Not news but confirmation. Alessandro Barbero, historian and professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont, receives the same acclaim as a pop star. “You know that his lessons appear on Spotify together with songs by Taylor Swift or Geolier”, points out a girl queuing to get the precious entrance for her lesson next Monday at 5pm at the San Carlo theatre. In Naples it’s been a while since we’ve seen such a long queue – a full kilometer from the Bronze Horses to the porticoes in front of the Galleria Umberto I – in the city center not even to visit the Royal Palace. Yet it was all for him. So much so that the Federico II University, which organized the event as part of the celebrations of the 800th anniversary of the University, preferred to choose the more spacious Neapolitan Massimo instead of the Mercadante theatre.
“He is a professor who is liked, who attracts because he explains the facts of history in a simple way – explained Matteo Lorito, the rector of the Federico II University -. His language pierces the screen, reaching even middle school students. He manages to transfer the most complex concepts with simplicity: not an obvious fact. Mine may be an oxymoron but simplicity is always difficult to achieve.” On Monday at San Carlo there will be 1300 spectators who had previously applied on the university website which was then overbooked: “The audience will be made up of illustrious personalities and Federicians, students and citizens and curious people – continued Lorito -. It is a clear signal that the Neapolitan public is hungry for history and stories. The local legacy of the 4 days, of Masaniello, of the Neapolitan republic of 1799 or of Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel certainly inspires but the story of Frederick II is extraordinary in many respects. He was a pioneering figure on several fronts: he knew about falconry, writing a treatise on hunting using birds of prey, he was the one who sanctioned the split between the doctor and the apothecary. Listening to his story from Barbero’s narration will fascinate and excite, I am convinced of it.”
Barbero’s lesson will focus exclusively on the path of the emperor who was a pioneer in establishing the oldest public university in the world in Naples in 1224 – not yet the capital of the kingdom at the time and which he defined as “pleasant” -. Today the Federician university has 80 thousand students, more than 3 thousand teachers, 26 departments, 30 locations, 200 study courses and branches in difficult suburbs in San Giovanni a Teduccio and Scampia as well as projections outside the urban belt between Caivano and Bacoli: ” An authentic pride – concluded Lorito -; so much so that the Pnrr funds rewarded us with the 400 million euros allocated for the creation of guesthouses for students with 14 thousand beds”. The meetings for the celebrations of the 800 years of the university included in the program in the “F2 Culture Dissemination Days” and coordinated by the vice-rector Rita Mastrullo will continue with the lessons of Massimo Recalcati on 22 March and Alberto Angela on 5 June.