Third appointment of the Cultural Gym review at the Pompeii excavations

Third appointment of the “Cultural Gym” review at the Pompeii excavations on September 15th at 19,00:XNUMX pm in the suggestive location of the Palestra Grande.

The initiative is part of the Campania by Night program, a review of cultural and entertainment events promoted by the Campania Region through Scabec, a regional company for the enhancement of cultural heritage. A true cultural gym where you can train your mind and spirit through the beauty and history of Pompeii, but also through special meetings with writers and artists.

This new meeting, "The Ghost of Antiquity: Dialogues on the Classical Tradition," curated by Gennaro Carillo, features Eva Cantarella, one of Italy's leading classical scholars, with a presentation on "Greek Democracy between Myth and Disenchantment."

Following the meeting, it will be possible to take a guided tour of the exhibition "Art and Sensuality in the Houses of Pompeii," set up inside one of the porticoes of the Palestra Grande. Curated by Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel and archaeologist Maria Luisa Catoni, a professor at IMT Alti Studi Lucca, the exhibition explores the omnipresence of sensual images in everyday life in the ancient city.

“Classical Athens was the first polis governed by a democratic constitution. However, the Athenian one was not a model of democracy. At least if we attribute to democracy the current meaning. - underlines Gennaro Cirillo - The word itself, demokratia, sounds ambiguous: it should not be understood as the sovereignty of the entire deme but as the political supremacy of the popular faction to the detriment of the oligarchic one. Or at least this is what the most malicious sources tell us. Moreover, democratic freedom and equality presupposed severe exclusions from citizenship: the free and equal, those who were entitled to participate in the government of the polis, were very few indeed. Among them there were no women. And one of the unspeakable foundations of democracy was slavery. In addition to an eros for imperialistic expansion concealed behind a rhetoric of the exportation of democracy that has made proselytes even among our contemporaries.”

Eva Cantarella is one of the greatest Italian scholars of antiquity. She taught Roman Law and Greek Law at the University of Milan and is a global professor at New York University Law School. She has taught at many Italian and foreign universities and institutions. In 2001, she was appointed motu proprio “Grand Officer of the Republic” by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. She is the author of numerous works, many of which have been translated into several foreign languages. Among these, “The Return of Vengeance”, Milan 2007; “Love is a God”, Milan 2010; “Endure, Heart. Ulysses’ Choice”, Bari 2010; “Capital Tortures in Greece and Rome”, Milan 2014; “According to Nature. Bisexuality in the Ancient World”, Milan 2015; “You Are No Longer My Father. The Conflict Between Parents and Children in the Ancient World”, Milan 2016; “How to Kill Your Father, Parents and Children from Rome to Today”, Milan 2017; “Pandora’s Deceptions”, Milan 2019; “Sparta and Athens. Authoritarianism and Democracy” 2021.

Gennaro Carillo, curator of the project for this section of the review, is a full professor of History of Political Thought in the Department of Humanities at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, where he also teaches History of Philosophy and Theoretical Philosophy. At the Department of Architecture at Federico II, he teaches Philosophies of the Polis. He has written on Vico, Greek tragedians and comedians, ancient historiography, Antiphon, Plato, Balzac, Simone Weil, and has long been involved in modern and contemporary rewritings of the myth of Diana and Actaeon. Co-artistic director of Salerno Letteratura, he is the curator of Gli Ozi di Ercole at the Parco Archeologico di Ercolano and of Fuoriclassico. The ambiguous contemporaneity of the ancient at the MANN in Naples.

Admission to the event and the exhibition "Art and Sensuality in the Houses of Pompeii" is free, subject to availability. Reservations are recommended at www.ticketone.it (€1,50 booking fee, when purchasing a free ticket).