The PTANOIS POSIN project investigates the cultural movement of intellectuals and itinerant professionals of performing arts in the Hellenistic period.
In the Hellenistic cultural panorama, itinerant specialists of literature and music played a significant role. The endeavors, paths, and stories of the so-called “poeti vaganti” are mainly documented by inscriptions, allowing us to envision a cultural and popular phenomenon that run parallel to court literature. Unknown artists and accomplished intellectuals travelled from city to city all around Continental Greece, the Aegean Sea, and the coasts of Asia Minor, chasing fame, fortune, and glory. The virtuosi showed off on all the renowned stages of the Hellenistic cultural centers, delivering their performances at festivals and sacred celebrations, presenting their brand-new compositions or reperforming traditional forte, gathering regional audiences from the territory and on-occasion audiences from abroad. Although the compositions of itinerant artists are sporadically preserved, being mainly intended for oral use, epigraphy provides us with a large spectrum of valuable elements that aid in the reconstruction of both the features and gestalt of a “popular” movement and its multimodal role in impacting on cultural life and identity of the Hellenistic world.
The scientific core of this project is the idea of arts on the move that finds ratio in the travel and in the hic et nunc performance. The research reveals two distinct patterns of artistic movement: travels for extra-agonistic performances and large-scale itineraries towards contests. These two spheres, interacting together, offer us one plane upon which to obtain a general vision. The study of inscriptions shows three main osmotic levels interacting together and encompassing transversal patterns. The central point of this scenario is the Travel, as the project title indicates: the expression from an epigram for a multi-victorious herald “ptanois posin”, i.e. with winged feet, enshrines the essence of the itinerant arts. Focus on Travel leads to an investigation of Performance, studied by typology and nature, and of the Travelers themselves, their life stories and careers, traced through their movements.
The scientific objectives for this MSCA-IF-GF action fall under the investigation of artistic itinerancy, in its social dynamics, mobility criteria, and occasions of cultural life. The research objectives pertain to transversal and interdisciplinary nature of the project and revolve around the core structure of the research, according to geographical, chronological and thematic criteria. The achievement of the ROs, through the whole of TTRs and major deliverables+milestones, has disclosed the edges of a phenomenon that has by now deserved to be included to the reconstruction of the Hellenistic cultural panorama. Re-adjustment of actions due to pandemic emergency has often entailed significant enhancement, especially for activities pertaining to dissemination/communication of results.
