Upcoming
Lecture: Prof. Michèle Lowrie – Translatio imperii, metaphor of reception
Like “tradition” or “reception” itself, translatio imperii is a metaphor for continuity over time. Unusual in reception studies for its political focus, it acquires a name only in Otto of Freising’s twelfth-century Chronica de duabus civitatibus, but the idea that empires succeeded each other has roots in both Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman notions of history. What differs in medieval history-writing is the conception that empires do not just replace each other but transform and surpass their predecessor. This specifically Christian understanding of history finds strong expression in Augustine’s De civitate Dei, whose notion of two cities undergirds Otto of Freising’s theory of history. This Christian conceptualization, however, has forerunners in Vergil’s Aeneid and Horace’s Odes, where Rome does not just succeed Troy, but transforms and morally corrects Rome’s predecessor. This term’s history shows that translatio imperiii does not just describe a transfer of political power in fact, but is a concept with its own history, which plays out in poetry, historiography, and the arts. The figuration reaches full realization in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, based on Vergil’s Aeneid, where the music enacts the transfer of an imagined triumph from Troy to Rome through musical themes, while intimating that Napoleon is Augustus’ French successor.
Date: 22 April 2026, 2-4 PM
Place: room 1.11, T2, Campus Ufo.
Organizers: Prof. Marco Formisano and Prof. Peter van Nuffelen, in cooperation with the GIKS.
ICBS 2026 – Thematic session ‘Alternatives to kingship in Byzantium and beyond’
Date: 24-29 August 2026
Organizers: Guillermo Menéndez Sánchez, Giorgia Nicosia, Peter Van Nuffelen