A meeting dedicated to Marco Polo
Knowing today the heritage that has been handed down to us through time helps us plan for the future. Starting from this concept, Unimore has created a cycle of conferences dedicated to “Cultural Heritage: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”, which kicks off with an appointment included in the initiatives for Unimore's 850th anniversary, dedicated to “Marco Polo, Il Milione and the Minerals along the Silk Road”. The event will be held on Tuesday 17 December, at 5.30 p.m., at the Complesso Sant'Eufemia (Largo Sant'Eufemia, 19 - Classroom B.04).
The meeting, held on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's death in Venice on 8 January 1324, will feature Prof. Maria Franca Brigatti of the Unimore Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences as a speaker. At the end of the talk, it will be possible to visit the Gemma Museum and see the minerals that Marco Polo described in his work “Il Milione”, a diary of the journey he undertook at the end of the 13th century to Catai (today's China), following a route that was to become “the Silk Road”.
The Million is not only a description of a journey, but geological assets, especially minerals, also occupy a prominent place within the book. Marco Polo was particularly attracted to gems (rubies, sapphires, topazes, lapis lazuli, turquoise and diamonds) and precious metals (gold, silver), but also to minerals that were little known in the West in the Middle Ages, such as coal, for example.
A large space is then dedicated to rock salt with the description of the “salt mountain” and oil with the description of the “oil fountain” at the “profile of Mount Ararat”. The “salamander wool” (today's asbestos) used to weave heat-resistant tablecloths and garments also strikes the narrator's attention, as do other materials used in jewellery such as jasper, chalcedony and pearls, which are given ample narration.
The next conversations, which will be held between January and February 2025, will tell the story of heritage in all its forms together with the recent restoration of one of the models (or relief maps) from the Gemma Museum's very important historical collection of cartographic works created in the late 19th and early 20th century by Amedeo Aureli.
Categorie: International - english, Notizie_eng
Articolo pubblicato da: Ufficio Stampa Unimore - ufficiostampa@unimore.it