The conference aims to shed light on the often-marginalised role of the mendicants within the studia humanitatis. The contribution of religious orders to humanism has been noted in the historical sciences for decades, but in art history it awaits further research and some clarification with regard to the reciprocal relationship between orders and urban elites – in other words, the intertwining of convents and the city. Much has been said about lay patronage in the convents, but there remains the question of how the debates about humanist culture conducted in the convents affected the outside world.
In the context of the history of ideas and moral philosophy of the 14th and 15th centuries, one disputed the best form of state and negotiated cultural values. In their debates, civic (national) identity and (instrumental) construction of history were at stake. It might be assumed that the mendicants helped to shape a political culture that was still being negotiated in the Quattrocento and that they were actively involved in the evocation of a certain image of the city or a community. The ideas, above all from philosophical and theological contexts, developed in the studia of the convents in the context of semi-public disputations between religious scholars and humanist laymen. Such ideas were able to influence the ‘aesthetics of the city’.
Case studies will be used to examine the extent to which humanist discourse has been developed in the studia of the convents (some of which were also open to lay education). In addition to such places of knowledge exchange, the preaching activity should be considered, by means of which ideas generated in the studia were passed on to a broad political base.
On the one hand, we are interested in the participation of the mendicant orders in humanist discourses in the context of the valori civici. We thus ask how individual members of the orders acted as opinion makers, communicated and passed on ideas, and in this way shaped—directly or indirectly—the materially conceived and built body of the city. On the other hand, the focus will be on the appropriation of an ‘aesthetics of civitas’ on the part of the orders, which showed itself, among other things, in a specifically humanistic vocabulary. This vocabulary is not limited to textual production, but is also understood in an image-generating and material semantic sense.
What role did the arts play in this reciprocal relationship between religious scholars and lay people? How did the use of certain materials, iconographic features, the conscious reception of antiquity versus local tradition, and even the construction and design of space relate to humanist discourses? And in what way did the same material aesthetics and semantic formulas in turn find their way into the ‘language’ of the Mendicants?
Starting from these questions, we are also interested in knowledge flows within networks. Through the teaching activities of various representatives of the orders, European study centres of the mendicants as well as at state universities served as hubs of learned exchange and were thus able to promote the circulation and oral transformation not only of knowledge, but also of opinions, perceptions, and images (in the broadest sense).
The premise of the conference is thus the assumption that the mendicants played a significant role in the formation of an iconography of the state and the community. The aim is to compare the respective modalities and approaches of the mendicants in different forms of state (republic, princely state, church state, monarchy). How did their actions differ in Milan, Padua, Bologna, Florence, Rome or Naples, as well as other European centres such as Avignon or Paris?
Beyond the mendicants, we are open to contributions on monastic orders and the analysis of their impact on the city.
The lectures can be given in German, Italian and English.
Important information about Covid-19:
Depending on the pandemic and in accordance with changing governmental and institutional guidelines, the format of the conference will be determined at a later date.
In case of the possibility to hold the conference in presence, the travel expenses and accommodation of the speakers will be covered by the Bibliotheca Hertziana.
Please send your abstract and a short CV in one pdf until June 20, 2021 to stahlbuhk@biblhertz.it and c.jentzsch@udk-berlin.de.