Professor Fabrizio Conti to Lecture at Sewanee University

Professor Fabrizio Conti

Dr. Fabrizio Conti, Lecturer in History at JCU,  has been invited to Sewanee the University of the South (TN) to give a lecture and present at the annual medieval conference on April 12-13. Prof. Conti’s lecture is titled “The Myth of Rome: From Pagan to Christian City and Beyond” and aims at reconstructing the multifaceted image of Rome as a catalyst of political, cultural, and religious power from its pagan times through the Christian transformations to its being a source of inspiration to humanists such as Francis Petrarch.

At the Medieval Colloquium Prof. Conti is presenting on “The Order of Sins in the (re-)Christianization of Late Medieval Italy: Dominican and Franciscan Pastoral Patterns”, elaborating on the ways through which friars tried to moralize urban populations in 14th and 15th century Italy by focusing on sin and the multiple pastoral/theological grids that classify it.

Professor Conti’s teaching and research interests span the Medieval and Early Modern Period, with an interdisciplinary approach to intellectual developments, the history of magic and witchcraft, the history of Christianity, and the Italian Quattrocento. In particular, Prof. Conti is interested in the forms of religious conversion, the relationship between official and unofficial cultural patterns, and the history of religious orders. His book entitled Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers: Pastoral Approach and Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan was published by Brepols in 2015.