Venue: Palazzo Venezia
The opening day takes us to the heart of the centuries-old connections between Italy, the Mediterranean, and Africa. From Ethiopian knowledge and scholarship in early modern Rome to the information networks linking the Ottoman Empire and Italy in the nineteenth century, the morning sessions explore how knowledge, news, and relationships connected seemingly distant shores. In the afternoon, the focus broadens to representations of Africa in medieval Europe and African journeys and exchanges from the Sahara to the Renaissance, before examining the dynamics of North Africa in the eighteenth century and imperial rivalries in Egypt. From debates on the restitution of displaced cultural heritage to the circulation of colonial knowledge in the twentieth century, this eventful day invites us to rediscover how our Mare Nostrum has always been a vibrant crossroads of ideas, people, and histories.
9:30 Opening Remarks. Alfonsina Russo, Head of the Department for the Enhancement of Cultural Heritage (DIVA), Italian Ministry of Culture; Edith Gabrielli, Director of VIVE – Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia; Simone Quilici, Director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park; and Federica Rinaldi, Director of the National Roman Museum.
10:00 Massimo Carlo Giannini (University of Teramo) — Opening remarks
10:20 Session One — Relations and Exchanges in the Mediterranean — Chair: Massimo Carlo Giannini (University of Teramo)
Samantha Kelly (Rutgers University), Ethiopian Expertise in Early Modern Rome: Reception, Elision, Distortion, and Reconstitution
Ibrahim Hamaloğlu (Ege University), News, Rumours and Mediterranean Connectivity: Information Networks Between the Ottoman Empire and Italy in the Nineteenth Century
12:15 Discussion
13:00 Break
14:30 Relations, Networks and Representations — Chair: Isabella Lazzarini (Torino University)
Giuseppe Albertoni (University of Trento), Africa and Ethiopians between Representation and Reality in Medieval Europe
Justine Walden (Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies - I Tatti), Towards a Black Mediterranean: ‘Montebarcha’, Bornu, and Black African Passages from the Sahara to Europe, c. 1400-1700
Lorenzo Benedetti (University of Pisa), The Purse and the Sword: Relations between Europe and North Africa in the Eighteenth Century — The Case of Tripoli
Massimiliano Vaghi (University of Bergamo), Carlo de Rossetti, an Italian Agent in Egypt in an Age of Imperial Rivalries (1798–1801)
Break
Beatrice Falcucci (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Negotiating Restitution: Italian-Ethiopian Debates on Dispossessed Heritage (1947-2024)
Gabriele Bassi (University of Siena), Knowledge in Circulation between Italy, the Mediterranean and Africa: Colonial Science and Imperial Comparison (1896–1943)
18:00 Discussion