MedFest - Medieval Festival in Lombardy is an interdisciplinary review organized with the aim of enhancing the medieval heritage of Lombardy.
The fourth edition of MedFest2025 has gothic as its keyword.
Used by Renaissance intellectuals in a derogatory sense, to qualify the previous centuries as "barbarians," the term gothic became the mark of an entire era, associated with the style that revolutionized architecture - but also music, poetry, and philosophical and theological reflection - beginning in the 12th century.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
Extraordinary opening Civic Museums | From 6.00 to 21.00
(admission fee)
Abelard and Heloise. Philosophy, Love and Literature| 6 p.m. | Civic Museums Conference Room
(free admission, reservations required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
Lecture by Rossana Guglielmetti, writer and professor of Medieval Latin Literature at the University of Milan
In 12th-century Paris, Peter Abelard establishes himself as a brilliant teacher and experiences a tormented love affair with Heloise, which will have serious consequences for both of them. Their affairs are told mainly in the famous epistolary, known for its emotional depth and stylistic sophistication. Through these letters we follow their journey as lovers, spouses and finally monks, as we witness the tensions caused by Abelard's innovative thinking, which clashed with the more conservative sectors of the time.
I, Heloise. A Medieval Story | 9 p.m. | Cloister Civic Museums
(free admission, reservations required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
The theatrical and musical show retells the famous love story between Abelard, philosopher and teacher, and Heloise, his student. Based on letters, autobiographies and contemporary accounts, the tale adopts Heloise's point of view, highlighting her emotional strength and claim to personal freedom. Giving voice to the narrative are medieval vocal and instrumental music, including songs composed by Abelard himself, which accompany and amplify the inner experience of the protagonist. An intense and human portrait of one of the most fascinating female figures of the Middle Ages.
With:
Ancilla Oggioni, actress
Matteo Zenatti voice, harp
Elisabetta de Mircovich voice, viella
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18
I Carmina Burana: A Double Revolution | 6 pm.00 | Civic Museums Conference Room
(free admission, reservations required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
Lecture by Davide Daolmi, writer and associate professor of History of Music Theories and History of Medieval and Renaissance Music in the Department of Cultural and Environmental Heritage at the University of Milan.
The famous medieval codex inspired Carl Orff's work of the same name, which in turn contributed to the rediscovery of early music. The manuscript from which Orff drew the texts for his cantata is not one of many medieval codices of Latin poetry, but the first songbook ever conceived: a genre that would later have extraordinary fortune, with the troubadours and Dante.
VAGANTES - Music and Poetry from "Carmina Burana" | 9 p.m. | Cloister Civic Museums
(free admission, reservations required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
(Concert)With the document called "Autentica habita," in 1158 Frederick Barbarossa granted privileges and immunities to those students now called "clerici vagantes," figures on the borderline between jester-poets and ecclesiastics. These students and their learned teachers left us a poetic and musical repertoire of extreme interest to European culture, preserved mainly in manuscripts known as Codex Buranus or Carmina Burana. This repertoire was widely known in Europe, and of it a selection is offered that gives us a picture of a Middle Ages full of color and fun, enriched by biting satire and social criticism.
Ensemble Murmur Mori:
Mirko Virginio Volpe singing, symphonia, guiterne, drum
Silvia Kuro singing, portative organ, bells, tambourine
Martino Ismaele Arosio transverse flutes
Matteo Brusa citola, drum
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5
THE CATHEDRALS OF THOUGHT - Thomas Aquinas Master of Ideas in Images: The Anagogy | 11 a.m. | Sala del Rosone, Museo del Duomo (via Lambro 2)
(free admission, reservation required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
The monumental edifice of the theological thought of St. Thomas Aquinas challenges us to determine, by his principles, what Thomas left open
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
Black Sun - The Meridian Gothic of Nineteenth-Century Italy. A look from England | 6 p.m. | Civic Museums Conference Room
(free admission, reservations required www.medfestlombardia.com | info@medfestlombardia.com)
Is there an indigenous Gothic in 19th-century Italy, a local reworking of English forms and models? We find Gothic structures and motifs in a number of Italian novels, from The Betrothed to The Adventures of Pinocchio; the Italian "Gothic" path, highlighted by dealing particularly with The Nun of Monza, closes with the anti-rationalist and anti-scientific discourses that flourished at the end of the century such as spiritualism and occultism, increasingly fashionable in the popular press. There is no shortage of mention of nineteenth-century Italian vampires, which never ceased to surface even in the shadow of our black sun.
