Congratulations to Konrad Eisenbichler, who, in December was elected Corresponding Member (Socio Corrispondente) of the Accademia degli Intronati di Siena by a unanimous vote of the academy’s General Assembly. Founded 500 years ago (1525) by a group of Sienese writers, poets, and erudites, the Intronati is the first regular literary academy in the world and the model/inspiration for the many other literary academies that were to follow in Italy and throughout Europe. h
Professor Emeritus Eisenbichler is thus the second Canadian to be inducted into the Intronati; the first being Professor Emeritus Rita Belladonna (York University). Both Eisenbichler and Belladonna have contributed significant research on the Intronati and Sienese literary culture in the sixteenth century; in Eisenbichler’s case, on Alessandro Piccolomini (one of the academy’s founders) and the women poets who gravitated around the Intronati, in particular Laudomia Forteguerri, Aurelia Petrucci, and Virginia Martini Salvi.