GEMS is organising a talk by Dr. Elena Bilancia on ‘New Research Perspectives on Italian Vernacular Rhetorics of the 16th Century’.
Wednesday 7 May, 2025
5 PM
Camelot (Room 3.30, Blandijnberg 2)
The development of vernacular rhetorical theory played a key role in the intellectual culture of the Italian and European Renaissance. During the 16th century, the growing need to establish an autonomous set of rhetorical principles, crafted by (and for) literary professionals rather than university professors, extended beyond humanistic pedagogy and the formation of the ideal vir bonus dicendi peritus. It also addressed the changing role of intellectuals and their evolving relationship with cultural, political, and religious institutions, especially in the turbulent period between the end of the Italian Wars and the onset of the Counter-Reformation. Italian intellectuals made an original contribution to rhetorical theory not only through their exegetical work on ancient texts but also by exploring the potential of the vernacular language in the extra-university cultural circuits. It was particularly within the Infiammati Academy of Padua that a defence of the practical and civic function of elocutio was elaborated. The objective of Elena Bilancia’s research is therefore to identify the specific cultural projects that contributed to the foundation of an Italian vernacular rhetoric within the complex framework of European humanisms.
Elena Bilancia obtained her PhD in Philology and in Italian Studies from the universities of Naples Federico II and Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis. She is currently a research fellow at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale and a contract lecturer in Italian Literature at the Department of Humanities at Federico II. Her research interests focus on vernacular dialogue production and Renaissance lyric poetry. She has worked on authors such as Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and Torquato Tasso. In 2024, she published the monograph Il dialogo in volgare. Forme dell’argomentazione retorica nel XVI secolo with Bit&s.
