Dr. Gaia Gubbini is a researcher at Freie Universitaet Berlin with an independent position funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung. She has been at the FUB since 2013, first as research fellow with a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (2013–2015), and then within the framework of the ERC-funded “DramaNet” project (2015–2016). Previously, she was research fellow at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (2012–2013). Her work focuses on the relationship between body and spirit and the role of imaginatio in Medieval Romance literature, the idea of love in Dante and Petrarch, Arthurian myths in Ancient French literature, Troubadour poetry, and the senses. She has published extensively on these topics; her monographs in this respect are: Tactus, osculum, factum:Il senso del tatto e il desiderio nella lirica trobadorica; and Passione in assenza. Lessico della lirica e temi del romanzo nella Francia medievale.

Troubadours in Time. The Manuscript Tradition as a Material ‘Trace’ of a Cultural History

Troubadour poetry flourished as the first lyric tradition of Medieval Europe; for centuries, it had a major influence on the future development of the genre. Is it possible to trace a ‘history’ of Troubadour poetry—of its fundamental notions, controversies, and debates—across centuries, authors, and manuscripts? Might one disclose a literary—and, more broadly, cultural—evolution within the genre, and specifically also by recourse to the written traces that have survived in material form? This paper deals with the aforesaid questions by placing Troubadour poetry in a temporal succession—and by reading texts and manuscripts in their historical contexts.