We should say before we begin our travels- Barry and I have actually never ‘properly’ met each other: geography (Canada and the UK), plus one pandemic has disrupted any chance of us meeting. YET. We’re holding out for Early Modern Rome 4 (November 2021).
This project like many things we discuss, came to fruition over Facebook Messenger one Friday afternoon at the start of October 2020. Whilst both of us have read parts of the Commentaries, we both acknowledged the fact that it deserves a proper read through in its entirety, and this pandemic-time would be a good chance to collaboratively read the text and see what we could discover. Every fortnight we hope to cover a chapter from the Commentaries. We'll discuss interesting/notable parts, the main places or people of interest and add any visual images to illuminate the text further. In short we hope to provide our own 'commentary' on the Commentaries.
Whilst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the academic community, physical face to face teaching and conferences, both of us have seen first-hand and benefitted from, the generosity of scholars sharing their work virtually. We hope our contribution not only helps those studying and teaching but also engages those individuals who are perhaps new to the fifteenth century (in which case, welcome).
This is very much a project in progress brought about by our shared love of the fifteenth century, Rome, the papacy, we can’t wait to see what we find out and look forward to bringing you along on the journey.
Fellows and Torch, October 2020.
Frontispiece of Pope Pius II's Commentarii, c. 1464. Image courtesy of both the Biblioteca Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Rome, Italy (MS Corsiniano 147), and from Susanna de Beer, The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano (Brepols, 2013)