2019-2020: Boccaccio's Decameron
Boccaccio’s Decameron, probably conceived after the plague that devastated Florence in 1348, is a collection of 100 tales that, the author imagines, have been told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death. Dealing with as many and diverse topics such as love, friendship, fortune, sex, and religion, the Decameron stands out as an incomparably rich encyclopedia of the medieval world and a window onto the mentality of that age.
Because of the complexity of its narrative framework, the wide array of sources that it draws from, and the breadth of the themes encompassed, the Decameron is a key-text for the development of modern European literature, art, and culture. |
2018-2019: Machiavelli's Prince
In the academic year 2018–2019, MIL@P inaugurates its activity by proposing the reading of one of the most pioneering and influential works of history, Niccolò Machiavelli’s Prince (1513). In offering an unprecedented portrait of power, in which the more cunning and degenerate aspects of rulership are also taken into account, Machiavelli’s brief treatise stands out as a true foundational text of modern political thought. By departing from the previous tradition of political writings, Machiavelli describes politics as they actually are, rather than as they should be, thus paving the way to the modern notion of Realpolitik.
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