Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PROPEL (Prophecy, Public Sphere and Emotions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Tuscany: From Dante to Savonarola)
Reporting period: 2020-09-01 to 2022-08-31
The study of prediction about the future, as an expression of collective and recurring concerns, is a significant contribution to the understanding of every age. In late medieval and Renaissance Europe, prophetic discourse was one of the most incisive means for proposing or opposing alternative models of political and religious order. Over the last decades scholars highlighted Florence as being a focal point for the diffusion of short prophecies, but the large number of the prophecies circulating in Tuscany in the 14th and 15th centuries lack a comprehensive study. PROPEL offers the first comprehensive analysis of these prophetic texts and of the manuscripts which transmitted them.
Why were there so many prophecies in Tuscany? In which way were they read? Why did people believe or not believe in prophecies? Because of the outstanding quality and variety of the documentation, late medieval and Renaissance Tuscany offers a perfect starting point of such a comprehensive study. Florence was then one of the principal economic powers in Europe, and enjoyed a very high literacy rate, among both males and females. Two key figures provide the chronological horizon of PROPEL: Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), before whom there are almost no prophetic sources in Tuscany, and Girolamo Savonarola (d. 1498), after whom the political and religious situation completely changed. In these two centuries, great authors such as Petrarch and Machiavelli were dealing with prophetic issues, and prophecies either preceded or followed major events such as the Ciompi Revolt (1378) and the rise to power of the Medici family (1434).
PROPEL investigates this complex history pursuing three overall objectives: (1) to adopt a new method for the study of prophetic texts, thoroughly investigating the material contexts, the diachronic transmission and the formal features of late medieval prophecies; (2) to propose a fresh interpretation of Tuscan prophetic discourse as having a performative nature (a prophecy does not simply predict the future: it creates the future); (3) to identify and analyze the emotions at the heart of the public sphere created by prophetic texts, such as fear and hope, and underlies the complex relation between prophecy, emotions and violence.
Why were there so many prophecies in Tuscany? In which way were they read? Why did people believe or not believe in prophecies? Because of the outstanding quality and variety of the documentation, late medieval and Renaissance Tuscany offers a perfect starting point of such a comprehensive study. Florence was then one of the principal economic powers in Europe, and enjoyed a very high literacy rate, among both males and females. Two key figures provide the chronological horizon of PROPEL: Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), before whom there are almost no prophetic sources in Tuscany, and Girolamo Savonarola (d. 1498), after whom the political and religious situation completely changed. In these two centuries, great authors such as Petrarch and Machiavelli were dealing with prophetic issues, and prophecies either preceded or followed major events such as the Ciompi Revolt (1378) and the rise to power of the Medici family (1434).
PROPEL investigates this complex history pursuing three overall objectives: (1) to adopt a new method for the study of prophetic texts, thoroughly investigating the material contexts, the diachronic transmission and the formal features of late medieval prophecies; (2) to propose a fresh interpretation of Tuscan prophetic discourse as having a performative nature (a prophecy does not simply predict the future: it creates the future); (3) to identify and analyze the emotions at the heart of the public sphere created by prophetic texts, such as fear and hope, and underlies the complex relation between prophecy, emotions and violence.
During the implementation of PROPEL I carefully followed the project development as presented and approved by the REA (in line with the structure of the Annex 1 to the GA). In order to fulfil the project deliverables and milestones, I have kept both my supervisors updated about the progress of my research almost weekly, and I have received helpful feedback and advice.
Through the actions outlined in the 6 WorkPackages, the project reached its main objectives. Following the DoA, the largest part of my work was devoted to the study of manuscript and printed prophetic texts circulating in Tuscany. At the Universities of Venice and Chicago I met all the ideal conditions to develop my project in the best possible way, and I found a multifaceted and stimulating environment in which I was able to disseminate the results of my research through workshops, seminars, public events and publications.
The first product of the research was published at month 12: it is the monograph I segni della fine. Storia di un predicatore nell’Italia del Rinascimento (“The Signs of the End Times. The History of a Preacher in Renaissance Italy”), published by Viella, one of the best European publishers on Medieval and Renaissance History (https://www.viella.it/libro/9788833138145(opens in new window)). The book studies a prophetic preacher following the entire evolution of his ideas and practices, as well as the different reception of his message by different audiences (in Florence, in Assisi etc.). I segni della fine has been positively reviewed, so far, in important journals of the field as well as in newspaper addressed to a non-specialist audience. It has also been discussed during a dedicated session of the “Laboratorio Erasmo” held at La Sapienza University of Rome (July 6, 2022), and other roundtables about the book are scheduled in Genoa, Grenoble, Venice.
During the first two years of the fellowship, I wrote several articles, focusing on the understudied but central topic of the material transmission of prophecies in manuscript miscellanies, on Niccolò Machiavelli’s original approach to prophecy and politics, and on the reception of prophecies as current news, through the case study of a famous prophetic ‘newsletter’ (the so-called Toledo Letter). Moreover, I attended and organised various workshops and conferences to communicate and disseminate my research to the academic and non-specialist audience in Trento, Chicago, Montréal (due to the covid-19 pandemic the workshops were organized online).
Through the actions outlined in the 6 WorkPackages, the project reached its main objectives. Following the DoA, the largest part of my work was devoted to the study of manuscript and printed prophetic texts circulating in Tuscany. At the Universities of Venice and Chicago I met all the ideal conditions to develop my project in the best possible way, and I found a multifaceted and stimulating environment in which I was able to disseminate the results of my research through workshops, seminars, public events and publications.
The first product of the research was published at month 12: it is the monograph I segni della fine. Storia di un predicatore nell’Italia del Rinascimento (“The Signs of the End Times. The History of a Preacher in Renaissance Italy”), published by Viella, one of the best European publishers on Medieval and Renaissance History (https://www.viella.it/libro/9788833138145(opens in new window)). The book studies a prophetic preacher following the entire evolution of his ideas and practices, as well as the different reception of his message by different audiences (in Florence, in Assisi etc.). I segni della fine has been positively reviewed, so far, in important journals of the field as well as in newspaper addressed to a non-specialist audience. It has also been discussed during a dedicated session of the “Laboratorio Erasmo” held at La Sapienza University of Rome (July 6, 2022), and other roundtables about the book are scheduled in Genoa, Grenoble, Venice.
During the first two years of the fellowship, I wrote several articles, focusing on the understudied but central topic of the material transmission of prophecies in manuscript miscellanies, on Niccolò Machiavelli’s original approach to prophecy and politics, and on the reception of prophecies as current news, through the case study of a famous prophetic ‘newsletter’ (the so-called Toledo Letter). Moreover, I attended and organised various workshops and conferences to communicate and disseminate my research to the academic and non-specialist audience in Trento, Chicago, Montréal (due to the covid-19 pandemic the workshops were organized online).
PROPEL goes beyond the state of the art and has a potential impact on both an academic and a non-specialist audience in two main ways:
(1) For the first time it proposes an unprecedented dialogue between material philology, media studies and history of emotions. This interdisciplinary perspective changes the way in which late medieval and Renaissance prophecy is perceived by the previous scholarship;
(2) As a consequence, by reflecting on the ways one-sided information shapes collective identities and future-oriented emotions influence the public sphere, PROPEL will foster a dialogue with journalists and politicians in order to deconstruct and dismantle the intensifying rhetoric of religious extremism, xenophobic nationalism and media violence.
(1) For the first time it proposes an unprecedented dialogue between material philology, media studies and history of emotions. This interdisciplinary perspective changes the way in which late medieval and Renaissance prophecy is perceived by the previous scholarship;
(2) As a consequence, by reflecting on the ways one-sided information shapes collective identities and future-oriented emotions influence the public sphere, PROPEL will foster a dialogue with journalists and politicians in order to deconstruct and dismantle the intensifying rhetoric of religious extremism, xenophobic nationalism and media violence.