This conference focused on issues and methodologies important to the late Eric Cochrane.

Sponsored by the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, and organized by Natalie Zemon Davis, Princeton University (now at University of Toronto) and Anthony Grafton, Princeton University.

Friday, May 13

Welcome and introduction

Richard Brown, The Newberry Library
Natalie Zemon Davis, Princeton University (now at University of Toronto)

Session 1: The Counter-Reformation Reinterpreted

Chair: John Tedeschi, Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies (now emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Controriforma come fine della Profezia
Ottavia Niccoli, University of Bologna

Afterthoughts on Counter-Reformation Italy
John Bossy, University of York (now emeritus)

Commentator: Anne Jacobson Schutte, Lawrence University (now at University of Virginia)

Saturday, May 14

Session 2: Continuity and Change

Chair: Domenico Sella, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Rituals of Violence Surrounding the King’s Body
Sergio Bertelli, University of Florence

The Italian Philosophers of Nature and the Fate of the Occult Philosophy
Brian Copenhaver, Oakland University (now at University of California, Los Angeles)

Lucien Febvre and the Problem of Early Modern Unbelief
David Wootton, University of Western Ontario (now at University of York, UK)

Commentator: Paul Grendler, University of Toronto

Session 3: Making up the Past

Chair: William Monter, Northwestern University

Beyond Biography: A Framework for Studying Vernacular Historiography
Mark Phillips, Carleton University

Secular Literature in the Cloister: Sizteenth-Century Convent Genres
Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago

Annius and Antiquarianism: Forgery and Historiography in Renaissance Italy
Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

Commentator: William Bouwsma, University of California, Berkeley

Keynote Address, at Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago

New Directions in Sixteenth-Century Italian History
Julius Kirshner, University of Chicago (now emeritus)

Concert: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Italian Music
The Newberry Consort, Mary Springfels, director

Learn more about Center for Renaissance Studies programs.