Silvia Berti, born in Rome, Italy, in 1954. Ph.D. from the Sapienza – Università di Roma and the Université Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV. Assistant Professor in History at the Sapienza – Università di Roma.
Fellow (1 February 2007 – 30 June 2007)
RECONSTRUCTING THE ENLIGHTENMENT MIND. BERNARD PICART’S CEREMONIES AS A MIRROR OF A ZEITGEIST
I revised (partially rewrote) and footnoted the essay Rethinking the Enlightenment. The Religious, Intellectual and Political Road to Antichristianism, to be published in the volume, Defining the Radical Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2008) edited by Jonathan Israel and Martin Mulsow. I also completed my edition of the correspondence between Benedetto Croce and the young Franco Venturi (1937-1950) and wrote the introduction to this correspondence (to be published by Il Mulino). During the second part of my stay I concentrated on Bernard Picart’s and Jean-Frédéric Bernard’s immense cultural and artistic achievement, the Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723-1743) for the monograph I am preparing on the Ceremonies. Findings from Leiden Universiteits Bibliotheek (manuscripts in the Marchand papers, prints and drawings in the Prentenkabinet), the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Gemeente Archief in The Hague and the Amsterdam Rijksprentenkabinet redirected my research, and added a new dimension to the current knowledge of Picart as an engraver and a draughtsman: Picart the painter. I was also able to write a new article titled Ancora su Bernard Picart. Alcune sue importanti opere ritrovate, currently in print in the Rivista storica italiana 2, (2007). I also drafted the first two chapters of my book on the Ceremonies which will show, I hope, how this work can be considered as the embodiment of intellectual and religious strife in the early Enlightenment.