The Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome as the centre of a hospital system of European importance
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
The still active Hospital S. Spirito in Sassia was founded by Pope Innocent III around 1200. He entrusted the management of the project to Gui de Montpellier, who had already built up his own hospital community in his home country. Based on the documentation, found mainly in Roman State Archives and relatively consistent compared to the general state of sources on city life, this project shall develop some of the themes overlooked by research ...
The Council of Ferrara/Florence and its repercussions on the Greek Church of Southern Italy – a new beginning or an ongoing decline?
Dr. Thomas Hofmann
In the context of the Council of Ferrara/Florence, the Roman Curia and various social circles in Italy were confronted with Greek theology and culture at an increasing rate. This effect was strengthened by some Greek protagonists who remained permanently at the Roman Curia, for example Isidore of Kiev and Bessarion. The latter, also called Cardinalis Graecus, took various measures to reorganize the Greek monasteries, combining these measures ...
Der Dienstkalender Benito Mussolinis, 1923–1945
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer, Dr. Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi
Mit dem Forschungsprojekt zu Mussolinis Dienstkalender soll in erster Linie eine elektronische Informationsquelle geschaffen werden, die es ermöglicht, die Arbeitsweise des faschistischen Diktators auf der Grundlage seiner persönlichen "Terminplanung" darzustellen. In einem ersten Schritt geht es darum, Mussolinis tägliche Audienzen aus den Akten seines persönlichen Sekretariats zu erschließen. Wichtigste Quelle ist dabei der von der ...
Die Last von Achsenbündnis und Besatzung. Nationale Erinnerungskulturen und deutsch-italienische Beziehungen 1945 bis heute
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Die Schatten des Zweiten Weltkriegs reichen bis in unsere Gegenwart hinein: Die politische und gesellschaftliche Auseinandersetzung um die Kriegsvergangenheit (Kriegsverbrecherprozesse, Rückerstattungsdiskussionen, Wiedergutmachungsabkommen, Mediendebatten, das Bild der "sauberen Wehrmacht" auf bundesdeutscher Seite, das des "bravo italiano" und des "cattivo tedesco" auf der Apenninenhalbinsel) prägten einen ...
Elitenwandel in Italien im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Seit dem 19. Jahrhundert sind Staat und Politik in Italien geprägt von starken gesellschaftlichen Beharrungskräften. Der Elitenwandel war in der liberal-nationalen Monarchie ein eng begrenztes Phänomen, was sich schon in der hohen Exklusivität des Wahlrechts widerspiegelt. Die adelig-großbürgerliche Elite geriet im Faschismus unter Druck, ohne jedoch vom Regime vollends entmachtet zu werden. Der Sturz Mussolinis, der 1943 von innen heraus und ...
Collection of sources on the commune of Rome in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
Since 1998, as a permanent member of the DHI Rome, Andreas Rehberg has been engaged in the collection of urban Roman sources, thus continuing a traditional research area of the institute, which is linked to local and transregional Italian urban history. After a systematic review of relevant archival inventories in the early years of the project, a number of source materials, that had received little attention from the Italian side, were selected ...
Fluid borders. Early Medieval Southern Italy in the Interplay between Competing Religious and Political Powers (9th – Early 10th Centuries)
Dr. Kordula Wolf
The research project deals with the Muslim presence in pre-Norman southern Italy by analysing it in connection with both border-region issues and questions of perception and of dealing with cultural or religious differences. Based on recent approaches of transcultural research, this study challenges common spatial categories and stereotypical group assignments, which until now have influenced relevant scientific literature. The main focus is on ...
Genealogy and Heraldry in the context of Federico Cesi "Linceo" (1585–1630): an example of the reception of the Middle Ages around 1600
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
Inspired by his new research on heraldry in Rome (Collection of sources on the commune of Rome in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance), Andreas Rehberg has ...
Gathering and reworking information from Constantinople, Vienna, Venice and Rome (1664–1684)
Dr. Elisabeth Lobenwein
The project examines how Habsburg and Venetian diplomatic representatives in the Ottoman Empire operated, generating exclusive knowledge for their respective clients, and how this information was used politically and processed through the media of the time. The study is based on the idea that it is essential to examine the multiplicity of actors involved in the generation and processing of information and the corresponding means of ...
GRACEFUL17: Global Governance, Local Dynamics: Transnational Regimes of Grace in the Roman Dataria Apostolica (17th Century)
A cooperative project, Digital Humanities component at DHI Rome
The power of the early modern Catholic Church was based on so-called regimes of grace, which can be described as networks of secular and ecclesiastical influence. The "grace" of a higher authority, such as the Pope, granted certain individuals special privileges, incomes, or benefices. The organization of this allocation of grace was the responsibility of the Apostolic Dataria, an office of the Curia in Rome. They acted as ...
ID-NET: Ideal, Discourses, Networks. The Empire and the Kingdom of Italy in the 14th Century (1308–1378)
Dr. Caterina Cappuccio
On the basis of three conceptual categories – ideal, discourses and networks – Caterina Cappuccio's research aims to re-examine the interconnections between the Empire and the Kingdom of Italy between 1308 and 1378. Starting with the construction of the image of the 14th-century empire by Italian and German historiography, firstly a new line of research will be developed through dialogue between the two research traditions (ideal). Secondly, the ...
Imperial Imitation of the Papacy in the Early Modern Period
Prof. Dr. Alexander Koller
The universal pretense of the papacy concerning the spiritual domain in succession of the apostle Peter has been complemented at times by a more or less pronounced secular-political universalism during its history and combined with elements of imperial self-conception. In forming an image of themselves, the popes referred repeatedly to features of antique and medieval imperial symbolism, especially those popes whose name already suggested an ...
Italian Colonialism in One Family. Two Biographies
Dr. Nicola Camilleri
The research project focuses on the story of a family that unfolds in the Horn of Africa and Italy between 1880 and 1962. Through a microhistorical and biographical lens, I aim both to tell the story of the Sengal family and to outline the history of Italian colonialism from its very beginning to postcolonial times. At the center of the investigation are an Ethiopian-Italian father, Sengal Workneh, and his daughter, Elena Sengal, in their roles ...
Capitalism, what now? Growth Strategies in Western Europe since 1979
Dr. Lars Döpking
Economically speaking, Italy has recently been through hard times. Between 1999 and 2019 annual economic growth averaged less than 0.5%, resulting in high unemployment (especially among youngsters), collapsing household savings and political upheaval. These "lost decades" between joining the euro and the turmoil of a global pandemic are generally interpreted as the result of a long historical decline. Since Italy was unable to ...
The Coasts of the Patrimonium Petri as Hybrid Spaces
Dr. Kordula Wolf
Coasts are spaces that are constantly changing under the influence of very different factors. On the one hand they pose particular challenges for the people who inhabit and govern them, while providing them on the other hand with special resources and opportunities. A historical study of these near-sea regions as hybrid spaces incorporates several levels: a topographical level determined by the dichotomy and blurred boundary between land and ...
Re-constructions: Changing Times for Germany and Italy since 1989
Joint project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Resarch (BMBF)
The project "Re-Constructions of the German-Italian Academic Forum for Contemporary History and Politics", developed in cooperation with "Villa Vigoni – German-Italian Centre for European Dialogue" and funded by the BMBF, examines the patterns of reaction to political and social crises, starting from the situation triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic.
The part of the project being rolled out by DHI Rome (Max Weber ...
Repertorium Germanicum. List of people, churches and places of the German Kingdom mentioned in the various series of Vatican registers and in cameral sources
Editor: Dr. Thomas Hofmann
The "Repertorium Germanicum" is a collection of regesta which comprise the names of all German people, churches and places mentioned in the various series of Vatican registers and in cameral sources. It covers the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire, and chronologically the period between the Great Schism and the Reformation (1378–1517). The information is kept in a more
Shadows of the Occident. Catholicism in the Political Thought of Post-War Europe, 1945–1960
PD Dr. Simon Unger
This project examines the intellectual evolution of Catholic-conservative movements across Western Europe. Specifically, it focuses on the relations between Christian Democrats and former supporters of dictatorial regimes in Italy, Germany, and France. In this context, the project primarily analyses the role of the Catholic Church in Europe's political landscape. Thereby, it questions narratives of post-war historiography that mainly revolved ...
Dance/Music digital
PD Dr. Vera Grund (with Dr. Henner Drewes and Prof. Dr. Andreas Münzmay)
The aim of the project is to develop an editing method with which the information from diverse dance sources – iconographic documents, musical scores, drama and rhetoric schools, archive documents – can be digitally linked through a comprehensive multimodal structural model. With regard to dance, four-dimensional movement analyses (including spatial dimensions and temporal progression), visualizations and analyses of dance poses, ...
The Global Pontificate of Pius XII. Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945–1958
PD Dr. Simon Unger (Principal Investigator)
We are a group of historians analyzing newly available sources on Pope Pius XII in the Vatican Archives. Our team unites scholars from the German Historical Institutes in Rome and Warsaw, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Oxford, KU Leuven, Fribourg University, and Collegium Carolinum Munich.
While the opening of the Apostolic Archive in 2020 has been accompanied by strong media attention and many questions about the ...
Übergangsgesellschaften im Vergleich. Überlegungen zur "Sattelzeit" auf der italienischen Halbinsel und in Europa
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Ausgehend von der Analyse der Reaktionsmuster der Bevölkerung im linksrheinischen Deutschland und in Piemont auf die französische Herrschaft von 1798 bis 1814 zielt das Projekt auf eine Bewertung bestimmter Transformationsprozesse in Staat und Gesellschaft vom späten 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Restaurationszeit. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht die Generierung von neuem gesellschaftlichen Wissen, das sich erweitert um politische ...
