The Laurel and the Sword: Humanistic Invectivity across the Alp

The event explores how polemical, insulting, and assertive language shaped debates between Italy and Germany from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern age. Through case studies on major Humanist writers and thinkers, the speakers will show how “Invectivity” functioned as a powerful tool for defending ideas, asserting authority, and shaping cultural and political discourse.

The event connects directly with a research project conducted between the universities in Dresden, Kassel and the Freie Universität Berlin since 2023. 

The Introduction by Dr. Marius Kraus will give an overview of the project, with a focus on its conceptual focus, its methodological lines, its internal articulation and the main results it collected. 

In two successive talks, Pablo Borgialli and Dr. Jan-Hendryk de Boer will discuss authors of central importance for the broad question of Invectivity in Early Humanism. 

The first talk will focus on Francesco Petrarca, as founding a figure of European Humanism as no other, and will show how polemical and assertive rhetoric forms a systematic and programmatic component of his message — and possibly a reason for the remarkable success of his intellectual project. The second talk will turn to German Humanism, exploring selected case studies that highlight the dynamics of intellectual conflicts and the role played by the political and cultural institutions to which the participants belonged. 

A round-table discussion moderated by Prof. Christian Jaser will round off the event, bringing together specialists in Italian and German Humanism in order to broaden the discussion beyond the individual case studies presented in the talks.