‘Paratext’ is a term coined by Gérard Genette in 1987 to refer to the material surrounding a printed text, including titles, prefaces, introductions, and footnotes. The notion of the paratext has recently been introduced to the study of medieval codices, with scholars working on medieval palaeography and codicology currently negotiating its various categorisations and the challenges thereof. An important category of medieval manuscripts that has often been neglected in that respect is that of medical codices. This conference aims to plug this gap by applying the concept of the paratext right to the very heart of the study of medieval medical manuscripts containing texts in a variety of languages, including Arabic, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and other European vernacular. It thus seeks to make a significant advance in our understanding of how medieval medical manuscripts were used by their producers and consumers. We are interested in encouraging theoretical reflection on the following subjects/questions:

Different kinds and categories of paratextual elements (e.g. prefaces, foliation, decoration, illustrations, diagrams, annotations of any sort, colophons) and their significance;

• Transformation of texts through paratexts. How can the use of specific paratextual elements enhance/influence the reading/understanding of a particular medical text/theory?
• Paratextual elements as visual aids, especially, but not exclusively, in scholastic settings;
• The features of scribal and editorial paratextuality in medical works;
• Extensive paratexts (e.g. commentaries and scholia) and their function;
• The mobility of paratexts (e.g. their infiltration into the main text) and the transmission of the resulting ‘hidden’ paratext;
• Medical paratexts and their reception;
• Paratext and memory in medieval medicine (e.g. through the lens of cognitive theory);
• Paratext as a means of tracing the history of medical codices through time, geographical and social space;
• Paratext as a means of constructing and disseminating medical knowledge. 

Our aim is to hold a face-to-face event. Each paper will be 30 minutes long followed by a session of questions and answers (around 10 minutes). We are looking for papers dealing with original and previously unpublished material; extended versions of the papers will form a peer-reviewed edited volume.

Scholars are invited to submit abstracts of ca. 250 words to sophia.xenofontos@glasgow.ac.uk and petros.bouras-vallianatos@ed.ac.uk by 30 April 2022.

Organised by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos (University of Edinburgh) and Sophia Xenophontos (University of Glasgow). Funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The ERC AGRELITA invites papers on the topic of “The Invention of Greek origins in the textual and visual cultures of pre-modern Europe (1100-1600)” for its workshops to be held on 15th and 16th June 2023.

In 1176, Chrétien de Troyes expressed the idea of ​​a heritage whose cradle would be Greece, the origin of “chivalry” and “clergy”, in the famous Cligès prologue : “Ce nos ont nostre livre apris / qu’an Grece ot de chevalerie / le premier los et de clergie” (v. 28-30). The purpose of such a discourse is to rely on origins to create a continuity through the use of translatio imperii et studii, and thus to legitimize and celebrate contemporary power and knowledge in the light of a Greek past. But Chrétien de Troyes does not give any specific content to these Greek origins. Many authors of pre-modern Europe then set about representing them : they appropriated and/or invented Greek origins, since the latter may refer to inherited and often reinterpreted data or were fantasised.

Indeed, between 1100 and 1600, in humanities and arts, the Greek past was used to create different types of origins. The figure of Hercules illustrates this well : it was exploited throughout much of Western Europe, in images as well as in texts, for various political, national and dynastic, social and cultural purposes. As Claude-Gilbert Dubois points out in the introduction to his major work, Récits et mythes de fondation dans l’imaginaire culturel occidental  (Bordeaux, 2009), a referential network is woven around the triangle formed by the territory, the character and the community that resorts to a Greek origin. Studies on the origines gentium, notably the following ones : Alheydis Plassman, Origo gentis. Identitäts- und Legitimitätsstiftung in früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Herkunftserzählungen (Berlin, 2006) and Magali Coumert, Origines des peuples. Les récits du Haut Moyen Âge occidental (550-850) (Paris, 2007), focused on the links between the writing of origin stories and the creation of a sense of belonging to a community.

If Greek origins often contribute to a political justification, they may also pursue other purposes, in particular in stories and images of the invention or the establishment of a cultural, artistic, scientific or social fact, of a political, legal or intellectual institution. Some examples may be given : the origin of the liberal arts, of painting, of fables, of universities, of academies… Close links thus exist between origin(s) and heritage, and invite us to question the notion of origin(s) by distinguishing it from the more general notion of heritage, and by studying the meanings it covers for the authors and the artists of pre-modern Europe.

These workshops thus aim to explore the uses, functions and purposes of the discourses on Greek origins and the polysemy of this concept between 1100 and 1600, in European textual, visual and material cultures, hinging on the following questions : how the authors and artists considered the notion of origin(s)? What both unites and distinguishes it from heritage ? Why Greeks ? Which Greece(s) are thought of as origins ? Whose origins are these ? What modalities of representation and what processes of appropriation appear? For what purposes and for what audiences?

In order to identify these issues, submitted papers may deal with one or more of the following themes, which do not exhaust the range of possibilities :

-Identity formations and legitimization of forms of government and of institutions : myths of the origins of peoples, cities, communities, dynasties, political, legal, intellectual and professional bodies,

-Greek origins in artistic, scientific and technical inventions, the origins of Greek languages ​​and etymologies, the Greek origins of literary forms and genres,

–Translatio imperii and translatio studii, their staging and their interactions,

-Visual representations of origins, their sponsors and their recipients : paintings, sculptures, tapestries, decorative arts, illustrations in manuscripts and printed books, ephemeral arts (tournaments, festivals, theatre, processions, royal and imperial entrances…), heraldry,

-The relationships and the oppositions between the process of creation or recreation and archaeological acts, based on material evidence, paper records, inventions, imitations, “fakes”.

Please submit a short abstract (title and ten lines of presentation, along with a brief CV) before June 1st, 2022 to Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas at the following address: catherine.bougassas@univ-lille.fr.

Travel and accommodation costs will be covered according to the terms of the University of Lille.

The papers will be published by Brepols publishers, in the “Research on Antiquity Receptions” series : http://www.brepols.net/Pages/BrowseBySeries.aspx?TreeSeries=RRA

Papers are due by September 30th, 2023.

The antisocial character of witches has always been perceived as a danger to the established order. While the conventional stereotypes associated with witches have now been questioned and—to some extent—recalibrated, a constant factor that persists is the degree to which the “fama di strega” has played a fundamental role in prosecutorial processes. The aim of this conference is to reassess the broad assumption that social and cultural categories associated with individuals accused of witchcraft in early modern Europe are subject to conflicting perspectives. A crucial point of departure is to address, in light of new archival documentation, the ongoing debate between common perceptions (and misconceptions) and extant historical evidence. The organizers—Domizia Weber, Daniele Santarelli and Luca Al Sabbagh—invite proposals for twenty-minute unpublished papers in English or Italian. Ideal papers will interpret in a new and critical way the phenomenon of witch hunts, with particular emphasis on issues related to infamy, scapegoating, ignominy, violence, sexual behavior, sabbaths, legal proceedings, beliefs, folklore, hallucinations, therapeutic magic, medicine, and gender discrimination. The conference will take place at Palazzo Alberti in Florence on 16 September 2022. To apply, please send an abstract (max 250 words) and a short bio (max 200 words) by 1 July 2022 to education@medici.org.