Vittoriano
DATE: October 22, 2025, 9:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: VIVE - Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia, Sala del Refettorio (Palazzo Venezia)
The first training day within the project "So Far, So Near: Italy, the Mediterranean and Africa" is dedicated to the theme "Material and Immaterial Exchanges between the Broader Mediterranean and Africa in the Early Modern Age". Several internationally renowned scholars will be called upon to examine, from different points of view, how the connections between Italy, the Mediterranean world, and Africa were articulated between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. In particular, the lectures will address topics such as slavery, with attention also to female slavery, the circulation of people, objects, and imaginaries, and the relationship between Catholicism and the African reality.
09.30
Serena Di Nepi (Sapienza University of Rome), Africa and African Slaves in Modern Italy. The Case of Rome
Tamar Herzig (Tel Aviv University), Female Slavery in the Modern Mediterranean
Maria Teresa Fattori (University of Teramo), Missionaries and Enslaved People between Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa
Matteo Al Kalak (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Traveling Objects: A Mediterranean History of the Mother of Jesus
15.00
Rémi Dèwiere (University of Padua), A History of Cats, Songs, and Tortellini. Exchanges between Italy and Nigeria in the Modern Era
Michele Bernardini (L'Orientale University of Naples), Italy, the Turks, and the Persians. A Distant Proximity
Rosita D’Amora (Sapienza University of Rome), Circulation of Objects, Fashions, and Images in the Modern Mediterranean between Italy, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire
Pierluigi Valsecchi (University of Pavia), The Kingdom of Congo and the Europeans: Politics and Religion in the Modern Era
Massimo Carlo Giannini (University of Teramo), Access to Priesthood for Africans: The Dilemmas of Post-Tridentine Catholicism between Europe and Africa
