Lateinische Epigraphik zur Zeit des dreissigjährigen Krieges: Eine Trouvaille

Discussion of the epigraphical exploits of the Danish scholar Henrik Ernst during the Thirty-Years war.

Tarabotti fra omissioni e femminismo: il mistero della sua formazione

This paper given at the conference "Donne a Venezia" in May 2008 discloses the complexity of Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652), a proto-feminist polemist and writer who lived all her life in a remoted convent, Sant'Anna in Castello, in a remoted part of Venice. Despite having been cloistered at the age of 11, according to her account, she managed to publish her books and become a recognised member of the République des Lettres. How did she manage to develop her incredibly modern ideas, suggesting women should study and work and avoid getting married with astronomical dowries? The article deals with entirely new documents, uncovered in archives and tries to provide an answer to such dearing questions.

Visual ambiguity in the oeuvre of the Gela Painter: a new lekythos from Thessaly

This paper presents a previously unpublished Attic lekythos and discusses visual ambiguity as an intentional drawing style used by a vase painter who conceptualised the many possible relationships between pot and user, object and subject. The Gela Painter endowed this hastily manufactured and decorated lekythos with visual effects that drew the viewer into an inherently ambivalent motif: a mounting Dionysos. This motif, like other Dionysian themes, had a vogue in late Archaic times but did not necessarily invoke chthonic associations. It had the potential to be consumed in diverse contexts, including religious festivals, by a wide range of audiences. Such images were not given to the viewer fully through visual perception but through interpretation.