Amongst the many ancient authors that talk about Etruscans, Titus Livius describes them as the most religious of men. This aspect permeates every element of Etruscans’ social life. Religion influences deeply the relations among community members and the attitude towards the outside world, but also behaviour in everyday life and the relationship with the natural environment and with food.

Riva

Thanks to its wealth and simplicity, the Etruscan culture brings to the fore the close relationship that has existed between the history of the Italian people and its territory since the remotest antiquity. In the Etruscan town of Tarquinia in order to highlight the relationship between the territory, cultural artefacts and young people, the Chair of Etruscan Studies of Unimi has collaborated with a research project aiming at promoting the awareness of the local culture through actual experience. Social psychologists and archaeologists have worked for 4 years with adolescents and schools in Tarquinia, organizing concrete experiences and the production of materials for communication. The aim was to bring out the young generations’ knowledge, emotions, desires and the ability to promote the local territory.

Pollicino ONLUS

The characteristics of family meals are set within the cultural and social framework of every historical age. Today’s eating habits have greatly reduced the convivial dimension of meals. At the same time the spread of information concerning nutrition has attracted considerable social attention. Today the family meal has lost its vitality because of the increasingly rational and arithmetic approach entailed by a health-oriented food culture and the insistence on the principles of nutrition sciences. The welfare and wealth available in hypercivilized societies and their articulation in social discourses result in a decline of the symbolic and affective value of meals, divesting the action of eating of its relational status. The treatment of eating disorders has been deeply affected by these social and cultural changes, and their impact on the family meal has been deeply felt.

Riva

Collective planning of the urban space.

In Etruria the banquet ceremony was enriched with new details because of the contact with other cultures, from Greece to the Ancient Eastern civilizations. This is a central component in Etruscan culture: in the banquet, relational life finds its expression, both with respect to men and divinities.

Bonvecchio-Mazzocut Mis

On 21 October 2015 the conference: “The symbolic banquet. Feasts, banquets and bacchanals: between ancient rituals and modern anachronisms” will be held in the building of via Festa del Perdono. It will discuss the theme of the symbolic value of food, and more specifically of the resumption/revival of ancient practices and rituals in the modern and contemporary age. Experts from various disciplines, including Etruscan studies, Greek history and philosophy will debate on these issues with a view to re-discovering the cultural significance of our eating habits / dietary practices.

Morgana

Three days of initiatives devoted to the vocabulary of food and nutrition, which acts as a vehicle and an instruments for the construction of Italy’s image and as a testimony to the encounter between different languages and cultures. The event, organized in collaboration with the Accademia della Crusca, will take place in Milan (Castello Sforzesco, University, Casa del Pane, Biblioteca Sormani, Fondazione Corriere della Sera), includes round tables, multimedia installations, laboratories, streaming video connections with the descendants of Italian emigrants residing abroad, exhibitions, and a show in connection with the Dante 750 Project.

Cambiaghi

From classical tragedy to contemporary drama, wine has been frequently used on stage to represent moments of celebration or to bring abut tragic ends. Drinking rituals can take on different, often opposite meanings: from the poisoned glass which puts an end to the tragedy of Hamlet to the one which complicates the intrigues in the dramas about Lucrezia Borgia, from the happy toast in the Traviata to the ambiguous one in Cavalleria Rusticana, down to the missed toast in the close of the Cherry Orchard, this encounter presents a journey through the centuries and across the major theatre genres throughout history.

Mazzocut Mis-Cambiaghi

A scientific conference which will discuss the relationship between food and distaste in esthetics, in the history of theatre and in the arts. The conference will see the participation of guests with whom a collaboration is already under way: they will reflect on the relationship between taste and distaste from different disciplinary perspectives.

Menegazzo-Wagashi

An event that is unique in Italy in the EXPO period, offering the opportunity to discover the refinement of taste of Japanese sweets and their traditional link with nature’s rhythms and colours expressed through art, literature and the tea ceremony. There will be a wagashi demonstration by the chef of the historic Toraya brand and the tea ceremony by the instructor Michiko Nojiri of the Urasenke school. Maria Teresa Orsi will also participate.

Festivals, shows and rituals accompanied by music are depicted around the banquet in the real and underworldly atmosphere of Etruscan painted tombs. But they also took place in sanctuaries and in natural settings. They contributed to re-asserting the sense of belonging to the family and to the Etruscan nation.

Haus

The interactive multimedia workstation designed and built by the Music Informatics Laboratory is an instance of an Italian technology that has met with success internationally, obtaining the IEEE standards approval, a very prestigious recognition. It aims at enabling the user to explore all the materials relating to a musical work multimodally and interactively within an environment characterised by integrated access to graphic, audio, video and textual objects. This approach revolutionizes not only the individual’s enjoyment of music, but also music publishing and the entertainment market. The materials featured in the demo are courtesy of the Archivio Storico Ricordi.

Nuvoli

In the 750th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth, the Dante 750 project intends to demonstrate the extraordinary vitality of an author who, with his Commedia, shaped the collective imagination of the Western world. In order to achieve this aim, we have chosen the language of theatre (readings, dances, music, pieces…) … but not only…. The core of this project is the multimedia installation to be opened on 19 June in the Hall of Columns at Castello Sforzesco. Until October it will enable visitors to engage in conversation with a hologram of Dante and interactively discover the links between the Commedia and cinema and the figurative arts.

Riva

Etruscans had an excellent relationship with nature. They knew how to interact with it, and respect its elements. They lived in harmony with plants and woods, fresh and salt waters, and spaces on the Earth’s surface and beneath it. Mysterious gods communicated through nature’s signs, which could be deciphered thanks to the Etrusca Disciplina, the Etruscan religion.

Kater-Testa

The Fascination of Plants Day (FoPD) is an international event addressed to the public at large and to students, which aimes to highlight the importance of plants science, in everyday life and for our health and our nutrition, for the availability of raw materials, and for culture. The University of Milan participates in the FoPD with a whole range of events: exhibitions, shows, laboratories, conferences, guided tours, and many other initiatives, addressed both to adults and children, with free entrance.

Sena-Chiesa

The Exhibition “Nature and myth from Greece to Pompei”, curated by Gemma Sena Chiesa e Angela Pontrandolfi, which will be held at Palazzo Reale from 30 July 2015 to 10 January 2016, is the result of a collaboration between the University of Milan and the University of Salerno, the Naples Archeological Museum and the Pompeii Sopraintendenza (Monuments and Fine Arts Service). The exhibition aims at illustrating how the figurative representation of nature and of its relationship with man developed in the Greek civilization and later in the Roman Hellenistic world, emphasizing the Classical and Mediterranean roots of our society. The over 200 works on show, all of them with a high artistic value, have been brought here from the most important Italian and foreign museums. Painted pottery, votive terra-cottas, frescos, silverware and gold jewels are decorated with patterns inspired by fauna and flora, depicting marine environments and the countryside, and re-creating wonderful animated landscapes, as a background for myths and tales.