RATIONES RERUM 27: Articolo Filomena Giannotti

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Rationes Rerum 27

FILOMENA GIANNOTTI
The “Invention” of St Ambrose. Dario Fo’s Stage Performance (on the Centenary of His Birth)

On the centenary of the birth of Dario Fo (24 March 1926), the last Italian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, this paper aims to highlight two works devoted by the artist to a significant figure from Late Antiquity: Bishop Ambrose. These are the narrative text Sant’Ambrogio e l’invenzione di Milano (2009) and the corresponding lecture-show, staged at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in the same year. In investigating one of the reasons behind Fo’s interest in Ambrose – namely the bishop’s struggle against wealthy landowners and his solidarity with people of humble means – the paper identifies a number of parallels with Ambrose’s De Nabuthae (1, 1-2; 13, 56; 15, 63). This important text of the early Church, in condemning the inequalities of the world and pointing to how a fairer society may be constructed, continues to probe our consciences today.