Enfilade

From the updated Call for Papers, which also includes Italian and French versions:

Piranesi @300
Rome, 27–30 January 2021
Proposals due by 31 July 2020 (extended from the original April deadline)

Organized by Mario Bevilacqua and Clare Hornsby

Concluding the year celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), this conference aims to reveal new aspects of his life and works, their contexts, and critical fortune, and we are seeking proposals for a comparison of interdisciplinary themes and innovative methodologies.

In the light of current uncertainties, we plan to host the conference both live in Rome and via online platforms to facilitate international participation.

Some ideas of themes that could be addressed:

Piranesi as Artist, Theorist, Entrepreneur, and Merchant
Many aspects of Piranesi’s life and work still remain in the shadows: we hope to discover new documentary data, new drawings, new interpretations, new networks.

Piranesi and History
The Mediterranean civilizations, the fall of the Empire, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Egypt, Etruria, Greece, Rome. From the fall of the Empire to the Renaissance. Piranesi and the texts of his books, the birth of archaeology, the philosophy of history in 18th-century Europe.

Piranesi: Europe, America, the World
Piranesi as ‘global’ artist. His lasting reputation—from Rome across 18th-century Europe—takes on different aspects in different European contexts: England, France, Germany, Russia—and in the more distant United States and Latin America, Australia and Japan, maintaining close yet changing relationships with art, literature, photography, and cinema.

Piranesi as Architect: Monument, City, Utopia
Though constantly designing, he was the architect of only one building, S. Maria del Priorato on the Aventine hill yet Piranesi always signed himself ‘architect’. His vision of Roman architecture and of the ancient metropolis states certainties and raises concerns about the dystopian future of the global city.

Piranesi in the Global 21st Century: New Methods for New Paths of Research
We can ask questions about Piranesi in the context of contemporary scenarios. His work continues to provoke reflection, inspire new projects and interpretations.

The languages of the conference are English, Italian, and French, and the event will be open to the public. We invite doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, established scholars to submit proposals for papers that contain new research or use new approaches. These will fall into two groups:
1) 15-minute presentations on one event, object, or discrete theme
2) 30-minute presentations on wider issues

Please send a 250-word CV and an abstract in English, French, or Italian of either 500 words (for a 15-minute talk) or 1000 words (for 30-minute talk); the abstract should make clear the new content of the contribution. Submissions should be sent to Piranesi300@gmail.com by July 31st 2020. We plan to offer accommodation in Rome to speakers at the conference though we are not able to assist with travel costs. We propose to publish a volume of the papers of the conference.

Supporting Institutions
Centro Studi Cultura e Immagine di Roma / Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Istituto Centrale per la Grafica
The British School at Rome
Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis

Conference Organisers
Mario Bevilacqua and Clare Hornsby

Scientific Committee
Francesca Alberti (Académie de France à Rome), Fabio Barry (Stanford University), Mario Bevilacqua (Università degli Studi di Firenze, CSCIR), Clare Hornsby (British School at Rome), Giorgio Marini (Ministero Beni Culturali), Heather Hyde Minor (Notre Dame Rome), Susanna Pasquali (Sapienza Università di Roma), Frank Salmon (Cambridge University), Giovanna Scaloni (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica).