The Italian Studies section of the Department of Comparative Languages, Literature, and Culture at the University of Bergamo, in collaboration with the Centro di studi “Aldo Palazzeschi” at the University of Florence and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, is organizing the Conference “Palazzeschi e i territori del comico” (“Palazzeschi and the Zones of Humor”) on December 9, 10, and 11, 2004. This conference will focus on the poetic and narrative work of the great Florentine author, and in particular on its imaginative and grotesque aspects, which are intimately bound to development of the comic genre in the Italian literature of the XXth century.

The various presentations that will be made during the conference, to be held at the university buildings at Piazza Vecchia and Sant’Agostino and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, will address parallel instances of humor in the works of Giovanni Verga, Luigi Pirandello, the novels of Italo Svevo, opera librettos of the early XXth century, and the work of Angelo Fortunato Formiggini.

The aim of the conference is to offer both an opportunity to assess the latest developments in critical study of Aldo Palazzeschi’s work and a stimulus for further research and development of study on the Italian comic author.

The conference will be complemented by a series of collateral events featuring exceptional guests: from Friday, December 10, at the GAMeC, with projection of the video “Palazzeschi si legge e si racconta”, by Simone Magherini and in collaboration with the Tuscany Regional RAI Studios, in which the author talks about himself through the reading of his work in the exalting dimension of memory, and with the participation of the actor Maurizio Donadoni, who will read poetry and excerpts from narrative works by Aldo Palazzeschi.

On Saturday, December 11 , the author Andrea Camilleri will be the guest at the University of Bergamo building at Sant’Agostino, an encounter coordinated by Salvatore Nigro.

Throughout the conference, it will be possible to visit the documentary exhibition Il codice della libertà. Aldo Palazzeschi (1885 – 1974)organized by the Centro di Studi “Aldo Palazzeschi” of Florence and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo in the Spazio ParolaImmagne of the Galleria. This exhibition is curated by Laura Diafani, Simone Magherini, and Francesca Mecatti with the collaboration of M. Cristina Rodeschini Galati (Institute Director of the GAMeC).