La Trobe University
Medieval Italian Literature Lecture Series
Co.As.IT, 189 Faraday Street Carlton
6.00-7.00pm Mondays (22nd October – 12th November)

Lecture Series website

Presented by Dr Nicole Prunster, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at La Trobe University

22nd October

The turbulent world of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-52): Chivalry, love and the Church – Part One

What is typically medieval about the Decameron, a collection of 100 short stories that sits comfortably between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance? In this lecture, we will consider the structure of Boccaccio’s masterpiece and then identify several themes in it that are typical of the Middle Ages.

29th October

The turbulent world of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-52): Chivalry, love and the Church – Part Two

How does Boccaccio view love in the Decameron? How is the Church represented? In this lecture we will see why Boccaccio’s work ran afoul of the Church censors during the sixteenth century.

5th November

Comedy in sixteenth-century Italy: 1500-1550

Comedy early in sixteenth-century was heavily indebted to the Roman comedy of Plautus: and then there appears Niccolò Machiavelli’s formula-bending dark comedy, The Mandrake Root (1518). In this lecture we will look at the develop-ment of Renaissance comedy in Italy prior to the Counter-Reformation.

12th November

Comedy in sixteenth-century Italy: 1550-1600

In this lecture we will consider the effects that the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent had on learned Italian comedy. Time permitting, we will also look at a parallel form of popular comedy, the commedia dell’arte.

Participants are encouraged to read the texts being discussed prior to attending each lecture. Readings, however, are not essential to understanding the lectures.

Lectures cost $23/$27 each or $85/$95 for the full series. Lectures are held at Co.As.IT, 189 Faraday Street Carlton and are brought to you by La Trobe University.

Online bookings can be made through the website at: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/events/ancient-mediterranean-lecture-series. Payment can also be made at the venue on the night with cash (exact change only), credit card or cheque.

Speaker Biography: Nicole Prunster is a senior lecturer in Italian Studies at La Trobe University. She began her studies and teaching career at the University of Sydney before taking up a teaching position at the University of Toronto where she completed a PhD with a thesis on the theatre of the sixteenth-century Neapolitan dramatist Giambattista Della Porta. At La Trobe University she teaches language and culture, in particular medieval and Renaissance literature. She regularly accompanies students to Prato (near Florence) where she teaches a subject on Renaissance Italy.

Please contact the program coordinator Sarah Midford for more information about this lecture series.

Sarah Midford
Research Associate
School of Historical and European Studies
La Trobe University, Melbourne AUSTRALIA 3086

t: +61 (0) 3 9479 3466
f: +61 3 9479 1453
e: s.midford@latrobe.edu.au