Francesco Dragoni (Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”)
Visual devices for specialist knowledge: from collecting to encyclopedism. A “pictorial dictionary of musical life of every century and every nation” by Mario Bellucci La Salandra (1892-1966)
Mario Bellucci La Salandra (1892-1966), a pioneer researcher on Neapolitan music school, created an iconographic collection of about 16,000 images. He aimed to illustrate various aspects of musicological knowledge, using drawings, photographs, traditional prints, and fragments of ‘minor print’. The whole has a powerful historical-documentary value. It allows us to reconstruct the author’s relationship, who dedicated some biographical files to relevant intellectuals of the time (e. g.: Alfredo Casella, Sebastiano Arturo Luciani, Raffaello De Rensis, etc.). In parallel, the collecting derivation of the work is evident. We may connect it to the phenomenon of ‘melomania’ for the attention paid to theatre music, as for the careful aesthetic realization. The archive lies in the regional library of Foggia. Its project design prompts reflection on the emergence of experimental methodologies, in acquiring and processing specialist knowledge. It is possible to decode the disposition of the material thanks to published and unpublished writings of the author, as to specific bibliographic connections. Indeed, we may consider the personal dimension of the documents and book collection. The verb-visual textualization has been analysed and defined. The taxonomic structure of the “dictionary” also emerges, inspired by specific theoretical and cultural systems which sprung during the twentieth century. Therefore, this research proposes an example of epistemological re-evaluation of iconographic archives. We may consider the ‘visual’ component not only in the purely informative sense but also in a discursive way, based on an interdisciplinary perspective.
Anastasia Kozachenko-Stravinsky (Università Ca’ Foscari)
Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale through time and meanings
The Soldier’s Tale, or a theatrical work “to be read, played and danced,” was written by Igor Stravinsky with Charles Rameau in 1918. The twentieth century’s tragic events affected Stravinsky’s family brutally. But yet, the composer intended to create a work that could be related to any era and yet to 1918, to many nationalities and to none in particular. It is not a classical soldier’s story: a fearless man who “neither burns in the fire, nor drowns in water; neither fears the devil, nor the dead”, but rather an uneducated loser hero. And the Devil who is a one of the Zanni commedia dell’arte, the mischievous Harlequin. Stravinsky founded the theatrical musical work’s particular form, which surprisingly combined a tragic narrative reflexed through a satirical, comedic angle. It teaches us to read between the lines. For example, in South Africa in 1944, John Cranko choreographed a burlesque version of Stravinsky’s work, where at the same time, he demonstrated the pain of his comrades leaving for the war. In 1955, in Canada, “Bip the Clown” Marcel Marceau played the Devil and told by this character the family’s tragedy in Auschwitz. In 1968, in London, at the time of the worldwide protests, was presented a version for the very first time. In 1987, in Naples, director Roberto di Simone gave a circus performance regarding the fan boom of Diego Maradonna. In 2021, in Venice was a version that responded to the current pandemic’s life events. The variability of worldwide’s productions over the last 100 years provides an entire spectrum of new readings of the work created by Stravinsky. The use of humour helps to expose the dark side of human nature, and the reception of surrounding events is made possible by a cleverly constructed formula that incorporates music, text and image.
Silvia Mascia (Università degli Studi di Udine)
Archival findings: the Totalrama as a national widescreen shooting and projection system
My presentation will focus on the analysis of the Totalrama widescreen system discovered through excavation at The National Film Archive for Industrial Film in Ivrea (TO), with the intention of contextualizing it in the landscape of screen experimentation and patent warfare (Belton 1992, 2010; Vitella 2018) in which it attempts to establish itself. The finding of such archival material, deposited within the extensive Fiat fund, has brought to light an original device that speaks not only of a technical evolution, but also fits into the history of the film industry of the early 1960s and tells a piece of it. In fact, the films, which until then had never been studied because they were out-of-standard format, come up with a single image impressed horizontally along their entire length, with no line spacing and no cuts. Their analysis and historical research led to the discovery of the Totalrama system, patented by Italian engineer Vico D’Incerti with the intention of innovating film technique. It in fact provided for the use of a single camera for both filming and projection, resulting in a 360-degree flow of images that created an immersive spectacle. The film project in Totalrama is, for all intents and purposes, what in an archaeological media perspective is called a dead end. A term by which we aim to study all those media products that were not successful, that “died” before they were completed, that were abandoned, neglected, forgotten. In this way, attention is given to those broken paths that are nevertheless interesting to rediscover and that tell us about a larger story (Elsaesser 2016; Huhtamo, Parikka 2011).
Chiara Pupella (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano)
Fortified medieval architecture and rural landscapes of power: the context of Alto Brembo in some case studies
The territory of the Brembana Valley represents a privileged context for the study of late medieval fortified buildings, intended as an assumption of the power affirmation on different levels, not only of high-ranking persons, but also of minor rural families. Architecture becomes the manifest of the role played in society and constitutes a key witness to obtain information about the ways of living and dwelling a certain reality. Where exactly there is a wish to declare a supremacy on the territory defense, significant architectural traces can be found. From field to bibliographic and archival research, it’s possible to take a census and reconstruct both the concrete evidences still preserved today on the territory and the hidden traces of fortified late medieval contexts. There are several case studies that highlight the variety of fortified structures scattered throughout the valley, particularly in the “Alto Brembo” territory: Averara context preserves at least two structures (and probably also a third), “Torre della Fontana” and “Torre sopra la Corna”, which, placed in an elevated position over the valley, constituted a defensive and sighting system for the control of the valley floor; in the Mezzoldo area, at about 1350 m a.s.l., there is the “Castello” locality, mentioned in various documents starting from 1653; also Cusio Superiore and Piazzatorre indicate the presence of areas with the toponym “Castello”; for the neighbouring municipalities that delimit the “Alta Valle”, Lenna and Piazza Brembana, sources attest two towers with a probable defensive function of the valley floor.
Paola Ricchiuti (Università degli Studi di Bergamo)
The invisible Labyrinth – The Church of San Savino in Piacenza
From the Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, the labyrinth achieves a new signification, becoming part of the Christian context, as a symbol of a path destined to death but also to a new life, therefore to resurrection. Nevertheless, its graphic representation disappears between the 5th to the 11th century AD, to re-emerge during the 12th century AD in mosaic form on the floors of some Italian churches. In Piacenza, inside the Church of San Savino, consecrated in 1107, on the floor of the centrale nave, remains a labyrinth, probably based on the pattern of that of San Michele in Pavia, circular with the Minotaur in the middle. The text that accompanied it remains mentioned. The tortuous labyrinthic movement relates to the cyclical idea of time: the complex of the remaining mosaics in the Church of San Savino gravitates around the cycle of months and the wheel of time.
Francesca Rigato (Università degli Studi di Milano Statale)
Milan’s underground theatres in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Milan’s underground theatres in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. In Milan, between the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century, many theatres were built, with the configuration – innovative at the time – of the underground performance hall. The most interesting aspect, on which this poster wants to focus, is to outline how the different halls, all gathered in an area of a few squared kilometres, were connected to each other, through performances, trusts, companies and actors and founded a real theatrical circuit (underground and different from that of art theatres) and a community network of spectators and events, as if there was a different teeming and active world under the city. Where has that proliferation of downtown Milan theatres gone today? These halls, which still exist today, have been transformed into something else. A fashion house, a bar, a store, a parking lot, built precisely where there used to be a theatre, but if you look closely, you can still find traces, seemingly invisible, of what existed before the various transformations. Unveiling the invisible, the no longer known, becomes therefore necessary not only for theatrical history, but also History and leads to an understanding of how an entire society used to live and participate in city life for almost a century. The poster will outline and bring to light knowledge of Milan’s underground theatres including, to name a few, Olimpia, Eden, Diana, and Sant’Eramo. The analysis will go on to show the connection of these halls, linked together not only by performances, companies and theatre premieres but also by a common fate, that is, the transformation of these buildings initially into cinemas, later into former cultural venues and then into spaces of commerce and consumption, yet remaining an integral part of a community that today continues to live the same transformed places.
Claudia Sorrentino (Università degli Studi della Tuscia)
Stories of invisible archaeology. Discovery and recomposition of a Superintendence photographic archive
In archaeology, the field research has always emphasized the reinterpretation of the past investigations, especially those carried out from the second half of 19th century to the third quarter of the 20th, period during which current work methodologies were still developing. These excavations have come to us only partially in the literature of the time and for this reason archives assume nowadays crucial relevance, preserving the scientific reports and the excavation journals, often including significant collections of photographs with a twofold historical-documentary value, both from the antiquary and the archeological point of view. Created and implemented with a clear service function, this patrimony today constitutes a precious data filling station not only for the research in a strictly archeological area, but also for the investigations related to the protection of Cultural Heritage. It’s not uncommon, in fact, to find into the photographic archives the only available documentation about previous studies concerning now lost material evidences, as in the case of archaeological sites no longer visible, of ancient structures today incorporated into modern buildings, of demolished monuments and of artifacts dispersed after their discovery or placed into the illegal market. When considering that in most cases the stored materials are unpublished, the archaeological photographic archives, whatever the holder institute, offer interesting opportunities of study and valorization of the documentation itself, in order to obtain a reconstruction of the historic-archeological events that have involved the territory under investigation. The current research intends to discuss the issue of photographic archives of archeology, starting from the case of the photographic archive created by the former “Soprintendenza alle antichità dell’Etruria meridionale”, assigned with the Franceschini’s reform to the Museo Nazionale Etrusco of Villa Giulia, where it still is today.
Gianantonio Urbani (Università degli Studi di Padova)
Mount Tabor in Israel between the Hellenistic and Roman Ages. Contexts, material culture and proposals for valorisation
Il contesto del monte Tabor presso la regione della Galilea in Israele, con una continuità di frequentazione almeno dal II millennio a.C., è stato finora indagato in maniera parziale. Le prime attività di rimozione dei materiali furono sterri effettuati a metà del XIX sec. e gli studi del contesto e della specificità del Tabor in seno all’archeologia delle terre bibliche furono intrapresi solo verso la fine del 1800. Con la costruzione della basilica moderna che ricorda il fatto evangelico della Trasfigurazione del Signore Gesù (1920-1924) furono redatte delle planimetrie ed una sistemazione generale delle antichità, con poca letteratura a riguardo. Uno degli elementi importanti per determinare la funzione di culto in questo luogo nell’antichità è l’analisi del toponimo Atabyrios/Itabyrios, da cui prende il nome la stessa montagna, dove probabilmente si era diffuso il culto a Zeus, con lo specifico appellativo di Atabyrios. Lo scopo di questo poster è rappresentare le azioni che sono in essere nell’area sommitale del monte Tabor di proprietà della Custodia di Terra Santa e le possibili relazioni con altre località della valle di Esdrelon/Jizreel. Da novembre 2021 a febbraio 2022 sono stati operati dei saggi di scavo in tre aree specifiche della proprietà, in accordo con l’Israel Antiquities Authority. Nello stesso tempo sono stati raccolti e campionati alcuni materiali che sono in corso di analisi presso il laboratorio del Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science e del D-REAMS Dangoor Research Accelerator Mass Spectrometer for Radiocarbon Dating (Weizmann Institute of Science – Rehovot – Israele) applicando i principi di microarcheologia in vista di determinare una datazione dei contesti e quindi una prima ipotesi ricostruttiva delle diverse fasi di occupazione.
Francesca Vella (Università degli Studi della Tuscia)
Denied rights in some artistic research in the post-Soviet area
The subject of this talk is to outline the research carried out by artists from Eastern Europe in response to discrimination against them. Issues of cultural diversity, invisibility and alienation have become a constant for many of these artists since 1989. The debate about the right to image, recognition, visibility has not always been fluid, and has represented an often arduous quest on the part of the artists: first-hand witnesses of hostilities, observed and returned to according to a multiplicity of perspectives. This is what happens with Igor Grubić’s miners in Angels with Dirty Faces or with the forgotten characters, the civil heroes of the people, in Was ist Kunst Bosnia and Herzegovina – Heroes 1941-45 by the Slovenian collective IRWIN or – again – with the daily lives of refugees attempting to cross the borders of the European Union in Newsreel 65 – We Have Too Much Things in Heart… by Nika Autor. What emerges in their approach is the need to render differences as something non-discriminatory, devoid of stigmatisation, so that a context of acceptance – without rejection – can develop with regard to rights, which do not have to be normalised on the basis of identity. Reflections such as Mladen Stilinović’s An artist who cannot speak English is no artist or Oleg Kulik’s I Love Europe, It Does Not Love Me Back, in which the artist plays the role of a rabid dog, attempting to emancipate himself from a condition of exclusion, are placed in this perspective. An attempt at redemption for the denial of historical identity and political representation is also what Sislej Xhafa proposes at the XLVII Venice Biennale with his clandestine Albanian Pavilion. Finally, Adrian Paci with the story of Klodi about human rights and dignity.
