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2013 Easter Term Seminars

Thursday 2nd May at 5.30pm at Trinity College, Room A2, Nevile's Court
DEMMY VERBEKE (KU Leuven), 'Latin orations at the University of Leuven'

Shortly after the foundation of the University of Leuven in 1425, the academic authorities established a chair of eloquence within the Arts Faculty. The appointed professor received the title of rhetor academicus and was expected to train students through the use of declamatory exercises. This piece of information is only one indication of the fact that rhetoric thrived in Leuven during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, as is further exemplified by the numerous Latin orations still extant (which were delivered at the opening of the academic year, the start of a new course, doctoral promotions, or some other public event). This paper presents the institutional context for this rhetorical output and the various genres of Latin orations found in Leuven, before discussing a number of examples, written by Maarten van Dorp (1485-1525), Juan Luis Vives (1492/3-1540) and Petrus Nannius (1500-1557), in more detail.

Thursday 23rd May. **Old Library, Sidney Sussex College** Click here for a map to this venue.
FRANCESCO LUCIOLI (Cambridge), 'An unknown epigram on the statue of the Sleeping Cupid'

One of the Vatican manuscripts written by the humanist Angelo Colocci contains a Latin epigram attributed to Gregorio Cortese, one of the most important cultural personalities in Renaissance Italy. In this unknown and still unpublished text Cortese describes a statue representing a Sleeping Cupid. Is this the well (un)known Michelangelo's lost Sleeping Cupid, which Cesare Borgia gave to Isabella d'Este at the end of the XV century? Or is it rather the ancient statue attributed to Praxiteles, which Isabella bought in that period for her Grotta? Many poets have written about these two statues - humanists such as Paride Ceresara, Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli, Baldassar Castiglione and Battista Mantovano; this epigram belongs to this long series of Latin and Vernacular texts, but at the same time it offers the chance to read such an important episode of the Renaissance art history from an unusual point of view.