detail of Poussin’s The Plague of Ashdod
Interview with Columbia College Today on the topic of “Art in the Time of Pandemic.”
Francis Rocca, Rome correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, interviewed Franco Mormando for his article (March 21, 2020) about the relevance of reading descriptions of the bubonic plague epidemics in the Italian literary classics, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio and the Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni, in the context of the current coronavirus epidemic, as experienced by Italians.
Wall Street Journal on plague March 21 2020
Wall Street Journal Article
See also another article about response to the bubonic plague in past centuries, also based on an interview with Franco from the Catholic News Services (and hence published across the USA in various newspapers) on April 5, 2020:
https://cruxnow.com/covid-19/2020/04/catholic-church-responded-to-plagues-with-penance-prayers/
Man In Town (Italian online magazine of “educated” tourism): Italian journalist Elena Bianco truly captures the spirit of Boston-Cambridge, with interviews with local personages and beautiful photographs (FM included in both text and photos).
Melinda Henneberger, “Can lessons from other moments of mass hysteria help us end the one we’re in now? The Kansas City Star, January 2, 2022:
Henneberger 2022 Manzoni and Mass Hysteria in time of plague
The Washington Post, Tuesday, August 16, 2005 (interview with FM, as originator of the Plague & Art exhibition):
Il Messaggero di Sant’Antonio, July-August 2007 (a popular family magazine in Italy):
Messaggero di SantAntonio 2007
The Boston College Magazine, Spring 2009 (regarding Boston College’s public reading of the entirety of Dante’s Divine Comedy):
Boston College Magazine Spring 2009
New England Cable News, April 24, 2005 (FM provided translation and commentary on the First Mass of newly elected Pope Benedict XVI):
New England Cable News April 24 2005
The Boston Globe, November 30, 2004 (regarding FM’s mini-course at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on Christianity and the Arts):
The Boston Globe, January 25, 2006 (regarding FM’s nomination as “Cavaliere” by the president of the Republic of Italy):
Bernini Symposium, Harvard University, November 2012
