Giordano, Gloria. "‘Si è fatto di nuovo ma impiegandovi molte cose del vecchio’: The Artifice of Magnificence in the Choreographic Episodes at the Seminario Romano."

Giordano, Gloria. "‘Si è fatto di nuovo ma impiegandovi molte cose del vecchio’: The Artifice of Magnificence in the Choreographic Episodes at the Seminario Romano." In Noble Magnificence: Culture of the Performing Arts in Rome 1644-1740, edited by Anne-Madeleine Goulet and Michela Berti, 367-379. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2024.

URL: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/M.EM-EB.5.141474 (Open Access)


Abstract:
This essay focuses on several case studies drawn from archival sources and scenarios for theatrical performances staged at the Seminario Romano in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the sources reveal the Seminario’s recourse to the practice of reuse and reutilisation. In particular, the essay investigates how this practice was implemented in the field of dance, examining how topoi well-known to the public were used in new contexts, either as interi (wholes), or in frammenti (fragments), shedding light on the implicit didactic-methodological value of reuse and reutilisation in Jesuit education. At the same time, this investigation aims to demonstrate how this practice – itself an expression of thrift and prudence – through a rhetorical artifice obtained through artfully elaborated procedures, can create and reflect a multifaceted magnificence.