Learning the past, understanding today

In the winter semester 2014/2015, the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II / University of Naples Federico II, IT organized an academic course on Palaeography and Diplomatics for Master Degree students in History, taught by Prof. Antonella Ambrosio and her tutor Maria Rosaria Falcone.

Field trip: from theory to hands-on experiences

After having studied the charters of the Santi Pietro e Sebastiano monastery in the virtual charters archive Monasterium, Prof. Antonella Ambrosio took her students on a field trip to the Biblioteca della Società Napoletana di Storia Patria – the place where the original documents are being kept – in order to give them the unique opportunity to directly experience the originals themselves.

Click here to view the virtual collection.

Palaeographical Reading

A further event at the end of the academic course included a ‘Palaeographical Reading’, guided by Prof. Ambrosio herself, of a selection of 15th century folios from an account book of the Santi Pietro e Sebastiano Neapolitan nunnery. Also, PhD student Ciro Romano (Jyväskylän yliopisto / University of Jyväskylä, FI) shared his thesis research experiences on the critical edition of said account book with the group of students.

Culinary pleasures from the past, today

Next stop: the Restaurant ECOMESARA in Napoli / Naples, IT. The kitchen staff prepared a special culinary delight for the group of students: a meal created on the basis of recipes from the monastery’s account book dating back to the XIV-XV century.
A through and through creative and hands-on approach of bringing history to life.

On-site exploration

Finally, the students continued to visit the ancient cloister of the Santi Pietro e Sebastiano nunnery, guided by Maria Rosaria Falcone (UNINA) and Jole Benoffi (Convitto Vittorio Emanuele II). Today is is located in the building of the Convitto in Napoli / Naples, IT.

Making the connection between theoretical research, enabled by the virtual charters’ archive Monasterium, to the actual original historic documents hand in hand with real life experiences of the knowledge contained within these documents and exploration of original sites, proofs to be modern way of education in the digital age which allows future generations of professionals to learn how to apply modern research technologies and directly dare to experience history today.