Christopher Holman presents eight centuries of organ music from the Roman Catholic tradition, performed on the tremendous Murdy Family Organ in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in broadly chronological order. From the earliest written keyboard music (Robertsbridge Codex, c. 1360) through British composer Caitlin Harrison's 2022 chorale prelude on the Dominican Order's Salve Regina, the program will feature music by J.S. Bach, Charles-Marie Widor, Dieterich Buxtehude, Sor María Clara de Oaxaca, Elisabeth Lutyens, works from the time of the American Revolution, and more, demonstrating how the organ, as Widor famously said, can truly bring about a "vision of eternity." This event is free to attend and not ticketed.  

Join us for a heartwarming conclusion to your Thanksgiving weekend with the annual Shein Trust Family Concert, Eudora Welty's The Shoe Bird. Gather the whole family for an enchanting musical journey suitable for all ages and sizes. GET TICKETS  

The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to host a lecture by Professor Eva Del Soldato (University of Pennsylvania) titled: A Reckless and Scandalous Doctrine: Matthias Ferchius, a Franciscan in the Index  This paper delves into the intriguing journey of a forgotten booklet by the Franciscan Matthias Ferchius (1583-1669), drawing from recently unearthed material. It uncovers a fascinating blend of Biblical exegesis, poison expertise, medical reasoning, and rhetorical balancing acts, all in an audacious attempt by Ferchius to present no less than a revisionist account of the death of Jesus Christ. The paper will engage in the dialectic between Ferchius and the Holy Office censors, shedding light on the aspects of Ferchius’s text that raised particular concerns. It will also demonstrate how the pursuit of “new” outlooks in philosophy and theology always necessitated a firm reliance on tradition, a fact exemplified by other episodes of Ferchius’ intellectual career. Lastly, it will bring to the fore the paradoxical outcomes of this form of “conspiracy” philology.  Eva Del Soldato is associate professor of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the FIGS Graduate Program and serves as interim director of the Center for Italian Studies. She was trained in philosophy and intellectual history at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Her research is primarily devoted to Renaissance thought and culture, particularly the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions. Her current project is focused on lovesickness treatises in the Counterreformation period. She is the author of the monographs Simone Porzio (2010) and Early Modern Aristotle. On the Making and Unmaking of Authority (2020). She has also published several articles and editions, including the Italian translation of Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis. She has co-edited several volumes (the most recent is Plato in the Italian Universities, 2024). She received— among others — fellowships from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Villa I Tatti, the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbuettel, the Huntington Library in Pasadena, and she has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Warwick, UK. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Milan, the University of Bergamo, and the 2022/2023 Charles Speroni Chair at UCLA. She has been the interim director (2019/2020) of the Global Medieval Studies Program at Penn, and she is currently the executive secretary of the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS).   The lecture is co-sponsored by the Medieval Institute.The Italian Research Seminar, a core event of the Center for Italian Studies, aims to provide a regular forum for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, and colleagues from other universities to present and discuss their current research. The Seminar is vigorously interdisciplinary, and embraces all areas of Italian literature, language, and culture, as well as perceptions of Italy, its achievements and its peoples in other national and international cultures. The Seminar constitutes an important element in the effort by Notre Dame's Center for Italian Studies to promote the study of Italy and to serve as a strategic point of contact for scholarly exchange.Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.

A favorite holiday tradition, the Met's abridged, English-language version of Julie Taymor's whimsical production returns with conductor James Levine. Tenor Matthew Polenzani stars in the role of Tamino and Pamina is sung by soprano Ying Huang. The cast also features baritone Nathan Gunn as Papageno, soprano Erika Miklósa as the Queen of the Night, and bass René Pape as Sarastro. GET TICKETS  

Register here  We hope you will join us each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Sanford “Sandy” Shugart served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. He is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute and the author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader. Our conversation will consider the broad landscape of higher education — and particularly pre-professional and professional education for flourishing within community colleges — along with issues of leadership and character. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.