PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

The first edition of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso was printed in Ferrara in 1516. The radically innovative romance-epic quickly affirmed itself as a bestseller, and over the last five centuries it has exerted a profound influence on literary traditions and offered a rich source for the visual arts, theatre, and music. This symposium celebrates the quincentenary of the Furioso by gathering in Toronto a distinguished group of scholars to consider the poem’s fortunes from the perspective of reading. Approaching the question from a broad range of disciplines, the speakers will discuss the kinds of readers intended by Ariosto, the modes of reading envisaged by printers and editors as well as those enacted by critics, translators and writers, and the visual readings imagined by artists. The hope is that the exploration of the Furioso’s complex historical reception will contribute to an understanding of the evolving experience of reading in the digital age.

https://crrs.ca/event/symposium-orlando-furioso/

Convenor: Prof. Antonio Ricci, York University & York Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Speakers

Albert Russell Ascoli Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor, Department of Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Federica Caneparo Postdoctoral scholar, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago
Marco Dorigatti Lecturer in Italian, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.
Daniel Javitch Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, New York University; Society of Senior Scholars, Columbia University.
Stefano Jossa Reader in Italian, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Dennis Looney Director of Programs and ADFL, Modern Language Association; Professor of Italian, Department of French and Italian, University of Pittsburgh.
Randall McLeod Professor Emeritus, Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto Mississauga; Graduate Faculty, Department of English, University of Toronto.
Maria Pavlova Joanna Randall MacIver Junior Research Fellow, St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford.

We gratefully acknowledge the following for their generous support: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College in the University of Toronto; Comitato Nazionale per il V Centenario della pubblicazione dell’Orlando Furioso, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo; Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University; Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies; Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies, University of Toronto; Graduate Program in Humanities, York University; Department of History, York University; Collaborative Program in Book History and Print Culture, University of Toronto; Ethnonationalism, Transnationalism and Media Culture Project, York University; Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga.