Outcomes

Journal articles and contributions in edited volumes

Biasillo, Roberta, Maria Vittoria Comacchi, Lavinia Maddaluno. “Forme di mobilità nello spazio mediterraneo moderno e contemporaneo: nuove prospettive metodologiche.” In Forme di mobilità nello spazio mediterraneo tra XV e XX secolo, ed. Roberta Biasillo, Maria Vittoria Comacchi, Lavinia Maddaluno. Società e storia (forthcoming).

Comacchi, Maria Vittoria. “Esiste una filosofia ottomana? Una riflessione a partire da un recente dibattito storiografico.” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia LXXX , no. 1 (2025 – forthcoming): 76–83.

Comacchi, Maria Vittoria. “Arabic Geography and Sixteenth-Century Cartography: Guillaume Postel and the History of Abū al-Fidāʾ’s Manuscript.” In Travelling Matters across the Mediterranean: Rereading, Reshaping, Reusing Objects (10th-20th centuries), ed. Beatrice Falcucci, Emanuele Giusti, Davide Trentacoste, 103–132. Turhout: Brepols, 2024. DOI: 10.1484/M.HIMO-EB.5.138215

Comacchi, Maria Vittoria, and Guidi, Simone. “Subjects Beyond Themselves. Ecstasy and Vision in Western Thought.”  Lo Sguardo 33, no. 2 (2021 [2022]): 7-21. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6885394

Edited volumes

Biasillo, Roberta, Maria Vittoria Comacchi, Lavinia Maddaluno (eds.). “Forme di mobilità nello spazio mediterraneo tra XV e XX secolo”. Società e storia (forthcoming).

Comacchi, Maria Vittoria, Guidi, Simone, and Rodolfi Anna (eds.). “Estasi e visione. Variazioni su un tema dal medioevo al contemporaneo” [special issue]. Lo Sguardo 21, no. 2 (2021 [2022]: 1-470. ISSN: 2036-6558

Book reviews

Comacchi, Maria Vittoria, “Desarbres, Paul-Victor, Émilie Le Borgne, Frank Lestringant, and Tristan Vigliano, eds. Guillaume Postel (1510–1581). Écrits et influences.” Renaissance and Reformation. Renaissance and Réforme 45, no. 5 (2022): 258–260. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v45i4.41401

Invited presentations

“Guillaume Postel’s Depiction of the Turks”, workshop of the ERC “TextDiveGlobal”, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 15–18 May

“History and Geography: The Foundations of Guillaume Postel’s (1510-1581) Political Thought,” History of Political Ideas – Early Career Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, UCL, London, 10 October 2022

Presentations at conferences, workshops, and seminars

“Arabic Manuscripts and Latin Annotations in Early-Modern Europe: The Materiality of Knowledge Transfer”, conference Turning Page(s): New Horizons in Book and Library History, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 6 December 2024

“Daniel and the Turks: the Fortune of Isaac Abravanel’s Messianism in Guillaume Postel’s Venice”, conference Abravanel Latinus. An Untold Story. Jewish Texts, Christian Dissertationes, and other Hebraic Writings, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, 4-5 December 2024

“The Samaritans and the Turks: Ancient and World History in Guillaume Postel’s Works”, conference Across the Mediterranean: Connected Histories of Universal Wisdom and Antiquarianism (1400-1800), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy, 7 October 2024

“Roman Catholicism, Anti-Islamism, and Dissent: the Peculiar Case of Guillaume Postel (1510–1581)”, workshop Catholicism in Transit: Exploring Mobility in the Early Modern World, online, 20 September 2024

“Guillaume Postel’s (1510-1581) Stance Towards Anti-trinitarianism and Islam,” EMoDiR conference Confessional Ambiguities in the Face of Control: Antitrinitarianism in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800), Amsterdam, 16-17 June 2024

“Antiquarian and Historical Narratives from Europe to the Ottoman Empire,” roundtable paper, conference Renaissance Society of America 2024, Chicago, USA, 21–23 March 2024

“Universal Antiquarianism: a Common Political Trend in the Mediterranean,” conference Renaissance Society of America 2024, Chicago, USA, 21–23 March 2024

“From Persecutor to Persecuted? The Case of Guillaume Postel and the Sources of His Religio-Political Universalism,” EMoDiR workshop Rethinking Religious Otherness: Constructing Genealogy and Memories between Aggression and Resilience in the Early Modern Period, Frankfurt, 30 November-2 December 2023

“Universal Concord and Sixteenth-Century Cartography: Guillaume Postel, the Hapsburg and the Ottoman World,” conference Renaissance Society of America 2023, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 9-11 March 2023

“Reading beyond Manuscripts: A Dialectics between Guillaume Postel (1510-81) and the Islamic World,” conference The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference 2022, Minneapolis, 27-30 October 2022

“Arabic Geography and European Charts: Abraham Ortelius, Guillaume Postel,” workshop Travelling Matters: Rereading, Reshaping, Reusing Objects across the Mediterranean, co-organized by PIMo – People in Motion and the Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (HCMH), University of Haifa, 8 September 2022

“Guillaume Postel and the Reasons for Learning Arabic: a Universalistic Perspective,” conference Renaissance Society of America 2022, Dublin, 30 March-2 April 2022

Organized panels and roundtable

Roundtable Representing the “Other” in the Long Renaissance: Ottoman and European Perspectives, co-organized with David Reher, conference Renaissance Society of America 2024, Chicago, USA, 21–23 March 2024

2 panels Thematic Approaches to a Transregional Renaissance I and Thematic Approaches to a Transregional Renaissance II, co-organized with Matthew Hermane (Indiana University Bloomington), conference Renaissance Society of America 2024, Chicago, 21-23 March 2024

Panel Rethinking Humanism: The Role of Arabic and Islam in Latin and Vernacular Knowledge Production, conference Renaissance Society of America 2022, Dublin, 30 March-2 April 2022

Organized conferences and seminars

3.30–5.30 pm CET

Aula Valent, Malcanton Marcorà, Venezia and Zoom

Dario Tessicini (Università degli Studi di Genova), Ambivalence and Change: the Cosmographical Imagination from Apian to Kepler

Marco Sgarbi (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), The Epistemology of Discovery and Novelty: Confutation of Aristotelian Theories and the Emergence of New Conceptions of Truth and Experience

• January 30, 2025

3.30–5.30 pm CET

Aula Biral, Malcanton Marcorà, Venezia and Zoom

Edgar Omar Rodriguez Camarena (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), The Conceptualization of the New World. The Cosmographic Place of New Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Alberto Fabris (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Topographies of Free Living: Reflections on Urban Space in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories

Across the the Mediterranean

Conference Across the the Mediterranean:Connected Histories of Universal Wisdom and Antiquarianism (1400-1800), Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington and the Center for Renaissance and Modern Thought (CREMT), Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 7 October 2024

10 am–6.00 pm CET

Aula Biral, Malcanton Marcorà, Venezia and Zoom

• 10.00-10.15 am Opening remarks
• Panel 1: “Prisca Theologia: Its History, Sources, and Legacy”
  • 10.15-10.45 am
    Stéphane Toussaint (Centre André Chastel, CNRS – Paris Sorbonne Université), Eros e Prisca Theologia nel De amore di Marsilio Ficino
  • 10.45-11.15 am
    Guido Bartolucci (University of Bologna), Marsilio Ficino’s Prisca Theologia and His Jewish and Islamic Sources
  • 11.15-11.45 am
    Benjamin Leathley (University of Bologna – Universitat Pompeu Fabra), The Protestant Pope and the Dutch. How Duplessis-Mornay’s Prisca Theologia Transformed Antiquarian Scholarship and the Global Calvinist Mission
  • 11.45 am-12.30 pm Discussion
• Panel 2: “The Value of the Past in the Ottoman Empire”
  • 2.30-3.00 pm
    Fatma Sinem Eryılmaz (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Prophetic Wisdom, Kingly Power, Saintly Charisma: Mythologizing the Past and the Present for the Ottoman Dynasty
  • 3.00-3.30 pm
    Katherine Calvin (Kenyon College), Mining the Past: Mehmed II and the Face of Value in the Fifteenth Century
  • 3.30-4.00 pm Discussion
• Panel 3: “History and Antiquity from Istanbul to France”
  • 4.15-4.45 pm
    Maria Vittoria Comacchi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice – Indiana University Bloomington), The Samaritans and the Turks: Ancient and World History in Guillaume Postel’s Works
  • 4.45-5.15 pm
    Matteo Marcheschi (University of Pisa – LabEx Comod, Lyon) ‘Like a new kind of antiquarian’: Natural History and Human History in Eighteenth-Century France?
  • 5.15-5.45 pm Discussion
• 5.45-6.00 pm Final remarks

Decentering the Long Renaissance

Seminar Decentering the Long Renaissance. Knowledge and Cross-Cultural Transfers in the Early Modern Mediterranean at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage and CREMT – Center for Renaissance and Early Modern Thought, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia and Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington, April-June 2023:

• April 19

10.00-11.15 am EST | 4.00-5.15 pm CET 

Zoom

Federica Gigante (History of Science Museum, University of Oxford), Dealers, Agents and Middlemen. How Things Crossed the Mediterranean

• May 3

10.00-11.15 am EST | 4.00-5.15 pm CET 

Zoom

Valentina Pugliano (MIT), Unexpected Antiquarians: Venetian Diplomatic Doctors in Search of the Past in the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant

• May 17

10.00-11.15 am EST | 4.00-5.15 pm CET 

Zoom

Fatma Sinem Eryilmaz (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), TBA

• May 24

10.00-11.15 am EST | 4.00-5.15 pm CET 

Zoom

Duygu Yıldırım (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Comparing Faiths: The Making of Religious Dialogue between the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe

• June 5

9.00-11.00 am EST | 3.00-5.00 pm CET 

Aula Mazzariol, Malcanton Marcorà, Venezia and Zoom

Paola Molino (Università degli Studi di Padova), The Oriental Outpost of the Republic of Letters? The Catalogues of the Imperial Library of Vienna in the Seventeenth Century

Luisa Simonutti (ISPF-CNR, Milano), Islamic Influences on Seventeenth-Century European Philosophers

Link Zoom for all events:

ID meeting: 854 3457 7032

The event on June 5 is in dual mode, both on zoom and in person in Venice.

Attendance is free. All welcome.

Outreach events

Rinascimenti segreti. Arte, natura e magia nella prima modernità, organized in
in collaboration with Centro Studi Rinascimento Veneziano (RiVe), Center for Renaissance and Modern Thought, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage (CREMT), and Fucina Arti Performative of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Ateneo Veneto and Centro Culturale Cultural Flow Zone (CFZ), Le Zattere, December 2024–January 2025:

• 18 December 2025

Sala Tommaseo, Ateneo Veneto, Venice, Italy

Conversazione con Valentina Sapienza: Arte e mistica nella Venezia del Cinquecento. A interview of Valentina Sapienza (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) by Maria Vittoria Comacchi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice – Indiana University Bloomington)

• 9 January 025

Aula Tesa, Centro Culturale Cultural Flow Zone (CFZ), Le Zattere, Venice, Italy and on Zoom

Donato Verardi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), A Napoli dall’Oriente: menzonga, segreto e sortilegio. Dalla Magia naturale a Lo astrologo di G.B. della Porta

Discussant: Maria Vittoria Comacchi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice – Indiana University Bloomington)

“Expert voices: Maria Vittoria Comacchi,” YouTube interview released for MedNight EU, 8 October 2024: view the interview here!

“Pensare il mondo. Ieri e oggi,” kids’ lab, VenetoNight: La Notte della Ricerca, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy, 27 September 27: check the event here!

“Pensare il mondo. Intervista a Maria Vittoria Comacchi,” interview released at Radio Ca’ Foscari, 20 September 2024: listen the interview here!

December 18, 2024 – Sala Tommaseo, Ateneo Veneto, Venice, Italy
“Conversazione con Valentina Sapienza: Arte e mistica nella Venezia del Cinquecento”. A interview of Valentina Sapienza (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) by Maria Vittoria Comacchi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice – Indiana University Bloomington)
Programme 18/12/2024

Active attendance and member of the local organization committee of the 10th Marie Curie Alumni Association Annual Conference and General Assembly, Milano, 14-17 March 2024

“Being a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow in the US: Research and Career Perspective,” Scholar Symposium, organized by the Office of International Service, Indiana University Bloomington, during the International Education Week, 8 November 2023: check the event here!

Interview in Italian “Le idee degli altri” released for the SumoScience Marie Curie Championship 2022/2023 for Italian high-school students organized by Psiquadro Impresa Sociale and Sharper – Notte Europea dei Ricercatori, Perugia and online, February-September 2023: read it here!

SumoScience Marie Curie Championship 2022/2023, presentation of my research during the events for high schools in Italy organized by Psiquadro Impresa Sociale and Sharper – Notte Europea dei Ricercatori, Perugia and online, February-September 2023: check the programme here!

• Round stage “Neurology vs History of Ideas,” 13 Februay 2023
• Quarter-final “Entomology vs History of Ideas,” 23 March 2023
• Semi-final “History of Ideas vs Archeology,” 27 September 2023 during the 2023 European Researchers’ Night Week
• Final “Astrophysics vs History of Ideas,” 27 September 2023 during the 2023 European Researchers’ Night Week

“Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action Postdoc Fellowship Info Session,” Purdue Post-Doc Association (PPDA) 2023 Professional Development. The event was an informative session organized by the Purdue Post Doc Association of Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN and online, 27 April 2023