Histories of Violence

Italy and the Mediterranean c.1300-1700
10.00am – 4.30pm (tbc), Saturday 23 February (with registration from 9.30am)
Research Forum South Room, Courtauld Institute of Art,
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

From the late middle ages through the early modern period, the Mediterranean world was shattered by multiple acts of violence. These were primarily religious, political and artistic in nature. Yet as a concept, violence poses a challenge to modern historians, for its definition is hard to pin down: the term we employ loosely, though its physical expressions are numerous, its textual and visual forms provocative, its reception history problematic. Violence, rather, manifests itself as an attitude or process whose stakes change in space and over time. This symposium, whose scope spans across four centuries, addresses the manifold histories of violence in Italy and the Mediterranean during an artistically explosive and politically turbulent period of social and cultural development. It does so with the hope of arriving at a more nuanced ‘period’ understanding of violence and its various artistic or socio-political manifestations.

Speakers will include: Samuel Bibby (UCL), Sara Gonzalez (Institute of Musical Research), Scott Nethersole (Courtauld Institute of Art), Thomas Nickson (Courtauld Institute of Art), Edward Payne (Courtauld Institute of Art), Per Rumberg (Courtauld Institute of Art) and Anthea Stevens (Courtauld Institute of Art).

Open to all, free admission; please book a place in advance. For further information and to book a place (for security purposes) please e-mail ResearchForumEvents@courtauld.ac.uk or call 020 7848 2785.