Periodic Reporting for period 3 - NeMoSanctI (New Models of Sanctity in Italy (1960s-2010s).A Semiotic Analysis of Norms, Causes of Saints, Hagiography, and Narratives)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-03-01 bis 2022-08-31
In cultures with a strong Catholic tradition saints represent models of life perfection, dialectically elaborated by a plurality of subjects and expressed in a thick intertextual network. Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), when the Church promoted a policy of adaptation of her tradition to the modern world, the modeling of sanctity has undergone a deep transformation. In a context of global change, new models of sanctity have assumed a central role in guiding the faithful by proposing a renewed religious alternative to growing secularization.
NeMoSanctI studies how models of sanctity have changed especially after the Second Vatican Council and their relationship with the culture of a country exemplum of strong Catholicism: Italy. To this end, it applies a pioneering semiotic method which will allows the comparative analysis of a corpus of texts of different genres:
- normative texts regulating sanctity emanating from the Church;
- judicial texts, i.e. causes of canonization of three famous Italian saints (Padre Pio, Gianna Beretta Molla, and Gerardo Maiella), with a focus on the dialectics between the models proposed by laic witnesses and by ecclesiastic inquirers;
- narrative texts, i.e. a sample of popular hagiography, of official hagiographic collections, and of Italian literary texts, where the theme of sanctity tends to be unconventionally elaborated and dissociated from Catholic values.
Despite its relevance for a deeper understanding of the role of religion in today’s culture, a systematic research on new models of sanctity and on their intertextual codification is still missing. By carrying out this research and by proposing an innovative semiotic methodology for the analysis of models of life perfection, NeMoSanctI will have a significant impact on numerous disciplines, especially semiotics, religious and cultural studies, critical studies of hagiography and canon law, literary and Italian studies.
NeMoSanctI studies how models of sanctity have changed especially after the Second Vatican Council and their relationship with the culture of a country exemplum of strong Catholicism: Italy. To this end, it applies a pioneering semiotic method which will allows the comparative analysis of a corpus of texts of different genres:
- normative texts regulating sanctity emanating from the Church;
- judicial texts, i.e. causes of canonization of three famous Italian saints (Padre Pio, Gianna Beretta Molla, and Gerardo Maiella), with a focus on the dialectics between the models proposed by laic witnesses and by ecclesiastic inquirers;
- narrative texts, i.e. a sample of popular hagiography, of official hagiographic collections, and of Italian literary texts, where the theme of sanctity tends to be unconventionally elaborated and dissociated from Catholic values.
Despite its relevance for a deeper understanding of the role of religion in today’s culture, a systematic research on new models of sanctity and on their intertextual codification is still missing. By carrying out this research and by proposing an innovative semiotic methodology for the analysis of models of life perfection, NeMoSanctI will have a significant impact on numerous disciplines, especially semiotics, religious and cultural studies, critical studies of hagiography and canon law, literary and Italian studies.
NORMATIVE TEXTS: The PI (J. Ponzo) and team members have analyzed the cases for sainthood designed by Catholic jurisprudence (martyrdom, heroicity of virtues and offering of life). The main achievements deriving from this research are an issue of the international journal Lexia entitled “The semiotics of martyrdom” (Lexia 31-32 ed. by J. Ponzo), with papers by the PI, four team members and scholars from various disciplines; the organization of a panel about martyrdom at the 2019 European Academy of Religion annual conference (Bologna); the publication of a paper about heroicity by the PI and E. Rai in the journal Ocula and of a paper about the offering of life by J. Ponzo in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. In 2019 we organized moreover a seminar about the relationship between religion and law from a semiotic perspective and in 2020 a seminar about the notion of personhood, which has a capital importance in jurisprudence but also in the other fields of humanities and proves to be a key concept to understand sanctity as the codification of models of behavior.
OFFICIAL HAGIOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS: We have compared Martyrologium Romanum and Bibliotheca Sanctorum and also expanded our research to digital forms of organization of the knowledge about saints (e.g. online encyclopedias of saints). This research is exposed in a paper by J. Ponzo and G. Marino accepted by the journal Semiotica. The Martyrologium is also the subject of 2 more publications and of 4 conference presentations by G. Marino. The PI presented her research on the Bibliotheca at the 2019 annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR, Tartu). We have also focused on other liturgical texts listing saints, in particular the litanies, which are the subject of a book chapter by the PI, G. Marino and F. Galofaro published in an international volume about this particular genre, as well as of two further articles by F. Galofaro and M. Kubas.
CAUSES FOR SAINTS AND POPULAR HAGIOGRAPHIES: We have analyzed the causes for canonization and hagiographies of St. Gerardo Majella, St. Pio of Pietralcina and St. Gianna Beretta Molla. M. Papasidero published one paper about Saint Gerardo and one further paper about this saint is forthcoming. F. Galofaro has so far published 2 papers about Saint Pio. The PI has submitted an article about St. Gianna to the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law and delivered a presentation at the 14th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Regarding the field of popular hagiographies, we are exploring a plurality of textual genres, e.g. comics, ex voto and digital texts. So far, we have organized a panel entitled “Pop hagiographies: From ex-votos to Internet memes” at the Associazione Italiana per lo Studio della Santità, dei Culti e dell’Agiografia (AISSCA) annual conference (2020 Rome), delivered 7 conference presentations and published 1 book chapter.
NARRATIVES: We are exploring literary texts from the post-Tridentine period to our days and we have published several papers about the representation of saints in novels and tales. We are organizing a seminar planned for May-June 2021 about “Spiritual autobiographies”, which will involve scholars from many disciplines and specialized in different religious traditions and epochs.
NeMoSanctI’s team members manage a website (nemosancti.eu) a FB page and a Youtube channel. Regarding the latter, of particular relevance is the video series SemioPills, in which we interview prominent scholars in the field of semiotics of religion about themes of interest for NeMoSanctI.
OFFICIAL HAGIOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS: We have compared Martyrologium Romanum and Bibliotheca Sanctorum and also expanded our research to digital forms of organization of the knowledge about saints (e.g. online encyclopedias of saints). This research is exposed in a paper by J. Ponzo and G. Marino accepted by the journal Semiotica. The Martyrologium is also the subject of 2 more publications and of 4 conference presentations by G. Marino. The PI presented her research on the Bibliotheca at the 2019 annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR, Tartu). We have also focused on other liturgical texts listing saints, in particular the litanies, which are the subject of a book chapter by the PI, G. Marino and F. Galofaro published in an international volume about this particular genre, as well as of two further articles by F. Galofaro and M. Kubas.
CAUSES FOR SAINTS AND POPULAR HAGIOGRAPHIES: We have analyzed the causes for canonization and hagiographies of St. Gerardo Majella, St. Pio of Pietralcina and St. Gianna Beretta Molla. M. Papasidero published one paper about Saint Gerardo and one further paper about this saint is forthcoming. F. Galofaro has so far published 2 papers about Saint Pio. The PI has submitted an article about St. Gianna to the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law and delivered a presentation at the 14th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Regarding the field of popular hagiographies, we are exploring a plurality of textual genres, e.g. comics, ex voto and digital texts. So far, we have organized a panel entitled “Pop hagiographies: From ex-votos to Internet memes” at the Associazione Italiana per lo Studio della Santità, dei Culti e dell’Agiografia (AISSCA) annual conference (2020 Rome), delivered 7 conference presentations and published 1 book chapter.
NARRATIVES: We are exploring literary texts from the post-Tridentine period to our days and we have published several papers about the representation of saints in novels and tales. We are organizing a seminar planned for May-June 2021 about “Spiritual autobiographies”, which will involve scholars from many disciplines and specialized in different religious traditions and epochs.
NeMoSanctI’s team members manage a website (nemosancti.eu) a FB page and a Youtube channel. Regarding the latter, of particular relevance is the video series SemioPills, in which we interview prominent scholars in the field of semiotics of religion about themes of interest for NeMoSanctI.
NeMoSanctI represents the first application of the semiotic methodology to the study of both sainthood as a particular aspect of Canon law and jurisprudence, and of the acts of the causes for canonization. In particular, we study narrative structures, thematic roles and systems of values emerging from institutional and normative texts. We also carry out a critical reflection on key concepts such as the notions of personhood, exemplarity, heroicity and martyrdom as they are developed in the humanities and in the broader culture: these concepts work as interpretative keys to gain an improved understanding of the idea of Catholic sanctity and its development over time.
Furthermore, we carry out an innovative study of modelizing epystemologies, i.e. a semiotic study of texts offering an encompassing view of sanctity by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. We consider these texts as syntagmatic chains of signs based on a paradigm formed by a set of epistemological, religious and cultural principles.
NeMoSanctI is characterized by two key features: 1) the attention to the intertextual network through which models of sanctity are built and represented by different cultural and social subjects, which entails the analysis of a corpus composed of texts of many different genres; 2) the opening of our research’s scope to genres and works which have been scarcely studied up to now (e.g. popular hagiographies and neglected literary works). Thanks to these features, at the end of the action it will be possible to look at the phenomenon of sanctity from a privileged angle characterized by an extraordinarily broad span but also by a coherent methodological perspective.
Furthermore, we carry out an innovative study of modelizing epystemologies, i.e. a semiotic study of texts offering an encompassing view of sanctity by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. We consider these texts as syntagmatic chains of signs based on a paradigm formed by a set of epistemological, religious and cultural principles.
NeMoSanctI is characterized by two key features: 1) the attention to the intertextual network through which models of sanctity are built and represented by different cultural and social subjects, which entails the analysis of a corpus composed of texts of many different genres; 2) the opening of our research’s scope to genres and works which have been scarcely studied up to now (e.g. popular hagiographies and neglected literary works). Thanks to these features, at the end of the action it will be possible to look at the phenomenon of sanctity from a privileged angle characterized by an extraordinarily broad span but also by a coherent methodological perspective.