A consistent part of Neapolitan culture as we know it was shaped by the city’s peculiar relationship with natural disasters, which have affected the lives of Neapolitans for millennia. Regularly re-shaped in its architectural substance following earthquakes, the city which lives under the persistent threaten of Vesuvius has elected this volcano to one of its most distinguished symbols. Elisabetta Scirocco, researcher at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, will explain how the legacy of such events has profoundly influenced the cultural identity of Naples up to today.
Elisabetta Scirocco is a permanent researcher and Wissenschaftliche Assistentin (Department Prof. Dr. Tanja Michalsky) at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome. After studying Italian Philology and Art History at the University of Naples Federico II (M.A. 2004, PhD 2010), she has joined interdisciplinary research groups in Berlin (Humboldt University, Max Planck Institute for Human Development) and Naples (ERC-Project FP7/2007-2013 HistAntArtSI). Elisabetta has been part of the scientific staff of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (2010-2015), where she co-directs with Carmen Belmonte and Gerhard Wolf the transdisciplinary research project Storia dell’arte e catastrofi (2014-present).
She is among the founders of the journal Convivium. Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean (distributed by Brepols Publishers), and the editor of several art historical publications. Her research and publications focus on medieval and early modern sacred spaces, and on the role of natural disasters in (re)shaping the cultural heritage.
Image: William Kentridge, Central Railway for the city of Naples, 1906 (Naples Procession), 2012 (detail), Naples, MetroArt Station Toledo (© Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome / Luciano e Marco Pedicini, Naples).
In Italian.
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