provide new insights on our perception on the issue of identity building, at different levels, local, national and European. They will be able to irrigate the research on modern times in history, sociology, memory and European studies.
The study of these works and their illustrations (text and image’s dialogue and powers of each) will analyze the representations of ancient Greece from the unexplored perspective of the elaboration of a new memory. It will reveal its structure, its meanings, and the various uses that authors made of it with respect to national, regional or European communities they depicted in their works. It will allow to better understand how, at a time which inherited negative preconceptions about the Greeks, Europe nevertheless began to claim ancient Greece as one of its legacies; and lead to a reassessment of the role played by Greece in Western European identities shaping processes. This promises considerable advances in our understanding of the new representations of these communities in this period. AGRELITA also aims to contribute to a general reflexion on the formation of heritages and identities. Its results will provide new insights on our perception on the issue of identity building, at different levels, local, national and European. They will be able to irrigate the research on modern times in history, sociology, memory and European studies.
During the first year (01/10/2021-30/09/2022), AGRELITA worked on WP1 “Naming and Representing Greek Space” and produced a book submitted to Brepols and published on 15/12/2023: “Représenter et nommer la Grèce et les Grecs (XIVe-XVIe s)”. AGRELITA participated to different conferences and organized a panel session at the congress of the American Boccaccio Association (Padoua, 6-8/06/2022).
AGRELITA has dedicated the second year (01/10/2022-30/09/2023), to the WP2 “Indirect reception of knowledge about Greece”. We studied many new French translations, written from the 1320 to the 1550s, that transmit knowledge about ancient Greece and/or adapt Latin translations of Greek texts. We organized four-days workshops on this subject. AGRELITA also started WP5 “Heritage and identity from the Middle Ages to today”. A one-and-a-half-day workshop was held on « Creating a memory of ancient pasts. Choices, constructions and transmissions 9t-18th Century », and seminar sessions were focused on the same subject. The WP3 Invention of Greek origins had also been initiated by 3 days workshops.
PI edited a journal issue, n. 38, of the medievalist journal Bien dire et bien aprandre, on « Héroïnes païennes de l’Antiquité dans les littératures romanes des XIIe-XVIe siècles : représentations textuelles et visuelles » (publication on 05/12/2023).
During the first 6 months of the third year (01/10/2023-30/03/2024), AGRELITA continued to work on WP5 “Heritage and identity from the Middle Ages to today”. It organized an international conference “Métamorphoses et usages d’un même passé et formation des identités en Europe du XIVe siècle jusqu’aux années 1980”, and co-organized a one-day workshop “Sauver, libérer, régénérer la Grèce du Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle”, with R. Balzani and E. Musiani (University of Bologna).
The PI finalized the collective book 2, “Mémoires des passés antiques: une construction continue (XIVe-début XIXe s)”(part of WP5) to be submitted to Brepols in May 2024. She worked on the scientific edition of collective books 3 and 4 (on WP2) which will be submitted to Brepols in July 2024.
During these two and a half years, the PI has also begun working on the monograph announced in the project on the reinvention of Ancient Greece in French literature (1320-1550). AGRELITA has hosted four international researchers for stays of one to two months. AGRELITA has presented papers at 7 congresses of international associations and at 15 conferences in France and abroad. AGRELITA has published 8 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
AGRELITA has dedicated the second year (01/10/2022-30/09/2023), to the WP2 “Indirect reception of knowledge about Greece”. We studied many new French translations, written from the 1320 to the 1550s, that transmit knowledge about ancient Greece and/or adapt Latin translations of Greek texts. We organized four-days workshops on this subject. AGRELITA also started WP5 “Heritage and identity from the Middle Ages to today”. A one-and-a-half-day workshop was held on « Creating a memory of ancient pasts. Choices, constructions and transmissions 9t-18th Century », and seminar sessions were focused on the same subject. The WP3 Invention of Greek origins had also been initiated by 3 days workshops.
PI edited a journal issue, n. 38, of the medievalist journal Bien dire et bien aprandre, on « Héroïnes païennes de l’Antiquité dans les littératures romanes des XIIe-XVIe siècles : représentations textuelles et visuelles » (publication on 05/12/2023).
During the first 6 months of the third year (01/10/2023-30/03/2024), AGRELITA continued to work on WP5 “Heritage and identity from the Middle Ages to today”. It organized an international conference “Métamorphoses et usages d’un même passé et formation des identités en Europe du XIVe siècle jusqu’aux années 1980”, and co-organized a one-day workshop “Sauver, libérer, régénérer la Grèce du Moyen Âge au XIXe siècle”, with R. Balzani and E. Musiani (University of Bologna).
The PI finalized the collective book 2, “Mémoires des passés antiques: une construction continue (XIVe-début XIXe s)”(part of WP5) to be submitted to Brepols in May 2024. She worked on the scientific edition of collective books 3 and 4 (on WP2) which will be submitted to Brepols in July 2024.
During these two and a half years, the PI has also begun working on the monograph announced in the project on the reinvention of Ancient Greece in French literature (1320-1550). AGRELITA has hosted four international researchers for stays of one to two months. AGRELITA has presented papers at 7 congresses of international associations and at 15 conferences in France and abroad. AGRELITA has published 8 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
In the book Représenter et nommer la Grèce et les Grecs (XIVe-XVIe s), AGRELITA tackled a difficult and almost never explored question: what ancient Greece geographically and spatially represents for the authors and artists of the corpus considered (before the reintroduction of Greek in France and direct translations from Greek to French. AGRELITA questioned the idea that the representation of a Greek « entity » reappeared for the first time in centuries with the rediscovery of Ptolemy. By studying a very diverse corpus -encyclopaedic, historical and fictional texts-, AGRELITA has produced the first study of the reception of Ancient Greece from the point of view of geographical and spatial issues in the centuries and corpus under consideration, thus advancing research beyond the state of the art.
AGRELITA’s research has also focused on a large corpus of new translations into French, translations of very diverse Latin works (written from antiquity to 15th C) which show indirect receptions of knowledges of Greece or Greek texts (1320-1550). This research also represents a paradigm shift in the study of the reception of Ancient Greece, since until now criticism has focused primarily on the transmission of Greek works, their new editions and then their direct translations from Greek into French. The development of these direct translations begins only from the 1550s. From the 14th Century until the middle of the 16th Century, French-language authors and artists have no direct knowledge of Greek works. The knowledge about ancient Greece that they transmit and reinvent in their texts and illustrations is mediated by various filters. Their reception is indirect, based on previous textual and iconographic works, whose representations of ancient Greece are in fact the result of one or more receptions. The question of the reception of ancient Greece was therefore explored from another perspective than the one adopted until now which consisted of studying the direct transmission of Greek works.
From year 3 until the end of the project, the team will also work on WP 3 - on the inventions of traditions of Greek political origins - and WP 4 -new uses of Greek mythology -.
We aim to contribute to a general reflection on how memories are created, how heritages are invented, and how cultural and political identities are shaped.
AGRELITA’s research has also focused on a large corpus of new translations into French, translations of very diverse Latin works (written from antiquity to 15th C) which show indirect receptions of knowledges of Greece or Greek texts (1320-1550). This research also represents a paradigm shift in the study of the reception of Ancient Greece, since until now criticism has focused primarily on the transmission of Greek works, their new editions and then their direct translations from Greek into French. The development of these direct translations begins only from the 1550s. From the 14th Century until the middle of the 16th Century, French-language authors and artists have no direct knowledge of Greek works. The knowledge about ancient Greece that they transmit and reinvent in their texts and illustrations is mediated by various filters. Their reception is indirect, based on previous textual and iconographic works, whose representations of ancient Greece are in fact the result of one or more receptions. The question of the reception of ancient Greece was therefore explored from another perspective than the one adopted until now which consisted of studying the direct transmission of Greek works.
From year 3 until the end of the project, the team will also work on WP 3 - on the inventions of traditions of Greek political origins - and WP 4 -new uses of Greek mythology -.
We aim to contribute to a general reflection on how memories are created, how heritages are invented, and how cultural and political identities are shaped.