Papers by Cristiana Franco
D’Andrea, C. Chandezon (eds.), Circulations animales et la zoogéographie de la Méditerranée, Rome, l’École française de Rome, pp. 433-455 , 2024
Parrots are considered to have been imported from India into the Mediterranean area right after A... more Parrots are considered to have been imported from India into the Mediterranean area right after Alexander’s expedition. The extant sources, however, point to a later date and seem to indicate a route via the Erythrean sea and Egypt, rather than an inland path through the territories of the Seleucid empire. The bird’s popularity reached its peak after the Roman conquest of Egypt. Thanks to their exotic beauty and ability to speak, parrots replaced native corvids as the talking bird of choice in Roman imagination.
Zoomathia. Learning about Animals in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, 2023
In Accius’ Brutus (frr. I-II p. 237-8 Dangel) King Tarquin dreams of a ram who sends him to the g... more In Accius’ Brutus (frr. I-II p. 237-8 Dangel) King Tarquin dreams of a ram who sends him to the ground with a headbutt. The interpreters warn him that he should not underestimate someone he believes to be a dull beast (i.e. Junius ‘the Brute’), as he is in fact a knowledgeable person who will kick him out of the kingdom. By comparing ancient evidence with accounts of herding practices involving a trained flock leader in contemporary pastoral societies, this paper aims to highlight the relevance of the ram as the “distinguished” (intelligent and skilful) sheep who can best play the role of the future first leader of the Roman res publica.
On the Diffusion of Zoological Knowledge in Late Antiquity and The Byzantine Period, 2023
Il lessico della modernità, 2023
Il lessico della modernità Continuità e mutamenti dal al secolo A cura di Simonetta Bassi Con la ... more Il lessico della modernità Continuità e mutamenti dal al secolo A cura di Simonetta Bassi Con la collaborazione di Elisa Fantechi Volume Carocci editore Due volumi non vendibili separatamente a edizione, marzo © copyright by Carocci editore S.p.A., Roma Impaginazione e servizi editoriali: Pagina soc. coop., Bari Finito di stampare nel marzo dalla Litografia Varo (Pisa)-Riproduzione vietata ai sensi di legge (art. della legge aprile , n.) Senza regolare autorizzazione, è vietato riprodurre questo volume anche parzialmente e con qualsiasi mezzo, compresa la fotocopia, anche per uso interno o didattico. Volume pubblicato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere dell Università di Pisa, che ha avuto il riconoscimento di Eccellenza del per la qualità dei progetti di ricerca.
I Quaderni del Ramo d'Oro 13 (2021), 2021
This second part of the study starts with a focus on animal species treated as gendered pairs in ... more This second part of the study starts with a focus on animal species treated as gendered pairs in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. It then tackles the particularly complex question of the gender of the goose (χήν) and analyzes cases of discrepancy between the gender of the zoonym and the sex of the person predicted by the animal symbol that seem to contradict the principle of congruency applied to most interpretations of dreams in the treatise. A conclusion provides some general remarks on the relationship between grammatical gender of Greek zoonyms and the gendered characterization of the species and shows that, while influential, grammatical gender does not control entirely the treatment of the animal symbol in Artemidorus’ hermeneutic practice.
I Quaderni del Ramo d'Oro 12 (2020), 2020
The ancient Greek discourse about animals presents a principle of polarization along gender categ... more The ancient Greek discourse about animals presents a principle of polarization along gender categories aligning animal species with the “masculine” or with the “feminine” side, regardless of the referents’ sex. This process is partly driven by the grammatical gender of the zoonym, as shown by the frequent congruency between the conceptual gender assigned to the animal and the grammatical gender of its name. However, gendered characterizations cannot be always attributed to grammatical influence, as it is the case with species whose names are of common gender, i.e. they can be masculine or feminine (κύων, ὗς, ἵππος, ὄνος, ἡμίονος, χήν, βοῦς, ὄις, αἴξ, ἔλαφος). Animal symbols in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica offer clear evidence of “genderization” of the species, as it emerges when the animal symbol predicts the participation of either a man or a woman in the outcome of the dream. By analyzing a selection of this type of dreams, and confronting Artemidorus’ interpretations with the received lore about the animals involved, the paper aims at i. distinguishing between received and idiosyncratic genderizations, ii. suggesting different processes in the overall phenomenon of the gendering of animals (i.e. influence of grammar on culture, influence of culture on linguistic usages, polarization). After a general introduction, Part One of the paper focuses on dreams in which the traditional gendered characterization of the animal is congruent with the sex of the person in the outcome, and on the interpretation of the couple lion/lioness.
CRESCERE / SVILUPPARSI Teorie e rappresentazioni fra mondo antico e scienze della vita contemporanee, 2020
FULL Text available at https://www.unipapress.it/it/book/crescere-svilupparsi_275/
Studi italiani di filologia classica, 2020
The contact between metamorphosis, metensomatosis, and vegetarian precepts in Pythagoras’ discour... more The contact between metamorphosis, metensomatosis, and vegetarian precepts in Pythagoras’ discourse in the last Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses lays the text open to readings that undermine the salvific potential of its philosophical message. As the comparison with its model shows (Cic. Cat. 27), even the passage about Milo’s old age (Met. 15. 228-236) seems to imply that Pythagoras does not take much seriously his own role as liberator of humanity from the fear of death.
Dog's Best Friend? edited by John Sorenson and Atsuko Matsuoka, 2019
In ancient Greek literature the dog is frequently charged with moral flaws. Roman evidence is mor... more In ancient Greek literature the dog is frequently charged with moral flaws. Roman evidence is more eulogistic, yet the animal is far from being beyond reproach. In both societies the dog shared many spaces and activities with humans: dwelling places, food, outdoor sports, indoor entertainments. The paradox of the dog's bad reputation in the Greek and Roman cultures can be explained precisely in light of the canine inclusion into human society. The dog was held responsible for his/her actions and asked to comply with the human moral rules because it was coopted into the human social sphere of reciprocal obligations. Ancient evidence invites us to rethink the relationship with our dogs in terms of an "extended appropriate interaction", i.e. a social interaction with expectations on both sides, educational responsibility, and spaces for negotiation. This concept might help us reconceptualize the agency of the dog in the social environment.
STUDI ITALIANI DI FILOLOGIA CLASSICA, 2019
Discourses about non-human animal species played a role in ancient Greek strategies to construct ... more Discourses about non-human animal species played a role in ancient Greek strategies to construct and confirm gender difference. Notwithstanding the existence of male/female individuals within it, each species as a whole was often characterized as “masculine” or “feminine” according to grammatical gender of the animal name or, as in case of a common gender noun, based on certain features (appearence and/or behaviour) culturally ascribed to the animal. The goose (Greek χήν) falls into the latter category. In order to elucidate a passage in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica that objects to the masculinity of the goose as a symbol in dreams, this paper offers an overview of the prevailing gender characterization of χήν in ancient Greek texts.
A. Romaldo (a cura di), A Maurizio Bettini. Pagine stravaganti per un filologo stravagante, Milano, Mimesis, 2017, pp. 157-160, 2017
M. Bettini and W.M. Short (Eds.), The World through Roman Eyes: Anthropological Approaches to Ancient Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 275-298, 2018
A new discipline variously labelled in different countries (Anthrozoology, Human-Animal Studies, ... more A new discipline variously labelled in different countries (Anthrozoology, Human-Animal Studies, Zooantropologia) promotes approaches to cultural data which foreground animal agency and animal contribution to human activities and creativity.
Classicists’ shift of attention to the “animal question” is destined to produce new findings and more nuanced assessments about the relationships between humans and animals in the ancient world. The new approach will also provide different standpoints for analyzing relevant issues in ancient societies such as the construction of the “other” (outsiders, enemies, foreigners), crucial key-concepts (physis-natura, ethos, feritas), as well as aspects of literary reception. The case study offered in the second part of the Chapter (the rewriting of Circe in Virgil's Aeneid 7.10-24) aims to show how an analysis that foregrounds animal agency in the scene contributes to a deeper understanding of the changes undergone by Circe in being transferred from Greek to Roman culture and of the pressures exerted by the environment on the author’s process of reshaping his model.
Thorsten FÖGEN & Edmund THOMAS (eds.), Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, De Gruyter, Berlin-Boston, 2017, pp. 39-60, 2017
Traditional classical studies do not take stories of interspecies relationships very seriously, c... more Traditional classical studies do not take stories of interspecies relationships very seriously, confining them to the realm of anecdotes, paradoxography, myth, or ‘literary sentimentalism’ unworthy of consideration. An investigation into the vocabulary of the human-animal bonds seems to be a necessary step towards balancing the historical reconstruction of the ancient experience with other animals. Greek and Roman linguistic usages and traditional stories present us with some surprising aspects – such as the preference for metaphors and tales of erotic attraction (animals as ‘lovers’) instead of kinship (animals as ‘babies’ and the owner as their ‘mum’ or ‘dad’) – which question our understanding of that experience and call for a reflexive approach to the sources. Moreover, this paper suggests that interspecies love stories from Greece and Rome – myths and legends of animals in love with human beings as well as iconographic representations of human-animal intercourse – should be interpreted in light of the linguistic metaphors that shaped the conceptual domain of the human-animal bond in ancient peoples’ lives.
«ClassicoContemporaneo» 2017/3, pp. 1-25., 2017
In questi anni di rapide trasformazioni si avverte la necessità di ripensare gli obiettivi propri... more In questi anni di rapide trasformazioni si avverte la necessità di ripensare gli obiettivi propri di ciascun settore educativo. Lingue e culture classiche sono da tempo accusate di essere saperi obsoleti, il cui ruolo all'interno del sistema sarebbe da ridimensionare radicalmente. Per rispondere efficacemente a queste critiche non basta appellarsi a pur valide ragioni storico-culturali e a una generica utilità formativa del greco e del latino; occorre uno sforzo di rinnovamento metodologico e di ripensamento epistemologico, che sappia rimettere i nostri saperi in gioco nel dibattito culturale contemporaneo e dialogare con la società e il territorio, identificando nuove possibili utilità del classico. Nel contesto delle nuove classi multiculturali lo studio del latino può ad esempio essere uno spazio non solo per sviluppare una maggiore competenza linguistica, ma anche per esercitare pratiche di dialogo interculturale. La lingua-cultura dei romani stimola infatti in modo del tutto peculiare la riflessione sulle differenze: se è vero che i classici sono per molti aspetti gli " antenati " della cultura occidentale, essi meritano di essere confrontati con tradizioni linguistico-culturali extra-europee per rivelare fenomeni di distanza/convergenza, di riuso/abbandono, di persistenza e di negoziazione utili ad educare le giovani generazioni a una concezione flessibile e dialogica delle identità culturali.
«La revue des belles-lettres» , 2016
«Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica» , 2015
The idea of a society ruled by 'natural' principles and behaviors dates back to ancient times. No... more The idea of a society ruled by 'natural' principles and behaviors dates back to ancient times. Non-human animals have been summoned to play a pivotal role in the construction of this concept: deprived of capacity for innovation and creativity, thought of as completely controlled by 'nature' (physis, natura), animals would display a 'natural' moral order which should be an example for humans to follow. Animals as 'specula naturae' was a very popular theme in Greco-Roman literature and constituted the 'compelling argument' (Plato, Laws 836c) in debates about deviant and immoral human behaviors.
C. Franco, Shameless. The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, Oakland: The University of California Press, 2014, pp. 161-84
The chapter addresses theoretical and methodological issues at stake in studying animals in ancie... more The chapter addresses theoretical and methodological issues at stake in studying animals in ancient cultures.
Any anthropological approach to the classical world entails facing the specificity of the ancient evidence, which consists for the large part of literary texts. The peculiar nature of the ‘informants’ raises the question of how to deal with Greek and Latin literature both as 1. source of information about historical realities (human-animal relationships) and cultural patterns (common representations of dogs and other animals) 2. the final goal of our scholarship (close reading of ancient literary texts in which animals play a role). Combining semiotics, reception theory and anthropology (namely Eco’s concept of ‘cultural encyclopedia’ and Bettini’s theory of ‘symbolic affordance’) the risk of circularity can be avoided and literary criticism can shed new light on the ways ancient authors received and possibly reshaped (or played with) the stereotypes about the other species.
The final part of the Chapter outlines the possible ways in which Classical studies can benefit from and contribute to the contemporary agenda of the Human Animal Studies.
Spera L. (a cura di), Percorsi d’altro genere. Per una riflessione sui canoni storico-letterari, Pisa, Pacini, 2013, pp. 45-63.
H.D.'s rewriting of Circe betrays many influences: besides Homer, Sappho’s lyric poetry and the V... more H.D.'s rewriting of Circe betrays many influences: besides Homer, Sappho’s lyric poetry and the Victorian reception of Greek mythology are at work. Despite the prominence of the Greek models in H.D's poetics, her "Circe" seems nonetheless reminiscent of the Latin reshaping of the Homeric character, especially Virgil’s passage in Aeneid (7.10-24) and Ovid’s Remedia amoris 263-90. However, by endowing Circe with her authorial voice, H.D. makes the figure of the goddess something quite different from the powerless lover of Ovid’s poem. It is not out of weakness that she is willing to renounce her extraordinary magic powers in order to have her lover back: it is a choice that she makes according to a different – anti-epic and non androcentric – set of priorities.
Nel mondo antico in generale il rapporto della specie umana con gli altri animali è molto più str... more Nel mondo antico in generale il rapporto della specie umana con gli altri animali è molto più stretto, sia perché gli antichi interagiscono con le altre specie assai più frequentemente, sia perché molto diverso è stato nella storia l'equilibrio ecologico che ha governato le relazioni fra spazi antropizzati città), semi-antropizzati (campagna coltivata) e natura selvaggia. Per questo motivo le espressioni culturali della civiltà romana, dall'arte alla filosofia, dalla leggenda ai trattati tecnici, dalla divinazione alla medicina e alla farmacopea, pullulano di presenze animali, di figure zoomorfe e teriomorfe chiamate ad operare molteplici funzioni ideologiche, sociali e comunicative.
Nel mondo antico in generale il rapporto della specie umana con gli altri animali è molto più str... more Nel mondo antico in generale il rapporto della specie umana con gli altri animali è molto più stretto, sia perché gli antichi interagiscono con le altre specie assai più frequentemente, sia perché molto diverso è stato nella storia l'equilibrio ecologico che ha governato le relazioni fra spazi antropizzati (città), semi-antropizzati (campagna coltivata) e natura selvaggia. Per questo motivo le espressioni culturali delle civiltà elleniche, dall'arte alla filosofia, dal mito ai trattati tecnici, dalla divinazione alla medicina e alla farmacopea, pullulano di presenze animali, di figure zoomorfe e teriomorfe chiamate ad operare molteplici funzioni ideologiche, sociali e comunicative.
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Papers by Cristiana Franco
Classicists’ shift of attention to the “animal question” is destined to produce new findings and more nuanced assessments about the relationships between humans and animals in the ancient world. The new approach will also provide different standpoints for analyzing relevant issues in ancient societies such as the construction of the “other” (outsiders, enemies, foreigners), crucial key-concepts (physis-natura, ethos, feritas), as well as aspects of literary reception. The case study offered in the second part of the Chapter (the rewriting of Circe in Virgil's Aeneid 7.10-24) aims to show how an analysis that foregrounds animal agency in the scene contributes to a deeper understanding of the changes undergone by Circe in being transferred from Greek to Roman culture and of the pressures exerted by the environment on the author’s process of reshaping his model.
Any anthropological approach to the classical world entails facing the specificity of the ancient evidence, which consists for the large part of literary texts. The peculiar nature of the ‘informants’ raises the question of how to deal with Greek and Latin literature both as 1. source of information about historical realities (human-animal relationships) and cultural patterns (common representations of dogs and other animals) 2. the final goal of our scholarship (close reading of ancient literary texts in which animals play a role). Combining semiotics, reception theory and anthropology (namely Eco’s concept of ‘cultural encyclopedia’ and Bettini’s theory of ‘symbolic affordance’) the risk of circularity can be avoided and literary criticism can shed new light on the ways ancient authors received and possibly reshaped (or played with) the stereotypes about the other species.
The final part of the Chapter outlines the possible ways in which Classical studies can benefit from and contribute to the contemporary agenda of the Human Animal Studies.
Classicists’ shift of attention to the “animal question” is destined to produce new findings and more nuanced assessments about the relationships between humans and animals in the ancient world. The new approach will also provide different standpoints for analyzing relevant issues in ancient societies such as the construction of the “other” (outsiders, enemies, foreigners), crucial key-concepts (physis-natura, ethos, feritas), as well as aspects of literary reception. The case study offered in the second part of the Chapter (the rewriting of Circe in Virgil's Aeneid 7.10-24) aims to show how an analysis that foregrounds animal agency in the scene contributes to a deeper understanding of the changes undergone by Circe in being transferred from Greek to Roman culture and of the pressures exerted by the environment on the author’s process of reshaping his model.
Any anthropological approach to the classical world entails facing the specificity of the ancient evidence, which consists for the large part of literary texts. The peculiar nature of the ‘informants’ raises the question of how to deal with Greek and Latin literature both as 1. source of information about historical realities (human-animal relationships) and cultural patterns (common representations of dogs and other animals) 2. the final goal of our scholarship (close reading of ancient literary texts in which animals play a role). Combining semiotics, reception theory and anthropology (namely Eco’s concept of ‘cultural encyclopedia’ and Bettini’s theory of ‘symbolic affordance’) the risk of circularity can be avoided and literary criticism can shed new light on the ways ancient authors received and possibly reshaped (or played with) the stereotypes about the other species.
The final part of the Chapter outlines the possible ways in which Classical studies can benefit from and contribute to the contemporary agenda of the Human Animal Studies.
Sa figure en séductrice perfide ne cessera de se composer et se recomposer jusqu’à l’imagerie fin de siècle la montrant en femme-fauve entraînant les hommes dans sa sexualité omnivore. Au xxe siècle, pourtant, certains lui ont donné un nouveau visage, positif et émouvant, celui de la femme moderne et libre, affrontant la solitude de la nouvelle condition féminine.
5-6 ottobre 2021
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