When
Where
The Early Books Lecture Series was established at the University of Arizona by Dr. Albrecht Classen, University Distinguished Professor of German Studies, in partnership with University Libraries Special Collections. For 20 years, University of Arizona scholars and Special Collections have invited the community to explore rare books, held by Special Collections, that provide primary resource materials for research, and are open for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to access.
The lectures are free, open to the public, and held in the Special Collections Reading Room and online via Zoom, 6pm to 8pm. A reception will follow the presentation.
Fabian Alfie, Professor, Italian Studies, College of Humanities
Presentation: Petrarch and the Whore of Babylon: Censorship in an Age of Religious Strife
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) is commonly pigeon-holed as the composer of love sonnets, but he wrote about other topics as well. He penned three laments about the corrupt papal court in Avignon. Two centuries after Petrarch’s death, in the tumult accompanying the birth of Protestantism, those same sonnets were deployed against Catholicism, resulting in their censorship in many published editions of his verse. This talk will discuss one such censored volume in Special Collections, and it will trace the fascinating story of how Petrarch's complaints about Avignon influenced the language of Martin Luther and his followers.
Fabian Alfie is a professor of Italian at the University of Arizona on medieval and Renaissance literature. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1995, and he joined the University of Arizona faculty in 1997. Throughout his career, the focus of his research has been on the comic / satiric literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He has published books on Cecco Angiolieri, Dante, Rustico Filippi, Burchiello (2017—co-authored with Aileen Feng), and Folgore da San Gimignano (2021). His next project is a translation of the homoerotic poets of Perugia (Cecco Nuccoli, Marino Ceccoli), which will be published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2026.
Register for the April 8 lecture.
Additional lectures
Early Books Lecture Series XX: Faith S. Harden (hybrid), April 15
Early Books Lecture Series XX: Albrecht Classen (hybrid), April 22