The National Library of Malta’s latest public lecture series explores how Greek and Latin culture endured through centuries of copying, print and literary reinterpretation
This autumn, the National Library of Malta, in collaboration with the Malta Classics Association, will organise the ninth edition of its Public Lecture Series, titled ‘Secular Threads: Greek and Latin Culture in Later Print’.
This eight-lecture series, coordinated by Samuel Azzopardi, Mevrick Spiteri and André P. DeBattista, traces the enduring, secular lifelines of classical poetry, philosophy and myth that survived through centuries of monastic copying, adapted into early modern print and ultimately found a permanent home within the literary holdings of the National Library. In doing so, it purposely shifts the spotlight away from standard ecclesiastical or administrative records.
Running from October 2026 through May 2027, the series brings together pioneering researchers, classicists and literary scholars.
On October 28, in the lecture titled ‘There was Once a Dream that was Rome’, Samuel Azzopardi introduces the series and how literary giants like Dante, Petrarch and Machiavelli interacted with antiquity long before the 17th and 18th centuries.
The second lecture is titled ‘Shakespeare and the Classics’ and scheduled for November 25. Prof Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone investigates Shakespeare’s familiarity with the classics. This will be followed by a lecture on the December 16, 2026, delivered by Prof. Horactio C.R. Vella, exploring how Vergil and Horace shaped the public image of Emperor Augustus. The lecture is titled ‘Perennial Moral Values in Augustan Times: Vergil and Horace.’
On January 29, in his lecture titled ‘Dante’s Classical Demons’, Dr Fabrizio Foni uncovers the pagan underpinnings of Dante’s Inferno, showing how monsters and demons originating from classical times appear in his depiction of the Christian idea of hell. Prof. Gloria Lauri-Lucente will deliver her lecture on February 24 and will offer a reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses within a contemporary framework of material interdependence. Her lecture is titled ‘Stone, Flesh, Flux: Ecological Entanglements in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.’
On March 30, Dr Glenn Bonnici will trace the role of Ulysses in modern Italian literature in the lecture aptly titled ‘Ulysses in Italian Literature.’ Dr Jurgen Gatt, in his lecture titled ‘Homer in Malta: Malta in Homer’, will explore Malta’s place in the ancient Greek imagination. Dr Gatt’s lecture will be held on April 30. The final lecture of this series will be held on May 26. Delivered by Warren Bartolo and titled ‘Ex Citatione: Sappho between the Lines’, this lecture will look at how Sappho’s work survived in other works, long before it was unearthed in Egypt.
The general public is invited to attend these lectures, which will be delivered in English at the National Library of Malta in Valletta. All lectures commence at 6.30pm. Entrance is free, and no booking is required. For more information, contact events.library@gov.mt
