This conference took place from June 10 to 13, 2014, and was organized by Igor Candido (Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung 2013/14) in cooperation with the Italienzentrum and the Dahlem Humanities Center of Freie Universität Berlin.

Program
June 10, 2014
17.30	Guided Tour through the Italian Embassy and Greeting of The Ambassador
June 11, 2014
10.00-10.30	Welcome Greetings and Introductory Remarks Joachim Küpper – Dahlem Humanities Center, Freie Universität Berlin H.E. Elio Menzione, The Italian Ambassador in Berlin Bernhard Huß – Italienzentrum, Freie Universität Berlin Igor Candido – Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
Panel I: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio
10.30-11.15	Manuele Gragnolati (University of Oxford); Francesca Southerden (Wellesley College) From Paradox to Exclusivity: Dante’s and Petrarch’s Lyrical Eschatologies
11.15-12.00	Gerhard Regn (LMU München) The incipit of the Decameron: Boccaccio, Dante and the Epistemic Index of Storytelling
12.00-12.45	Igor Candido (Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) Dante’s Theological Judgment and Boccaccio’s Suspension of Assent
Panel II: Petrarch
14.30-15.15	H. Wayne Storey (Indiana University) The Formation of Knowledge and Petrarch's Books
15.15-16.00	Karl A. E. Enenkel (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster) Sacra solitudo. The Construction of the Sacred Space in Petrarch's De vita solitaria
16.15-17.00	Christopher S. Celenza (American Academy in Rome and Johns Hopkins University) Petrarch and the History of Philosophy
17.00-17.45	Ronald Witt (Duke University) Petrarch and the Creation of the Christian Humanism
17.45-18.15	Final Discussion
June 12, 2014
Panel III: Boccaccio
10.00-10.45	Andreas Kablitz (Universität zu Köln) Boccaccio’s Poetics. Remarks on the Proemio of the Decameron
10.45-11.30	Francesco Ciabattoni (Georgetown University) Boccaccio’s Novel Hecuba: Beritola in the Light of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
11.45-12.30	Marco Petoletti (Università Cattolica di Milano) Boccaccio, i classici e il Medioevo latino
12.30-13.15	Paolo Cherchi (University of Chicago) Gli inventori delle cose nel De genealogia di Boccaccio
Panel IV: Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Beyond
15.00-15.45	Giuseppe Mazzotta (Yale University) Boccaccio's Critique of Petrarch
15.45-16.30	Renzo Bragantini (Università La Sapienza di Roma) Petrarca, Boccaccio, e lo spazio della letteratura volgare
16.45-17.30	Giorgio Ficara (Università degli Studi di Torino) Petrarca e la fiaba delle fondazioni (Fam. I, 4)
17.30-18.15	Giulio Ferroni (Università La Sapienza di Roma) Tra Petrarca e Boccaccio. Strategie della fine
18.15-19.00	Final Discussion and Conclusive Remarks
June 13, 2014
10.00-12.00	Manuscript Exhibition at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Handschriftenabteilung Introduction by Giuliano Staccioli Presentations by Giuliano Staccioli and Igor Candido

Internationally renowned scholars were invited to discuss and rethink the historical, intellectual, and literary roles of Petrarch and Boccaccio between the great model of Dante’s encyclopedia, and the ideas of a double or multifaceted culture in the era of Italian Renaissance Humanism. In his lyrical poems and Latin treatises, Petrarch, on the one hand, created a cultural pattern that was both Christian and Classical, exercising immense influence on the Western World in the centuries to come. Boccaccio, on the other hand, translated this pattern into his own vernacular narratives and erudite works, ultimately claiming as his own achievement the reconstructed unity of the Ancient Greek and Latin world in his contemporary age. The Conference aimed to reconsider Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s intellectual and literary heritages from different perspectives (philosophical, theological, historical, philological, paleographical, literarily, theoretically), and to investigate how these heritages shaped the cultural transition between the end of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era.

In cooperation with: