Dispelling the aura of a proper name

Listen to audio

What is ambrosiano ? How can we dispel the cloud of uncertain meanings that creep in and overpower us in the aura of a proper name? This is the aim of the lecture. It begins with the epicenter of the monumental space of Ambrosian remembrance in Milan, the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, in 1447. Il tempo della sancta libertà imposes the frenzy of Ambrosian remembrance. We focus in particular on the analysis of the Ambrosian reference in Angelo Decembrio's Commentarius de supplicationibus Maiis ac veterum religionibus (1447, ed. Francesco Gualdoni, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 40, 2000) and its attenuation in the rewriting of Supplicationibus into De religionibus et caerimoniis (1453). From this analysis, four principles emerge for the general orientation of the survey: it will aim for a distant and coldly methodical history of the construction of collective identities that renounces "knowledge by instinct"; it will not yield to the temptation of regressive history, but will seek to start at the beginning, to reach the point of repulsion of 1447, then to go beyond it; it will not be content to let itself be tossed about on the turbulent sea of the political manipulations of Ambrosian memory, but will describe the anchors of remembrance; behind Ambrose's name, it will seek his Vita, in spite of everything.

"The wind picked up. It has inflated our sails. The shore has disappeared from the field of our vision" (Augustine, Confessions [V, 15])
Frédéric Boyer's poetic work: history as a summoning power that brings the past into the present
Confessions or Confessions ? Augustine and the Christian reversal of the Confessio
Memory as the "present of the past": remembrance, belief, fiction
The scene takes place in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, epicenter of the monumental space of Ambrosian remembrance in Milan, in 1447
The body of the saint, the corpus of works (the opera omnia collected by the custodian of the treasury Martino Corbo between 1135 and 1152), the chanting of hymns: time at a standstill
1447, il tempo della sancta libertà, the frenzy of Ambrosian remembrance: time returns
A family of Milanese humanists: Uberto Decembrio, the father; Pier Candido the elder; Angelo the younger
Angelo Decembrio, Commentarius de supplicationibus Maiis ac veterum religionibus (1447, ed. Francesco Gualdoni, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 40, 2000): replacements and anthropology of religious belief
The attenuation of the Ambrosian reference in the rewriting of the Supplicationibus into De religionibus et caerimoniis (1453)
In the "breach" of the Ambrosian Republic
The historian "is the son of at least two epochs: his own and the one he studies" (Siegfried Kracauer, L'Histoire. Des avant-dernières choses)
The regressive method: following the oblique veins of memory with Denys Lombard
Does Ambrose exist? (in the manner of Jacques Le Goff): from Aurelius Ambrosius to Ambrosius episcopus, the name as remnant
Personal stance on Ambrosius: retreating to the point of incompetence and indifference
What is ambrosiano ? A cloud of uncertain meanings that insinuates itself and dominates us
Pierre Bourdieu and the proper noun as a stubborn invariance of its possible futures
"If he sets all that exists in ruins, it is not for the love of ruins, but for the path that is drawn between them" (Walter Benjamin, "The Destructive Character")
Vincent Descombes, Les embarras de l'identité : historicisation n'est pas fragiliser
First principle of general orientation: a distant, coldly methodical history of the construction of collective identities that renounces "knowledge by instinct"
Second principle: don't give in to the temptation of regressive history, start at the beginning, reach the point of repulsion of 1447, and go beyond it
Third principle: don't just let yourself be tossed about on the turbulent sea of political manipulations of Ambrosian memory, but describe the anchors of memory (liturgical, textual and urban sites)
Fourth principle: behind Ambrose's name, his Vita, in spite of everything: "one enters a dead man as one enters a mill" (Jean-Paul Sartre)