Dal papa-pavone al Papstesel. Figure di papi-animali nel Bestiario del papa. Intervento al Convegno : Bestiarium La rappresentazione del mondo animale dal Medioevo all Eta moderna, 14-15 dicembre 2017 - Palazzo Grimani - Ramo Grimani, Castello 4858 Venezia (original) (raw)
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In a recent research (Il bestiario del papa, Torino, Einaudi, 2016; Le bestiaire du pape, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2018) I examined the role that some forty animals played over a very long period in the construction of papal sovereignty, such as the horse, to express aspirations for reform, controversy and criticism, as in the prophecies of the popes, or to delegitimise papal power, such as Martin Luther's Papstesel. The need to follow the vicissitudes of animals over a long, sometimes very long period of time suggested choosing the form of the Bestiary, a narrative form that allows us to focus on the symbolic values that motivated their presence in the history of the papacy, without diluting them in a literary history that would account for the symbolic multiplicity of animals between Antiquity and Modernity. Here I will now attempt to reflect on continuity, an element that is a red thread running through this rich and in a sense extraordinary series of animals. There are many animals whose symbolic history I have had to follow over a very long period of time: the dove, the dragon or the basilisk, the horse and the parrot, but also the donkey and the camel, the elephant, the phoenix and the peacock, the lion and other feral animals, the ritual use of moss as perfume or the papal discourse on hunting. It is an impressive continuity, not least because it does not seem to be attested as such for any other sovereignty in the Western world. And it is a continuity that proves that even animals make history, because an institution with universal aspirations such as the papacy has had to rely on the strength of often ancient cultural traditions. Taking into account the time available, I will focus on three animals, all three of fundamental importance over the very long period - dove, horse, parrot - and on the only perfume of animal origin known in the Middle Ages, musk, perhaps the most cherished and prestigious perfume between the Middle Ages and the modern age. And I will do so starting from four questions-observations:
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