Università Roma Tre

Word and image in the earliest centuries of Italian literature (13th-14th c.)
The course will be devoted to the relationship between texts, visual arts and images in the earliest two centuries of Italian literature (13th-14th c.). A consistent attention will be paid to some key points of this topic: the connection between mental, literary and real images in poetry; the inner dynamics of rhetorical devices such as ekphrasis and "evidentia"; the relationship between the transmission of texts, their exegesis and illustration; the wide context of literary and iconographic reception. The links between the so-called "Tre corone" Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio with the visual arts will be specifically analysed: the influence of iconographic sources on the invention of Dante's otherworld and the illustrative tradition of his "Comedy"; the relationship between Petrarch, Simone Martini and the development of portrait; the links between the frescoes of the Pisan Camposanto and the project of Boccaccio's "Decameron".

During the course, a dossier of texts and images will be provided and will be made available online on the teacher’s institutional webpage. Students must get a copy of Giovanni Boccaccio, "Decameron": some parts of these text will be read and discussed (I suggest the edition by A. Quondam, M. Fiorilla, G. Alfano, BUR-Rizzoli, 2013).
Moreover, students are expected to read:

- Lucia Battaglia Ricci, "Ragionare nel giardino. Boccaccio e i cicli pittorici del 'Trionfo della morte'", Roma: Salerno editrice, 2000 (seconda edizione)
- Lucia Battaglia Ricci, "Dante per immagini. Dalle miniature trecentesche ai giorni nostri", Torino: Einaudi, 2018, introduzione e capp. 1-2
- Lina Bolzoni, "La rete delle immagini. Predicazione in volgare dalle origini a Bernardino da Siena", Torino: Einaudi, 2002, introduzione e capp. I-III
- Marcello Ciccuto, "Petrarca e le arti: l’occhio della mente fra i segni del mondo", in «Quaderns d’Italià», 2006, 203–21 (disponibile online: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/QuadernsItalia/article/view/52993)
- Laura Pasquini, "Iconografie dantesche: dalla luce del mosaico all’immagine profetica", Ravenna: Longo, 2008
- Federica Pich, I poeti davanti al ritratto: da Petrarca a Marino, Lucca: Pacini Fazzi, 2010, pp. 7-64

NB: Students who will attend lectures are exempted from reading Ciccuto, "Petrarca e le arti", and Pich, "I poeti davanti al ritratto".