Chromatius of Aquileia and his Age. Proceedings of the International Congress, Aquileia (Friuli, Italy) May 22-24, 2008

Il volume intende raccogliere gli Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi «Cromazio di Aquileia e il suo tempo - Chromatius of Aquileia and his Age», svoltosi ad Aquileia dal 22 al 24 maggio 2008, sotto la direzione di Pier Franco Beatrice (Università degli Studi di Padova) e Alessio Peršič (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano) e per iniziativa del «Comitato Nazionale per il XVI centenario della morte di San Cromazio vescovo di Aquileia». L’evento congressuale è scaturito dall’appassionato interesse tradizionalmente rivolto alle proprie origini cristiane dalle cristianità eredi della tradizione ultramillenaria del Patriarcato di Aquileia. Il Convegno ha radunato da Europa e America studiosi qualificati dell’opera cromaziana, ancor solo di recente sottratta all’anonimato in cui versava nella tradizione manoscritta, intendendo così contribuire originalmente a livello internazionale all’incremento della storiografia letteraria aquileiese (cromaziana inparticolare), che in Friuli ha avuto e continua ad avere validi cultori, ma che non sempre appare praticata e conosciuta altrove come merita. Contributi di: Dirk Steuernagel (Leipzig), Claire Sotinel (Paris), Rajko Bratož (Ljubljana), Rudolf Brändle (Basel), Megan H. Williams (San Francisco), Michaela Zelzer (Wien), Jean Marie Auwers (Louvain-la-Neuve), Agnès Bastit-Kalinowska (Metz), Celestino Corsato (Padova), Philip Rousseau (Washington), Józef Naumowicz (Warszawa), Francesco Pieri (Bologna), Carla Lo Cicero (Roma), Giuseppe Peressotti (Udine), Rémi Gounelle (Strasbourg), Alberto Cozzi (Milano), Françoise Thelamon (Rouen), Mark Humphries (Maynooth), Robert Godding (Bruxeles), Pier Franco Beatrice (Padova), Alessio Peršič (Milano)This volume presents the proceedings of the International Congress Chromatius of Aquileia and His Age which took place at Aquileia (Italy) from 22 to 24 May 2008 under the direction of Pier Franco Beatrice (University of Padova) and Alessio Peršič (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan) and was fostered by the National Commitee for the Sixteenth Centenary of the Death of Saint Chromatius Bishop of Aquileia headed by Dr. Mons. Duilio Corgnali, in common accord with the Dioceses of the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and the adjacent Slovenian and Austrian Dioceses of Ljubljiana, Koper / Capodistria, and Gurk-Klagenfurt. The Congress was part of a vast range of celebratory activites inspired by the desire to create a renewed Christian historical awareness of both the significance of Aquileia and its Fathers and of the strong vitality of evangelical spirituality directed at creating a synthesis between East and West, between Greco-Roman civilization, the revealed Hebrew epos, and the disruptive diversity of the new invading peoples. The Christian communities are heirs to the long tradition of the Patriarchate of Aquileia which lasted for over a thousand years and it was the passionate interest in their Christian origins which prompted the Congress. The Aquileian metropolis—patriarchal see until the eighteenth century and a crossroads where Romans and Illyrians, Germanic peoples and Slavs all met—was a cradle of monasticism and home to some of its greatest masters (Martin, Chromatius, Rufinus, and Jerome). These scholars have proven to be the beneficiaries of earlier exegetic skills (Victorinus, Fortunatianus) as well as intrepid and creative mediators of the highest and most controversial expressions of Greek spiritual and theological culture in the Roman world and of the rediscovered veritas hebraica of Old Testament sources. Lastly, Paulus Diaconus and the Patriarch Paulinus II distinguished themselves as inspiration for a modern European identity after its slow Christian and barbarian palingenesis. The Congress brought together scholars from Europe and America who are experts on the work of Chromatius—only recently saved from the near obscurity into which it had fallen in manuscript tradition—for the purpose of providing original contributions on an international level to Aquileian literary historiography, Chromatius in particular, not always taken into account and given due merit