Tobias Roth & Ensemble Semperviva

An era of curiosity and novelty, of chaos and a longing for order – the Italian Renaissance marks the beginning of modern Europe. Nothing was unthinkable, everything was permitted, everything was tried out. Author and translator Tobias Roth fans out the panorama of Italian literature from the 14th to the 16th century and shows a side of the Renaissance that is often forgotten alongside the great visual arts of the time. This magnificent treasure trove includes Petrarch’s grandiose love poems and the erotic poetry of cardinals, speculations on the sea route to the East and theses on white magic, reflections on human dignity and the equality of men and women.

The reading will be accompanied musically by the Ensemble Semperviva: Isabelle Rejall (vocals), Meike Herzig (flutes) and Bernhard Reichel (lutes) bring some of the multi-sensory music of the time to life.

Tobias Roth is a poet, translator and essayist. His sensational tome World of the Renaissance was published in 2020. This was followed in 2023 by World of the Renaissance: Naples, the first volume in the subsequent city series.

In the Slow Reading Room series