41615 - History of Christian Late Antiquity

Academic Year 2024/2025

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Ravenna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in History, preservation and enhancement of artistic and archaeological heritage and landscape (cod. 9218)

Learning outcomes

The course provides an updated overview of the major issues of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (IV-X Centuries) with regard to the impact of Christianity on the social, cultural, urban and monumental structures of the cities and provinces of the Roman Empire. It also analyses the processes of settlement and integration of barbarian cultures up to the Ottonian age. By the end of the course students will possess some of the major critical and bibliographical tools for critical assessment and interpretation of the archaeological and artistic cultural heritage of Europe. Special attention will be paid to the crucial role of patronage and literary-documentary production and transmission played by religious institutions from the fourth century onwards.

Course contents

The subject matter of the course is: Dance, liturgy and penance in late antique Christianity

Certain crucial aspects that characterized Late Antiquity in relation to the advent and progressive spread of Christianity will be examined through reading and commenting on literary, legal, iconographic, epigraphic and manuscript sources. Particular focus will be placed on the anthropology of gesture, which will be related to liturgy as well as projections of sin, disease and heresy.

During Late Antiquity there was a redefinition and resemantization of multiple forms of self-representation, especially through patristic literature, the role of bishops, and the practice of councils, together with the progressive Christianization of Roman law. This had considerable influence in subsequent periods. Among the aspects involved in these mechanisms are: the relationship that the religious sphere established with images and, more generally, the performative realm (for example, the performances and ceremonies of imperial power); the management of sin and penance; progressive attempts to determine liturgical forms, also in relation to mutual influences with religious and political elements pre-dating Christianity; and the gradual organisation of books in libraries and scriptoria annexed to cathedrals and monasteries.

These aspects will be examined using concrete examples. For example, the analysis of a penitential rule on dancing will be related first of all to the lexicon, but also to the inherent complexity of the manuscript tradition of the norm in question, as well as patristic sources on performing and relevant iconographic and archaeological sources (choreutic images, ruins of theatres, funerary and celebratory monuments). The course will highlight key terms to shed light on historical-cultural issues related to the regulation of gesture, liturgy, and penance, using databases available through the university such as the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae and the Library of Latin Texts, as well as the website of the Laboratorio sulle fonti per la ricerca storica. There will also be practical exercises in which students will be expected to play an active role.

At the end of the course, students will have acquired indispensable tools for discussing and contextualizing some of the most important elements of the cultural heritage and Christian religious imaginary of Late Antiquity.

Readings/Bibliography

Attending students are required to study the following titles:

E. Wipszycka, Storia della Chiesa nella tarda antichità, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2000

D. Tronca, Christiana choreia. Danza e cristianesimo tra Antichità e Medioevo, Roma, Viella, 2022

Further texts, sources, and images will be posted on the course page on Virtuale.

In addition, attending students can choose to write a paper for the exam on a subject agreed in advance with the lecturer. This must be sent at least ten days before the date of the oral exam.

Non-attending students are required to contact the lecturer to agree on a programme of study.

Teaching methods

The traditional lecture format will be supported by texts and images, which will be shown and made available online to students on the Virtual Learning Environment of the University website.

Students who are affected by learning disability (DSA) and in need of special strategies to compensate it, are kindly requested to contact the Teacher, in order to be referred to the colleagues in charge and get proper advice and instructions.

Assessment methods

The oral examination will be held at the end of the course, and it will assess:

- basic knowledge relating to the course program (the assessment is carried out on the basis of the materials examined in class and the texts indicated in the program);

- the ability to understand the problems faced during the lectures;

- knowledge of the discipline in its historical development;

- the ability to frame the sources examined in class in their context, and to discuss them critically;

- the quality of oral expression and the ability to construct a logical-argumentative type of speech.

The final evaluation will follow these criteria:

- insufficient grade: lack of basic knowledge and inability to produce a correct interpretation of the texts and / or problems;

- sufficient grade: possession of basic knowledge; mainly correct interpretation, but carried out with imprecision and little autonomy;

- good grade: possession of intermediate level knowledge; fully correct interpretation, but not always precise and autonomous;

- excellent grade: possession of high level knowledge; interpretation of problems not only correct but conducted with autonomy and precision. Excellent oral expression skills.

Teaching tools

The main teaching support tools, which will be illustrated in class and on the Virtual course page, are available at the Campus Central Library (Palazzo Corradini) and at the website AlmaRe - the Library of Bibliographic and Documentary Electronic Resources of the University of Bologna.

Office hours

See the website of Donatella Tronca

SDGs

Quality education Gender equality Reduced inequalities

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.