Università Roma Tre

Course title 2022-2023
The Garden of Eden, earthly paradise and/or heavenly paradise.
Semester: I, 6 CFU
In the Genesis 2: 8-16 account, the Lord creates a garden in Eden, where every fruit tree flourishes and where both the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are found. We all know how the story later ended, how Adam and Eve were banished from this earthly paradise for disobeying the divine command and eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eden, however, continued to remain firmly rooted in the late antique and medieval imagination as a place of delights, located sometimes in a remote and inaccessible location on earth, sometimes in the heavens, either clearly distinct from the heavenly paradise or instead confused with the latter, depending on the different conceptions of the authors who spoke about it. The course, through the analysis of a variety of sources (educational trips are also planned) and the presentation of some significant historiographical approaches to the theme, seeks to explore the rich symbolism of the Garden of Eden elaborated in the ancient and early medieval Christian world and its reflection in monastic spirituality, as well as in Christian iconography and in the architecture of sacred spaces.

Attending students
Bibliographic material will be indicated and provided during the course.