CALL FOR PAPERS
The Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis (1521) and Its Influence on European Antiquarianism
January 24-25, 2019
Hosted at: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain)
Organized by: Prof. Joan Carbonell Manils (UAB) and Dr. Gerard González Germain (UAB)
This Seminar intends to analyze the influence and reception of the Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis (ed. J. Mazochius, Rome 1521), initially within the cultural milieu of contemporary Rome, and successively on the antiquarian studies throughout Europe. As previous scholarship has remarked, the importance of the publication of the Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis is manifold. First, it represents the earliest printed collection of inscriptions of the city of Rome; thus, it came to be a sort of vade mecum for any humanist interested in Roman antiquities and, especially, in epigraphy. Second, it was the first edition of an epigraphic corpus intending to be exhaustive, an enterprise which raised numerous methodological issues (e.g. the organization of the information, the expression of non-textual elements on the printed page, the reliability of textually transmitted inscriptions…) that successive antiquarian print works had to deal with, and which initiated a tradition that culminated with Gruter’s Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani (1603), the first precedent of the CIL. And third, it became an exceptional witness to Rome’s antiquities before the Sack of 1527, both for humanists living in the city and for those in the rest of Europe. The significance of this book can be observed in the numerous copies extant today, many of which were annotated – sometimes thoroughly, sometimes more briefly – throughout the sixteenth century, and in some cases well into the nineteenth century.
Papers dealing with the following topics are particularly welcome:
– The antiquarian research carried out in Rome in the years previous to the publication of the work (c. 1500-1521);
– The Roman antiquarian scene of the first half of the Cinquecento;
– The influence of the Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis in sixteenth-century antiquarian printed works;
– Manuscript annotations in the margins of copies of the Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis;
– Readers and owners of the Epigrammata Antiquae Urbis in the Early Modern period.
Paper presentations will be 30 minutes long, and will be followed by a 10-minute discussion. English will be the main conference language; papers in English, Italian, Spanish and French are welcome. The papers will be published in a peer-reviewed collective volume, planned for the beginning of 2020; the deadline for article submission will be May 31, 2019.
To submit a proposal, please send an abstract of your paper (max. 150 words) and a brief curriculum vitae (max. one page) to joan.carbonell@uab.cat or gerard.gonzalez@uab.cat before October 19, 2018.
