http://www2.bc.edu/~mormando/
Select Conference Papers and Other Public Lectures: "Raphael's Disputa at the Vatican: Neither Disputation nor Eucharist," presentation at UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Mellon Fdtn Sawyer Seminar Series, "Disputation: Arguing In and Out of the University," April 22, 2008. "Bernini's Religion." Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Minneapolis, Oct. 2007. "Pestilence, Apostasy and Heresy in 17th-century Rome: Deciphering Michael Sweerts' Plague in an Ancient City," Centre for Early Modern Studies, Univ. of Aberdeen (Scotland), Conference on: "Icons and Iconoclasts, 1603-1714," July 20, 2006. "Naked to Follow the Naked Christ: The Franciscans and the Late Medieval Destiny of Jerome's Ascetic Adage." Harvard University, Humanities Center Seminar on Medieval Studies, March 20, 2006. "Ambiguous Baroque: The Sensual, the Sexual and the Sacred in Devotional Art of Seventeenth-Century Italy," The Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts, Boston University, Feb. 23, 2006. "Using Art to Teach Italian Culture and History," presentation at the "Professional Development Course on AP Italian Language and Literature, for High School Teachers" sponsored by the Consulate of Italy in Boston and the National Italian American Foundation, Boston College, June 4, 2005. "Christianity and Art: Piety and Power. The Church Responds to Art." Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, November 30 and December 2, 2004 "Bernardino of Siena: The Dynamics of His Preaching Performance," for conference, "Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1600," Queen Mary College, University of London, July 26, 2004. "The History Behind the Biography: Domenico Bernini’s Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernini," Renaissance Society of America, March, 2002, Scottsdale, Arizona. "Celebrity-Saint of Early Renaissance Italy: Bernardino of Siena and His World in Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 16, 2001. "The Power of Images: The Role of Devotional Art in Baroque Italy." Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, March 8, 2000. "Judas Iscariot and the Kiss of Betrayal in Christian Art and Tradition." The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 20, 1999.
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Franco Mormando
associate professor of italian
Complete CV
Education and Academic Degrees:
Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, S.T.L. (Licentiate in Church History) 1994; Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, M.Div. (Masters in Divinity) 1992; Gregorian University, Rome, Biennio di Filosofia, 1985-87; Harvard University (Italian Literature), Ph.D. 1983; Harvard University, M.A. 1979; Columbia University, B.A. 1977
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Inducted by the President of the Republic of Italy into the honorary "Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana," with the title of "Cavaliere" (Knight), October 12, 2005. | |
Fields of Research:
History of Preaching and Popular Devotional Literature, 15th-17th Centuries; Social and Religious Context of Renaissance and Baroque Art; Bernardino of Siena; Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Current Projects:
Book in progress: Domenico Bernini's Life of the Cavalier Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Rome, 1713): An Annotated English Translation (expected date of ms. completion, early 2008): with a lengthy Introduction and extensive notes, incorporating other primary source information especially from Baldinucci's biography and the Chantelou diary. In appendix: an annotated English translation of the earlier "vita brevis" of Bernini attributed to the artist's eldest son, Pietro Filippo.
Research in progress: (1) Celebrity Preacher of Late Baroque Rome: Gian Paolo Oliva, S.J. and His Sermons Before the Papal Court (the life and preaching of one of the most eminent preachers in Rome in the second-half of the 17th century, superior general of the Jesuit order, friend of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's, and major driving force behind the late Baroque artistic-architectural program of the Jesuits); (2) Baroque Rome: Portrait of a City (an interdisciplinary account of seventeenth-century Rome, covering all aspects of the city's life, social, political, religious, topographic, etc.).
Recent Publications:
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Co-editor of Piety and Plague: From Byzantrium to the Baroque (Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, Truman State University Press, 2007), containing my essay, "Pestilence, Apostasy, and Heresy in Seventeenth-Century Rome: Deciphering Michael Sweerts' Plague in an Ancient City." To search inside the book, click here. |
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co-editor of Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Missions in the Far East: An Anniversary Volume of Early Printed Sources in the Jesuitana Collection of the John J. Burns Library, Boston College, Chestnut Hill: The Jesuit Institute, 2006, containing my essay "The Making of the Second Jesuit Saint: The Campaign for the Canonization of Francis Xavier" (download here).
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"The Painted Visions of Fra Angelico: A New Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum," America, vol. 193, no. 20, Dec. 19, 2005. |
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co-editor of Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800. Exhibition catalogue. Worcester Art Museum; distr. by University of Chicago Press, 2005. |
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author of The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. |
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editor of Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image. Exhibition catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 1999. |
"Nudus Nudum Christum Sequi: The Franciscans and Differing Interpretations of Male Nakedness in Fifteenth-Century Italy," in Fifteenth Century Studies, 33 (2008): 171-197 (article offers, inter alia, first textual confirmation of thesis of Leo Steinberg's The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art).
"Response to the Plague in Early Modern Italy: What the Primary Sources, Printed and Painted, Reveal" in Hope and Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800 (Worcester Art Museum and University of Chicago Press, 2005), 1-44.
"Tintoretto's Recently Rediscovered 'Raising of Lazarus'," The Burlington Magazine, 142 (2000): 624-29.
"Virtual Death in the Middle Ages: The Apotheosis of Mary Magdalene in Popular Preaching" in Death and Dying in the Middle Ages, ed. Edelgard DuBruck and Barbara I. Gusick. New York: Peter Lang, 1999, 257-74.
"Bernardino of Siena, 'Great Defender' or 'Merciless Betrayer' of Women?" in Italica 75 (1998): 22-40.
Course Calendar:
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