ESHHS 2023: Rome

Table of Contents

Program & Book of Abstracts

The conference program is online and can be found via this link. In case of any major changes in the program, we will let you know here. The Book of Abstracts can also be found here.

ESHHS 2023: Registration open

Dear friends and members of the ESHHS,

we are happy to announce that the registration for our 2023 conference at the Sapienza University of Rome is now open.

The next conference of the ESHHS will be held in Rome, Italy, from 4 to 7 July. The conference will be hosted at Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Philosophy in Villa Mirafiori (Via Carlo Fea, 2). We are happy to meet you there! All relevant details about the conference can be found below and will be updated in the weeks to come.

The conference fees amount to:

  • 90€ (students)
  • 120€ (before May 20)
  • 150€ (after May 20)

for 4 days, including the welcome reception and coffee breaks. All participants are invited to join the conference dinner (40€ extra only by bank transfer to conference bank account).

To pay your registration fee, please transfer the amount to the following bank account:

Andrea Romano (Local Treasurer)

IBAN:  IT64P3600334210600001957175
BIC/SWIFT: MDDLITM2

Please use “ESHHS 2023” as Reference and write your first and last name specifying which fee you are paying.

Please, note that only payment to the bank account of the conference will be accepted by bank transfer.
CASH PAYMENT WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AT THE CONFERENCE SITE.

Those who cannot make a SEPA transfer can contact the Congress email address eshhs2023@gmail.com to arrange a transfer via PayPal.

Once you have paid the fee you can fill out the Registration form by entering the required info at the following link:

Registration form ESHHS Conference 2023 (google.com)

Location of the Congress

Villa Mirafiori, home of the Institute of Philosophy at “La Sapienza” University, is in a fairly favorable location from the point of view of transport connections.

METRO: It is located between the Bologna and S. Agnese/Annibaliano stops of the Metro B (roughly 500 meters away from both).

BUS: Numerous bus stops are in the immediate vicinity: the nearest are: Nomentana/XXI aprile (bus 60, 90, 544, 66); S. Costanza (bus 168, 310).

BUS/METRO TICKETS: One way bus tickets cost 1,5€, they are valid for 150 minutes on buses and you can take 1 run by metro too. There are also weekly tickets for 24 €. Bus tickets are available in shops called “tabaccheria” and from vending machines set in every subway station. It is not possible to buy tickets on the bus. You can find all info about mobility at the following link: https://www.atac.roma.it/en/frequently-asked-questions/sono-un-turista-che-biglietto-scelgo

AIRPORT: To get directly from Fiumicino airport, the cheapest way is to take the Leonardo Express train (14 euros), which goes directly to the main train station (Termini). This is also the best way to reach the city center. From Termini station, you can use the metro B, or buses 60 and 90. Taxis are also an option but they are quite expensive, from the airport to the city center the cost is 50 € per vehicle.

Accomodation

There are numerous hotels and Bed & Breakfasts nearby (look for Piazza Bologna area, Via Nomentana, Quartiere Trieste). Alternatively, it is advisable to find a hotel near any stop on the B line.

PAY: Credit and debit cards are accepted almost everywhere, also for paying bus tickets, but it can be helpful to have a bit of cash.

Roman cuisine

Restaurants, trattorias, osterias, bars and pizzerias in Rome are endless. Their quality varies greatly and their prices are rising, but it is difficult to eat badly. Definitely avoid all restaurants in the historic center, which are always very expensive. . Wanting to try typical Roman cuisine, it is usually a good idea to try a restaurant or pizzeria in the Trastevere neighborhood.

It is usually not a good idea to eat at seafood restaurants: the ones where you get good food are incredibly expensive. Typical Roman pasta: cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana. If you want to try something very unusual: rigatoni con la pajata, trippa alla romana, coda alla vaccinara. Use google for ingredients.

The reviews on the places you find on google or tripadvisor are reliable.

Lunch

At lunchtime you can eat quickly and inexpensively at Momart (viale XXI aprile)

Other nearby Eateries

A decent Roman osteria fairly close to the congress location is Osteria Chiana and is located on Via Agri/via Chiana (about 500 meters from Villa Mirafiori).The neighborhood around Piazza Bologna is also the second Jewish quarter of the city. There are kosher restaurants and shops.

In Rome, the homemade ice creams are also very good. There are many ice cream shops around the congress venue. A few steps away, for example, is Pico Gelato.

As for pizzerias in Rome there are pizzerias by the slice which are found along the sidewalks and the Piazza Bologna area and the Salario district (around Villa Mirafiori) are full of small pizzerias by the slice. Then there are the Pizzeria restaurants. Few people know that in addition to the classic Neapolitan pizza with a soft texture, there is a thinner “Roman” pizza. Around the congress it is also possible to eat a good pizza both Roman-style (Pizzeria San Marino via di San Marino) and Neapolitan-style (Momart via XXI Aprile or Pizzium in via Livorno).

Visiting the city of Rome

Why is Rome so outrageously crowded with priceless works of art, monumental vestiges of the past?

If you happen to visit other large cities with similar millennial historical centrality, e.g., Istanbul, Athens, you will not find such density, and this difference can be explained through Rome’s peculiar history, of how it conceived of its identity and power, of how these ideas of identity and power necessitated art, of how these ideas survived its end.

Rome was born about two thousand eight hundred years ago, at the end of the Iron Age, caught between two great trading empires made up of city states in perpetual competition, if not struggle with each other: The Etruscans and the Greeks.

It emerges as a dominant city probably precisely as an organizational and commercial necessity at the suture point between these two great worlds.

It immediately connotes itself as a very socially mobile reality and progressively equips itself with a refined and complex democratic system for the time; This new force, resting on an unstable balance of mobility and democracy and yet capable of unleashing great energies, gradually eats away at the two empires between which it was born, one by digestion, the other by conquest.

In particular, the conquest of Greece is crucial to understanding why Rome overflowed with ancient and then modern art; the Romans experienced the conquest of Athens as something deeply, unconsciously dishonorable and shameful: they were not worthy of conquering the Greeks, who outclassed them in culture and art and were even then considered the beacon of Western culture. BUT empires are like that, they either expand or die, Rome conquered Athens for the same reason Athens and Sparta a few centuries earlier committed suicide by exhausting themselves in the Peloponnesian War: because they had to.

Back to Rome: The Roman thus always had the vulnus of being unworthy ruler of a culture that was superior to him, and he tried to remedy this fault by trying to overcome it in art, trying at least to make Rome the new Athens. Rome became the most astounding open-air museum in the Western world; and not only Rome, for every conquered territory was not only endowed with sewers and laws far more civilized than the average of the time, but with theaters, statues, beauty.

Rome’s power was based on a formidable army to conquer territories, and a mixture of laws, technological innovations, and monumental beauty to preserve them.

And Beauty, like philosophy, was entirely borrowed from Greek paradigms, retooled into a cunning, brilliant, human-friendly eclecticism, because the Greek world was Truth and God-friendly and therefore uncomfortable; the human world was more prudently organized around itself.

The fall of the Roman empire saw almost immediately an unexpected and extraordinary regime change, in place of the emperor the Catholic pope took over the city, and this was no accident of course because the power of suggestion evoked by the name of Rome, the universal salvific reach that the name alone carried with it was enormous, and most useful to the new rising power, all that was needed was to shift the horizon of salvation from earth to heaven.

Christianity embraced the idea of spreading the suggestion of its power through art, immediately becoming, thanks to its economic and spiritual power, the aspiration of all the artists of the world, who often sincerely believed felt invested with a special privilege in working for the pontiff, alter Christus, ipse Christus, as Catholic doctrine states.

Rome became more and more the center of the artistic world to the ancient beauties were added those of Michelangelo, Caravaggio Bernini, in an ideal continuity that artists in the pay of the pope took careful care to emphasize: The Roman empire became the premise that providence allowed for the full flowering of Catholicism.

And this incredible extraordinary machine of persuasion and beauty, unique in the world and in history, endures and grows until technology, then technical reproducibility, and finally then mass communication take away, slowly at first, then faster and faster, uniqueness from the place and the wonderful objects it houses.

But even today, Rome fortunately remains as a witness to a unique unrepeatable and very powerful marriage between art-as high and disinterested as possible, and power-as less disinterested as possible.

If you open Gombrich’s History of Art, you will find that more or less half of the pictures illustrating it were taken in Rome. So it is impossible to summarize what can be found from the point of view of art history: in addition, of course, to the vestiges of ancient Rome, we can suggest as obligatory places to visit:

  • Piazza di Spagna, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter’s and the Colosseum as monuments
  • The Borghese Museum and the Vatican Museums (with the Sistine Chapel): it should be kept in mind that it is essential to book the visit well in advance (even months).

Other places that should be seen if you have time available:

  • The museum of the Etruscan civilization of Valle Giulia
  • The Palatine (where Rome was born with a huge and very fascinating archaeological park) and the imperial forums (Foro Romano), both next to the Colosseum.
  • The early Jewish quarter around the Theater of Marcellus with countless restaurants.
  • Piazza del Campidoglio seat of the municipality of Rome designed by Michelangelo (around there are the Capitoline Museums with both ancient and Renaissance art).
  • The museum of ancient art in Palazzo Massimo – National Roman Museum.
  • The Basilica of San Giovanni (with the medieval quarter next to it, here you can see for example the beautiful church of Santi Quattro Coronati). Via di San Giovanni leads to the basilica of San Clemente in whose basement it is possible to see the streets and houses of ancient Rome.
  • In the Renaissance center of Rome you can see many churches with precious works of art. San Luigi de’ Francesi with three works by Caravaggio dedicated to San Matteo inside. In Piazza del Popolo, Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo, instead it is possible to see two paintings by Caravaggio dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul.
  • The archeological park of “Ostia Antica” which was the port of imperial Rome. There you can visit a well-preserved ancient city with its streets, shops and the theater. Ostia Antica is Located 30 km from the city center, but it is easy to get there using public transport. Take the “Roma-Lido” Metro from Porta San Paolo Station (Piramide Stop of Metro B) and get off at the “Ostia Antica” stop.

Walks in Rome (Rome has many parks and green areas):

  • Villa Borghese in the city center – where the Borghese Gallery is located – there is a small lake where all the Roman couples have spent time for a boat ride, then there is the view of the Pincio from which you can admire one side of Rome)
  • Walk of the Gianicolo, a hill which is located in northern Rome next to the Vatican. The Gianicolo hill has the most beautiful view of Rome and the park is dedicated to the history of the Risorgimento with a huge statue of Garibaldi as an anti-papaline statue in the center (there is, for example, the headquarters of Freemasonry).
  • Near the congress venue there is also Villa Torlonia which was the home of Mussolini and his family, but which was previously of Prince Torlonia, contains a series of recently restored small museums originally wanted by the prince and which are now open to the public. Also a few steps from the congress is Villa Ada, seat of the royal family before the Republic. Huge green space with a small lake, used by the Romans for long walks and for sports).”