Prophecy, Public Sphere and Emotions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Tuscany: From Dante to Savonarola

ended

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, prophetic discourse was one of the most incisive means for proposing or opposing alternative models of political and religious order. A large number of short prophecies circulated at that time throughout the continent, which have never received a thorough analysis. Because of the outstanding quality and variety of the documentation, Florence and Tuscany offer a perfect starting point. PROPEL will be the first systematic investigation of the circulation of prophetic texts (direct or reported), from all over Europe, in the Tuscan cities, bearing in mind two key figures as chronological limits: Dante Alighieri (d. 1321) and Girolamo Savonarola (d. 1498). The aim of the project is to analyze the entire corpus of prophecies (in Latin or in vernacular, in prose or in verse), which is transmitted by a great variety of manuscripts (flyleaves, fliers, miscellanies) or included in larger texts (chronicles, sermons, encyclopedic works). This philological challenge will be the premise for a new and comprehensive interpretation of prophetic discourse as having a performative nature. In this perspective, the public sphere can be considered the lively theater in which civic identity was at the same time represented and created by prophecies: that is to say, texts which put into play not only ideas, but also strong emotions such as love and hate, hope and fear. The project proposes an unprecedented dialogue between material philology, media studies and history of emotions. This interdisciplinary perspective will change the way in which late medieval and Renaissance prophecy is perceived in available scholarship. Moreover, by reflecting on the ways one-sided information shapes collective identities and future-oriented emotions influence the public sphere, PROPEL will develop a dialogue with journalists and politicians in order to deconstruct and dismantle the intensifying rhetoric of religious extremism, xenophobic nationalism and media violence.