Italian Research Seminar with Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University)

A small, hand-painted medieval manuscript scene on yellowed parchment. Two human figures stand facing each other beneath a band of black calligraphic text with a large, decorative blue-and-red letter. On the left, a person in a long brown robe and head covering holds a tall staff or pole angled upward, with one hand gesturing outward. On the right, a person in a dark robe and head covering stands barefoot with both arms lifted, as if speaking or celebrating. The drawing is outlined in dark ink with muted brown, green, and gray tones, and the background is plain, showing faint lines and age marks in the parchment.

The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to host a lecture by Professor Francesco Ciabattoni of Georgetown University, titled:

Dante's Performative Poetics

The lecture focuses on how Dante Commedia's represents medieval theatricality such as dramatic dialogue, liturgical drama, music, and dance. The Inferno is constructed as a highly dialogic and theatrical space, where elements of sacred drama, Easter ritual, and carnivalesque culture combine to produce a dynamic and performative representation of punishment. The Purgatorio can be read as a poetic transposition of liturgical drama: processions, laude, dialogic conflicts, and scenes recalling the Visitatio sepulchri shape the purgatorial experience as a ritual spectacle of spiritual transformation. The Paradiso is interpreted as a vast cosmic theatre in which song, polyphony, and circular movements translate the ineffable into performative terms, culminating in the vision of the Empyrean as a celestial amphitheatre. Prof. Ciabattoni reads the Commedia as a poem deeply rooted in medieval performative culture, capable of making theological and metaphysical contents visible, audible, and experientially “lived” through the arts of performance.

Francesco Ciabattoni is the Term Professor in Italian Literature in Georgetown College, and a specialist in medieval Italian literature. He received his Laurea in Lettere from the Università degli Studi di Torino and his PhD in Italian Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Dr Ciabattoni’s research focus lies on Dante and the middle ages, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the interplay of music and literature. Prof. Ciabattoni has published three monographs:

Ciabattoni, Francesco. Dante’s Performance Music, Dance, and Drama in the “Commedia”. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024.
Ciabattoni, Francesco. La citazione è sintomo d'amore. Cantautori e memoria letteraria. Rome: Carocci, 2016.
Ciabattoni, Francesco. Dante’s Journey to Polyphony, University of Toronto Press, 2010. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

In addition to several edited volumes such as:

The Decameron Third Day in Perspective: Volume Three of the Lectura Boccaccii. Edited by Francesco Ciabattoni & Pier Massimo Forni: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
L'Editio Princeps della Commedia (Foligno 1472). Edited by Francesco Ciabattoni & Alessandro Scarsella, Milan: Biblion, 2022.
Crocevia. Percorsi dell'Intermedialità. Edited by Francesco Ciabattoni, Fulvio Orsitto, and Simona Wright, LED, 2022.
Dante Alive: Essays on a Cultural Icon. Edited by Francesco Ciabattoni & Simone Marchesi, Routledge, 2022.

Prof. Ciabattoni has also published a collection of original poems (Paradosso terrestre, Il filo, 2008) as well as individual poems in such journals as Gradiva, In forma di parole, Breviario poetico, and Poesia. Prof. Ciabattoni is also the founder and director of https://theitaliansong.com/, the first bilingual website about Italian songwriters, with critical commentaries and translations.

Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.