In the 2019 Kirker lecture, given in aid of Venice in Peril, Edmund de Waal considers the Venice Ghetto as a place which is simultaneously at the margins of the city whilst also being at the centre of world culture.
Edmund de Waal is an internationally acclaimed artist and writer, renowned for his family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010) which won many literary prices. He was made an OBE for his services to art in 2011. He lives and works in London.
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Presentation of the project documenting and restoring the Jewish catacomb in Venosa, Italy.
Click here to see the program.
Following its discovery and restoration, an elaborate 16th century Aron ha-Kodesh from Pisa, believed to be the oldest Ark in Tuscany, will be displayed as part of a program during which its history and the restoration process will be discussed.
The Duomo & The Great Synagogue: An Evening of Italian Culture
An evening of Jewish and Florentine architecture, culture, music, and food.
• Informal talks about the history and architecture of two of Florence, Italy’s grandest and most iconic structures — the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (the Duomo) and the Great Synagogue — by Ross King, author of the national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome, and noted scholar Professor Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
• Q&A session moderated by Gail Price, former Executive Director of The American Institute of Architects Santa Clara Valley Chapter.
•The San Jose Chamber players with Cantor Sharon Bernstein presenting both Jewish and Italian songs.
• Italian appetizers and ice cream.
A discussion sponsored by the American Academy in Rome: (AAR)
The first Conversations/Conversazioni of the calendar year will feature David Nirenberg (2021 Resident), the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought at the University of Chicago, where he is also dean of the Divinity School, and AAR Director Avinoam Shalem (2016 Resident).
“Ghetto” emerged as a word to describe a specific late-medieval phenomenon: the creation in Christian cities of segregated and walled neighborhoods in which Jews were required to live. Today its meanings are vaster, and it serves as a metaphor for many different types of containment and segregation. How did these urban spaces emerge? Why did they prove so useful as marginal spaces and a metaphor? And what work do the phenomenon and the metaphor do today?
This conversation, to be presented on Zoom, is free and open to the public. Please register in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
The start time of this lecture is 6:00pm Central European Time (12:00 noon Eastern Time). It is being recorded and will be edited and posted on the AAR website at a later date.
Les stèles funéraires de l’ancien cimetière juif de Venise. Art, histoire et poésie
A lecture in French by Sofia Locatelli about the carved imagery found in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Venice, 1386-1774.
Construit en 1386 sur un terrain stérile concédé aux juifs par la République de Venise au Lido, à l’Est de la ville, l’ancien cimetière juif San Nicolò précède de plus d’un siècle la clôture du ghetto. En raison de son emplacement favorable, face à la lagune, la nécropole fut parfois utilisée à des fins défensives et militaires. De nombreuses stèles funéraires furent perdues, détruites ou réutilisées, et d’autres déplacées sur un terrain situé plus au Sud, devenu officiellement le « nouveau cimetière » en 1774. Les tombes de l’ancienne nécropole sont des artefacts riches en histoire, en poésie et en art. Leur étude permet de restituer la vie et les événements des membres de la communauté, mais également de détecter des aspects significatifs de la culture littéraire et artistique de l’époque.
Les épitaphes, véritables poèmes en rimes et en rythme, et le complexe réseau iconographique et symbolique gravé sur les stèles, font de l’ancien cimetière du Lido une source de connaissance exceptionnelle sur l’art et la poésie juives dans l’Italie de l’époque moderne.
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