B5108 - History of Europe in the Modern Age (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will have an in-depth and direct knowledge of the sources and current historiographical trends in different thematic and chronological areas of early modern history. They will be able to recognise the contribution that this study can make to an understanding of the present.

Course contents

The course will be devoted to the problem of the true, the false and simulation in early modern Europe. These are the topics that will be covered during the lectures:

True and false: a historiographical question

The Medieval Legacy

Lorenzo Valla and philology

The canon of Scripture and the Apocrypha

Inventing the past

Religious conflicts: the example of Granada

Fakes and conspiracies: the ‘instructions’ of the Society of Jesus

Divided Europe: Simulation and dissimulation

Nicodemism

The useful lie

The Church of Rome and simulated sanctity

The imposture between Europe and the world

A Russian case: the pseudo-Dimitri

The man from Formosa: George Psalmanazar

False news and inventions after the Revolution

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Readings/Bibliography

All students, attending and non-attending, should prepare for the examination by reading three of the following texts:

Carlo Ginzburg, Il filo e le tracce. Vero, falso, finto, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2006

Paolo Preto, Falsi e falsari nella storia, Roma, Viella, 2020 (capp. IV e V)

Anthony Grafton, Falsari e critici, Torino, Einaudi, 1996

Natalie Zemon Davis, Il ritorno di Martin Guerre, Roma, Officina Libraria, 2022

Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge Mass.-London, Harvard University Press, 1990

Anne Overell, Nicodemites: Faith and Concealment between Italy and Tudor England, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2018

Mercedes García-Arenal, Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, The Orient in Spain: Converted Muslims, the Forged Lead Books of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism, Leiden, Brill, 2013

Sabina Pavone, Le astuzie dei gesuiti. Le false ‘Istruzioni segrete’ della Compagnia di Gesù e la polemica antigesuita nei secoli XVII e XVIII, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2000

Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of Identity, Basingstoke-New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2012

Yves-Marie Bercé, Il re nascosto. Miti politici popolari nell'Europa moderna, Torino, Einaudi, 1996

Robert Darnton, Il grande massacro dei gatti e altri episodi della storia culturale francese, Milano, Adelphi, 1988

Georges Lefebvre, La grande paura del 1789, Torino, Einaudi, 1989

Teaching methods

The teacher will use texts and images to get the students able to reading the sources and to understanding the representations in history. Any teaching materials will be made available online in the appropriate section of the University's website.

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending. The oral examination will take place in the exam sessions provided at the end of the course. To evaluate the exam, the teacher will take into account the student's ability to master the contents of the course, to understand the historical concepts, to orientate himself in the bibliography, to know how to read a source, to connect the informations acquired, to expose what he has learned in a synthetic way and with an appropriate language. The student who will meet these demands will have an excellent mark. The student who will simply repeat the informations acquired in a mnemonic way and with a language not entirely adequate will have a discreet evaluation. The student who will show that he knows the contents superficially and with some gaps, using an inappropriate language, will have a sufficient evaluation. The student unprepared and incapable of orientation in the subject will have a negative evaluation.

Instead of studying the texts adopted for the exam, attending students can choose to write a paper (max 5,000 words) on a specific topic, agreeing the choice with the teacher. The evaluation of the essay will depend on its originality and its critical depth.

The present course is a part of the Integrated Course 'History of the Early Modern Age C.I. (LM)'. If the student has the Integrated Course (12CFU) in his / her study plan, the final grade will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in the two components (History of Europe in the Early Modern Age; Politics and Historiography of the Early Modern Age).

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

Oral Exam sessions are scheduled for the following months of the academic year:

January (all students), March (all), May (all), July (all), September (students in debt), November (students in debt)

Teaching tools

Attendance of the course may also include participation in seminars promoted by the teacher and visits to archives and libraries to contact the sources on the subject kept in the city of Bologna and its surroundings. The Internet will be used to access sites that contain manuscript sources, images, texts and materials of interest.

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Vincenzo Lavenia