Truly, madly, deeply: love in the Renaissance   

Tuesday 27th May 2025 at 18:00

Amore! From the invention of the love sonnet by a Sicilian notary in the 13th century, through Dante’s devotion to Beatrice to Michelangelo’s longing for the young nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, love was in the air during the Italian Renaissance. During this period, erotic love was at the center not only of poetry and art, but also of philosophical thought, as expressed in handbooks on love written by philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino. In addition to literary treatments of the topic, we will examine real life accounts in letters and memoirs, as well as legal cases involving matrimonial disputes, in which everyday women and men express their feelings toward one another and reveal contemporary attitudes on love.