The main objective of this mobility is to provide a course on a key-figure of the Italian Trecento, such as Cecco d’Ascoli, on which my research has focused for years. Cecco was an astrologer and a teacher at the University of Bologna ; his reputation soon became legendary because he was one of the first Dante’s opponents and he was burned at the stake as an heretic (and his condemnation was the only death-sentence in Italian Middle Ages). From the Counter-Reformation onwards, Cecco’s work was neglected, but recent studies have highlighted the importance of this astrologer and poet and his crucial role for his contemporaries. The course will therefore show new research perspectives on medieval poetry and be an occasion to reflect on Italian literary canon. The added value of the mobility for the host institution concerns the possibility to offer students a course dedicated to the multidisciplinary aspects of Medieval Italian literature, held by a researcher who has dedicated herself to this specific approach, by combining literary studies with philology, philosophy, history of science and history of ideas. Therefore, the course will be an occasion to propose a multi-faceted work to a students audience and to convert it into an educational formula. My research on Cecco d’Ascoli was partially undertaken in Switzerland and the book «Per raggio di stella» : Cecco d’Ascoli e la cultura volgare tra Due e Trecento (2022) has received the award for the Italian innovation in Switzerland by the Comites of Zurich (2023). Therefore, the mobility will be an opportunity to pursue a fruitful collaboration with Swiss Institutions and to establish a scientific dialogue with the research staff of the Italian Department at the University of Fribourg. The teaching program will analyse in depth the historical and literary context around Cecco d’Ascoli as well as his critical reception, and it will also focus on the most controversial passages of his vernacular poem L’Acerba, written in explicit opposition with Dante. The program will focus on 5 key-points: 1) The role of astrology in Middle Ages 2) Cecco d’Ascoli: from legend to history 3) Cecco’s Latin works and L’Acerba 4) Cecco and Dante 5) Cecco and the Italian intellectuals between 13th and 14th centuries. |