CONFERENCE: Longing for Languages of Love

Gregor Meinecke and Alana Siegel will present the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili”, a Renaissance text attributed to a certain Francesco Colonna.

Tuesday, September 8, 2026 at 6.00 pm. Talk in english.

Alana Siegel will cast a picture of the layers of language that the author might have been living in as she explores the textures of her own language world through photographic portraits and poetic composition. Gregor Meinecke will present the text from an art historical perspective, outlining the state of research on the work.

Gregor Meinecke is a PhD student at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, the University of Hamburg, and an associated researcher at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. In his thesis "Holy Script and its Bearers in the Image of the Italian Renaissance," he researches artworks that incorporate contrasting scriptural elements and their depicted materiality in paintings of the Early Italian Renaissance. Through micro-historical case studies and a comprehensive catalogue, he maps the diverse functions of (pseudo-)scripts ranging from erudition to heresy, from exclusion to markers of sanctity. Gregor Meinecke has been a long-term resident at Palmerino.

Alana Siegel was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned her B.A. in Language and Literature, with a focus on Poetry, from Bard College, and was awarded the William J. Lockwood Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing. After her debut book of Poetry, "Archipelago”, she published many chapbooks, including "Semata," "The Occupations," "Words from Ra Ra Junction," "Camera Karma Mark America" among others. This past Autumn, she completed a writing residency at Cill Rialaig in Ballinskelligs, Ireland, in which she began imagining her present multi-form work, “The Temple of Love.”