Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Giorgio Caravale (Università Roma Tre)
Prof. Gábor Klaniczay (Central European University)

Please submit the title of your paper, an abstract of up to 400 words, and a short CV by October 30 to:

Fabrizio Conti: faconti@johncabot.edu
Paolo Broggio: paolo.broggio@uniroma3.it
Andrea Vanni: andrea.vanni@uniroma3.it

Religious identity and religious dissent are traditional categories in historiographical debate,incorporating diverse dimensions, from the more properly historical-religious to the social,institutional, devotional, and ecclesiological, to name but a few. The present conference aims to discuss these categories with specific reference to Rome in the Renaissance - a relationship of key themes and issues that has not yet been specifically addressed.

Rome will be understood in a narrow sense, as a city and as a papal state, but also as both an irradiation and convergence center of ideals, models and relationships that transcend the urban dimension. The perspective adopted is geographically and ideally global. By Renaissance, we mean to embrace a long-term chronological span from the early fifteenthcentury to the early seventeenth century.

This conference invites a plurality of viewpoints and critical approaches to discuss how and why the conceptualization of religious identities and the fight against dissent took shape in Rome and, at the same time, how it was spread throughout the globe during a period ashistorically and culturally central as the Renaissance.

The topics addressed, centered on Rome in the Renaissance but open to a global perspectiveand comparison, may include, but are not limited to:

- The Roman Curia and religious orders
- Evangelization and “internal missions” as seen from Rome
- Roman inquisition, justice, and censorship
- Roman inquisition and witchcraft cases
- Jewish community and culture in Renaissance Rome
- Converts and minorities
- Mystics and saints in - and in relation to - Renaissance Rome
- Witches and witchcraft in – and in relation to – Renaissance Rome
- Religious identities and dissent in Roman iconography
- Heresy, heretics, reformers

Organizing committee:

Paolo Broggio (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
Fabrizio Conti (John Cabot University and Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
Serena Di Nepi (Sapienza Università di Roma)
Michael Driessen (John Cabot University)
Marina Montesano (Università degli Studi di Messina)
Manfredi Merluzzi (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
Michaela Valente (Sapienza University of Rome)
Andrea Vanni (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)