When you think of the Renaissance period in Europe, what springs to mind? Perhaps the Medici family in Italy where the Renaissance is said to have begun, or the discovery of the ‘New World’ by Europeans like Christopher Columbus or Abel Tasman. But have you heard of the Jagiellonians?
“Once lost is lost", one may think, especially if the piece of forgotten patrimony is an opera from 1850 that is “incomplete, too fragmented and irretrievable”, according to the experts. Except for Dr. David Trippet: like an art restorer holding fine paintbrushes, he has dedicated three years of intensive research to retrieve the unborn opera, bringing the music and libretto back to life 170 years later.
Sino alla metà del XV secolo, i libri venivano scritti a mano. Nel 1455 venne stampata la Bibbia di Gutenberg, cambiando per sempre la società. Negli anni successivi milioni di libri furono stampati in tutta Europa. Cosa si sa oggi di questi libri? Chi li leggeva? Chi li acquistava? Chi li annotava? Cristina Dondi è una ricercatrice dell'Università di Oxford e curatrice della mostra "Printing Revolution 1450-1500. I 50 anni che hanno cambiato l'Europa" aperta al Museo Correr di Venezia lo scorso settembre. Forte del successo ottenuto, con oltre 90 000 visitatori a dicembre 2018, la mostra è stata prolungata sino al 30 aprile 2019. Un percorso di scoperta attraverso libri antichi e moderni strumenti digitali, frutto di anni di rigorose ricerche finanziate dall'ERC, il Consiglio europeo delle Ricerche. Sentiamo in questa intervista come nasce la passione di Cristina Dondi per i primi libri a stampa e cosa ha scoperto con le sue ultime ricerche che l'hanno portata a collaborare con biblioteche di tutto il mondo.
Until the middle of the 15th century, books were copied by hand. After the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, in Mainz, printed books started to circulate in Europe marking the start of a new era. But what do we know about the first modern books? What were they about? Who wrote them, bought them, read them? Prof. Cristina Dondi is chasing these answers, following the breadcrumbs left by these incredible volumes.
Applied theatre tells a story not for the purposes of entertainment but for social, economic, political or therapeutic reasons. Prof. Matthias Warstat, funded by the ERC, wants to know more about the growth and impact of this form of theatre across the world.
Dr Joaquim Alves Gaspar is a man of the sea. After many years in the Portuguese Navy, he gave up plans to become an admiral in favour of pursuing a PhD in the History of Cartography. This second career led him to receive an ERC Starting Grant, the first awarded in this budding discipline. With his highly multidisciplinary team (he likes to say that, to work with him, one must be a mathematician fluent in Latin), and the experience obtained as a navigator and navigational instructor, Dr Gaspar hopes to understand how and when the first nautical charts were created. The MEDEA-CHART team is the best place in Portugal, and probably in the world, to study the history of nautical cartography, hoping that this work will provide the domain with its rightful recognition within world history.
ERC grantee Renata Sõukand is exploring to what extent local ecological practices concerning the use of plants, among selected ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe, have declined due to the centralization imposed by dominant practices through the impacts on natural resources, health, economies and the well-being of local communities.
How does the past inform the lives of children and young people? A global team of EU-funded researchers is examining this issue by assessing how stories from classical antiquity impact on popular culture and society. The project’s results and outputs will provide valuable resources for scholars and teachers.
Can architects provide new types of evidence on war crimes and human rights violations? Dr Eyal Weizman believes they can. With the ERC backing, he developed a new field of research: forensic architecture. Dr Weizman and a multidisciplinary team of architects, software engineers, graphic designers and researchers provide architectural evidence and new perspectives on violent events and conflicts around the world.
Headscarves, mosques and halal shops — many EU citizens are Muslims, but visible signs of their faith are often viewed with distrust. What some Europeans see as a right to express their identity, others regard as a threat to societal core values. Insights from ERC-funded research into emblematic controversies may help to find a way forward.
