In Herculaneum, ten show lectures between ancient and modern on appetites, from food to sex

Over the course of a month, from September 9 to October 16, 2021, thanks to a project strongly desired by the director of the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum, Francesco Sirano, who entrusted Gennaro Carillo with its curation, a series of meetings will be held that will bring protagonists of Italian culture and entertainment to Herculaneum. The Idles of Hercules. Matter and bodies between ancient and modern, this is the title of the initiative made possible thanks also to the contribution of the Campania Region, will have as its main theme material culture, investigated in its anthropological, historical and philosophical aspects and above all as a constituent element of the Western imagination. The theme of matter and the body will offer the cue for a broader reflection on the question of desire and appetites, in a constant back-and-forth between ancient and modern and a peculiar attention reserved foreros.

It begins on Thursday, Sept. 9, with antiquist Laura Pepe, who will talk about the way the ancients ate and in particular about representations of food, particularly that of Petronius in the Satyricon. There will also be a staged reading by Anna Bonaiuto, among the most refined and cultured performers on the current scene.

It continues on Saturday, Sept. 11, with a journey between anthropology and archaeology of the Mediterranean diet, led by two specialists Marino Niola and Elisabetta Moro.

On Saturday 18 there will be an exceptional duo: Francesco Sirano, archaeologist and director of the Park, will converse with a surgeon and medical historian, Gennaro Rispoli, on the most material and bodily of topics, droppings, of which Herculaneum holds a formidably valuable testimony. After an encore by Laura Pepe, who together with Valentina Carnelutti will discuss the themes of eros, customs and sexual impropriety between Herculaneum and Pompeii, we will continue with the musicologist Giovanni Bietti, who will hold a lecture-concert at Villa Campolieto on the barbaric appetite of Mozart/Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni, a modern myth par excellence and a concentrate of immoderate desires, from sexual to alimentary.

Then there will be the lecture, also unprecedented, that Corrado Bologna will devote to Sancho’s sausages and the theme of food in Cervantes’ “Quixotee.”

In Herculaneum, the city of the Villa of the Papyri, cradle of the Epicurean tradition, a lecture on Lucretius could not be missed. It will be delivered by Ivano Dionigi, whose counterpoint will be the acting voice of Massimo Popolizio. Desire and pleasure, crucial themes of both ancient and modern thought, will be covered in a lecture by Ilaria Gaspari. It continues with a lecture-performance on the theme of doors, a metaphor for the passage beyond and the perception of other worlds: on stage the well-known voice of Radio 3 with Edoardo Camurri. Grand finale on Oct. 16, with a meeting that right from its title, Criticism of Cook’s Reason, proposes to question the rhetorical excess that accompanies food and its representations: Edoardo Camurri and Marino Niola will dialogue with Alfonso Iaccarino.

The meetings will unfold at the Herculaneum Archaeological Park, Maiuri Park and Villa Campolieto.

Free admission subject to availability with reservations.

For info: www.gliozidiercole.it

In Herculaneum, ten show lectures between ancient and modern on appetites, from food to sex

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.