American Academy in Rome - Alchemy of Extremes Conference

American Academy in Rome
Academy Events

CONFERENCE: The Alchemy of Extremes: The laboratory of the Heroici Furori of Giordano Bruno
Organized by Eugenio Canone and Ingrid D. Rowland

International conference: Rome, 9-10 May 2003
Lecture series: May and October 2004-2005

The American Academy in Rome is organizing a conference and a series of lectures on the dialogue De gl' heroici furori (London 1985), one of the most elusive and enigmatic texts, not only of Bruno's own oeuvre, but indeed of the whole Renaissance. For many reasons it ranks among the Nolan philosopher's most difficult works, both from a theoretical and a literary standpoint, but it is also significantly autobiographical. In the Heroici Furori Bruno ranges himself against various philosophical, theological, and poetic traditions from the perspective of an interior analysis of human creativity-as the symbolic image of heroic humanity-and of human aspirations, both spiritual and intellectual, to transcend mortality, recognizing that this partially unconscious desire "revolves around infinity" "because God is near us, is with us, is in us."

The international conference, which shall take place at the American Academy in Rome on May 9 and 10, 2003, shall be followed by a series of four lectures (each with the participation of two or three scholars), to be given in the months of May and October of 2004 and 2005.

Veronese, Fresco of Maser (Detail of a hunter)

During the conference the artist Roberta Pugno will show paintings from her exhibit Le Immagini del Refiuto: Giordano Bruno in the Lecture Hall and the Cryptoporticus.