90427 - Musical Heritage of the Ancient World

Learning outcomes

The course regards one of the most significant aspects of the wide cultural heritage inherited from antiquity: music. After completing the course students are able to contextualize the documents which transmitted the ideas and representations of the music of antiquity, to recognize the processes of transmission and modalities of reception from the Middle Ages to today. Students will also be able to manage a bibliography for a research project.

Course contents

First part

The general contents of the course will cover: the concept of sound event, the concept of musical knowledge, the musical heritage of the ancient world and its traces, in particular how this heritage was transmitted to the listeners and reading public of the Medieval and Modern Ages, the methodologies of research and textual analysis and the main bibliographical tools.

Second part

In the specific part, the theme of the role of music in the framework of the forms of knowledge specific to the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean will be addressed, with particular reference to two forms of knowledge: on the one hand, myth and, on the other, natural science.

In the first case, texts from Greek and Latin literature will be read and commented on: from Homer to Apuleius; in the second case, we will focus on the role of music in Pliny the Elder's Historia naturalis. There will also be a discussion of the reception of this theme in the writings of naturalists up to the 16th century.

In addition, the attending students will be guided in an individual exercise, aimed at getting them to recognise and explore aspects of the transmission of a text, whether manuscript or printed, as a witness to the musical heritage of the ancient world. This year, in particular, we will tackle a research path on the images of music published in the 16th century Italian editions of the Latin and Greek classics, present in the 'Edit 16' corpus.

This in-depth study will constitute the exercise with which to begin the oral examination for students who have attended the lectures.

Non-attending students may supplement their preparation by studying the articles by C. Panti, D. Restani, D. Castaldo, in Rediscovering Ancient Music: the Cultural Heritage of Mousike, in A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, ed. by T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, Blackwell-Wiley 2020, pp. 447-488, and the following audiovisual material:

Echi di Vincenzo Galilei

1585, Edipo re al Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza

 

Readings/Bibliography

First part

F. A. Gallo, Introduzione, in: Musica e Storia dal Medio Evo all'Età moderna, Bologna, il Mulino, 1985, pp. 9-29.

E. Rocconi, L’eredità greca e latina, in Il contributo italiano alla Storia del pensiero, Musica, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2018, pp. 7-13.

D. Restani, L'eredità musicale del Mondo antico, in Musica e società, I, a cura di Paolo Fabbri e Maria Chiara Bertieri, Lucca, LIM, 2019, pp. 229-297.

Second part

M. Raffa, Il tessuto delle Muse, Roma, Shibboleth, 2020.

D. Restani (a cura di), Musica e mito, Bologna, il Mulino, 1995.

For the individual research (only attending students):

D. Restani, Ricerche sulle immagini musicali nelle prime edizioni del Commento al Sogno di Scipione di Macrobio, in Polidoro. Studi offerti ad Antonio Carile, a cura di G. Vespignani, Fondazione «Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo», Spoleto, 2013, pp. 919-928 e tavv. I-IV.

At the end of the course, all the bibliography will be available on the Virtuale platform, where the specific exam preparation methods are also available, for both attending and non-attending students.

Attending students will receive specific reading indications during lessons and can be tutored in an individual research project.

Non-attending students, who are not required to do the individual research project, will read the bibliography indicated above, to which they will add the articles by C. Panti, D. Restani, D. Castaldo, Rediscovering Ancient Music: the Cultural Heritage of Mousike, in A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, ed. by T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, Blackwell-Wiley 2020, pp. 447-488; and the following audiovisual materials:

Echi di Vincenzo Galilei

1585, Edipo re al Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza

  

 

 

Teaching methods

Teaching can be personalized and attending students will be able to practice an individual exercise that will allow them to combine "knowledge" with " know-how". In particular, if the situation permits, at least one historical library will be visited, such as the Classense library (Ravenna), the Archiginnasio library (Bologna) or the Malatestiana library (Cesena), where access will be gained to some of the texts in the ancient collections.

To take up the challenge of Education for Sustainable Development (ESS), methods that stimulate skills through active learning will be favored. Therefore, the student will be put in contact with different research strategies which imply interdisciplinary knowledge.

Students who, for reasons dependent on disabilities or specific learning disorders (DSA), need compensatory tools may inform the teacher of their needs so that they can be referred to the contact persons and agree on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

Service for students with disabilities and SLD

Assessment methods

The exam consists in an interview to assess the student’s critical and methodological skills. Both "First part" and the "Second part" will be considered during the exam.

Attending students will carry out an individual exercise, including the relevant bibliography, to be presented at the beginning of the examination. The content of the textual research project will be individual and agreed with the professor. It will concern a theme to be analysed in the light of the methodological indications provided during the lessons. 

Non-attending students will be tested on the full bibliography  indicated in the programme and will add one more reading from the appropriate list.

Foreign students which will not attend to the lessons will be required to keep in contact with the Professor by email, phone call, office appointment, etc., to chose the examination texts one month before the exams at least.

The assessment will be based on: knowledge of the subject matter; concept analysis and synthesis; clarity of expression, proper terminology. Particular emphasis will be given to the students ability to manage sources and bibliography in order to obtain the necessary information and to illustrate topics and issues finding connections between them.

Students who show proficiency in knowledge and critical perspective, as well as proficiency in expression and technical vocabulary will be granted the highest marks.

Students who show they have studied, but in a mnemonic way, and are able of synthesis and analysis expressed adequately, will be granted of medium marks.

Students who show basic knowledge, but inadequate vocabulary, will have a pass.

Students who show insufficient knowledge, inadequate vocabulary and don't know appropriately the bibliography, will not pass the exam.

 

Teaching tools

Audiovisuals, pc, films and stereo.

Students who, for reasons dependent on disabilities or specific learning disorders (DSA), need compensatory tools may inform the teacher of their needs so that they can be referred to the contact persons and agree on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

Service for students with disabilities and SLD 

Students can take 2 more CFU attending the DIDACTIC LABORATORY “MUSICAL EXPERIENCES IN TRAVELOGUES”.

Responsible: prof. Donatella Restani, in collaboration with Dott.ssa Alessia Zangrando (PhD 37th cycle).

learning outcomes: The didactic laboratory “Musical Experiences in Travelogues” proposes to look at travel literature as a source for the study of music between ancient and modern times in order to gather new data for the study of communities that have no written musical tradition and are considered “distant” in a geographical, chronological or cultural sense; or without a written musical tradition. The aim is to valorise the material and immaterial aspects of these types of sources.

Content:  reflection on the need to look at a still little-known musical heritage with an interdisciplinary approach through the analysis of manuscripts, iconographic representations and musical notation. Students will also be encouraged to consider the problems related to the musical terminology used in the travelogues and the classification of the reported sound experiences. Finally, an Excel file will be populated with the collected data, which will feed into a relational database.

Max number of students: 15, including 7 for the LM-5.

 

Running period: April 9th, 15th, 22nd, May 20th, 2024.

Timetable: 2-4pm

Laboratory teaching: there will be 4 meetings (one per month) of 2 hours each

CFU: 2

How to access: send an email to donatella.restani@unibo.it and in cc to alessia.zangrando2@unibo.it  

Venue: Possible online and in presence teaching.

Essential Bibliography:

S. Emerit, S. Perrot, A. Vincent, Le paysage sonore de l’Antiquité. Méthodologie, historiographie et perspectives, Actes de la journée d’études tenue à l’Ecole française de Rome, le 7 janvier 2013, Châtillon, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2015.

F. A. Gallo, Introduzione, in: Musica e Storia dal Medio Evo all'Età moderna, Bologna, il Mulino, 1985, pp. 9-29.

Moreover, students can take 2 more CFU attending the DIDACTIC LABORATORY OF MUSIC ARCHAEOLOGY (MusicArcheoLab).

Responsible: prof. Donatella Restani, in collaboration with prof. Daniela Castaldo (Università del Salento), PhD Paolo Bonora, PhD Giovanna Casali, PhD candidate Alessia Zangrando (University of Bologna).

Content: The didactic project of the MusicArcheoLab proposes the realisation of scientific projects, of an educational nature, for the valorisation and fruition of musical heritage of ancient times, mainly preserved in museums of various types: archaeological, of musical instruments or generalist.

Programme: This year's activities will concern the implementation of the database "Repertorium Instrumentorum Musicorum Antiquorum (RIMAnt) / Repertoire of ancient musical instruments", on the Heurist platform, "a free, open-source database platform", set up at the CNRS in Strarsbourg, through the RIMAnt card.

The annual objectives of the Laboratory will be:

- a reflection on the need to take into account a hitherto unrecognised musical heritage for musicology and archaeology, but also for other cultural heritage studies;

- a reflection on the problems related to the terminology of instruments and their classification;

- a reflection on the fields of the RIMAnt card for instrument cataloguing;

- the knowledge of Zotero and (eventual) cleaning of the collected thematic bibliography;

- the use of the Heurist-based catalogue, data entry and functional verification;

- the data entry into database and functional verification.

Max number of students: 10, including 5 for the LM-5.

Running period:31 January, 7 and 14 February, 13 March 2024, 2 to 4 p.m.

Laboratory teaching: there will be at least 3 meetings (one per month) of 2 hours each and a final seminar, for a total of 8/10 hours.

How to access: send an email to: donatella.restani@unibo.it

Venue:in presence and online teaching.

Essential Bibliography:

E. Rocconi (a cura di), I suoni perduti. Musica ed eventi sonori in Grecia e a Roma, Milano, 2013.

D. Castaldo, Introduzione all'archeologia musicale, "Il Saggiatore musicale", 22, 2015, pp. 97-109.

E. Hickmann,s.v.«Archaeomusicology», in Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, I, 2001, pp. 848-854.

D. Restani,La musica del mondo antico, «La Nuova Secondaria», 9, 2018, pp. 71-73.

Links to further information

https://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/

Office hours

See the website of Donatella Restani