Christopher Celenza, a professor of classics at Johns Hopkins University, will speak on “Machiavelli: Yesterday and Today” as the keynote speaker of this year’s Ferrari Humanities Symposia. He’ll deliver his lecture on Tuesday, March 7, at 5 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of Rush Rhees Library.
Celenza’s books include Machiavelli: A Portrait (Harvard University Press, 2015) and The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Also a professor in the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins, he holds secondary appointments in its history department and humanities center. Celenza’s interests are wide-ranging, encompassing Latin literature, Italian Renaissance philosophy, late medieval intellectual history, the history of books and reading practices, Latin paleography, and the history of the classical tradition.
While on campus, he’ll take part in several other events, including an undergraduate colloquium at 3:30 on March 6, and on March 8, a brief presentation on “Politics, Service, Resistance: What Would Machiavelli Do?” followed by a conversation open to the University community and friends. That event is from 10–11:30 a.m. in the Humanities Center Conference Room D.
University Trustee Bernard Ferrari ’70, ’74 (MD), a member of the Board of Trustees, and his wife, Linda Gaddis Ferrari, established the symposia to broaden the liberal education of Rochester’s undergraduates, enhance the experience of graduate students, and expand faculty connections with scholars around the world. The series was established in 2012, and has hosted speakers including Anthony Grafton, Stephen Greenblatt, and Jane Tylus.
