“From Earthly Pleasures to Princely Glories in the Medieval and Renaissance Worlds” was the title of the conference that last May 17th and 18th gathered scholars and history lovers at UCLA and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles.
At the center of the two-day event was Niccolò Machiavelli’s opera ‘The Prince’, which this year celebrated its 500th anniversary. Testimony of the luxury lifestyle in Renaissance royal courts, ‘The Prince’ was the starting point for an analysis and discussion on the aesthetics, culture and everyday life of that time.
The conference was organized by Fondazione per l’Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, the Australian Institute of Art History of the University of Melbourne and by UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Several personalities of the academic and institutional world participated: Massimo Ciavolella, CMRS Director at UCLA, Remo Bodei from the University of Pisa, Giuseppe Mazzotta and Paul Freedman of Yale University, Aldo Schiavone of SUM Foundation and Mari-Tere Alvarez of the Getty Museum, as well as Consul General of Italy Giuseppe Perrone.
Paul Freedman took participants into a journey to let them discover “ambergris”, or grey amber, a substance produced by whales and used for several purposes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: some used it as a spice, some as a medication, some others for religious rituals. Is it still used in contemporary age? Of course, but mostly to make fragrances. Like the ambergris -as shown during the conference- many other elements, object and habits connect our past to the present, even if their use has often changed in time, adapting to the new society and the new needs.
The event at UCLA was followed by a complementary event at the IIC, during which the Italian Cultural Institute was also awarded by Cinema Without Borders.
As director Di Mauro said, “the purpose is to make you discover more about the Middle Ages and Renaissance”. From here, the screening of ‘Clipse’, a film set in the Sixteenth century, in which luxury, food and wine seem to have no limits.
The film was followed by a video installation by Alessandro Marianantoni and a live performance of Ayesha Orange; a four-minute only show full of special effects that transformed the Prince in an Anti Hero: as a human being, he can make mistakes and fail.
When art, culture, food and history meet, the result is usually great.
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