The habit of men to scratch (graffiare) the walls with signs, writings and drawings has been attested since ancient times. It is a kind of spontaneous communication, far from the constraints of any kind of authority, but it can provide a lot of information not only on who produced it, but also on the more general social, cultural, political and religious context in which it originated. The project entitled "The dream of freedom. Writing in confinement in Early Modern Italy (15th-19th centuries)" aims to extend the study of graffiti from the Middle Ages (historical period on which the ERC project is focused) to the centuries of the early modern age, choosing a particular kind of graffiti as an object of research: those made by individuals confined in prisons, both secular and ecclesiastical, and asylums. Through the identification and study of prison graffiti preserved in Italy and dating back to early modern times, some already known but many others partially or totally unpublished, the project has a number of objectives: 1) to identify new forms of text and language, highlighting the linguistic skills of the writers (including their ability, in many cases, to express themselves in verse), as well as their geographical origin; 2) to examine in depth, through the study of prison graffiti, the evolution of devotional practices in use in Italy in the early modern age; 3) to understand graffiti as elements that have helped to shape the socio-cultural identity of a place and of the people who lived there, as well as drawing on the field of investigation known as the "history of emotions"; 4) to conduct a comparison, on a historical and linguistic level, between prison graffiti and another source of study of popular writing in Italy in the early modern age, the so-called "cartelli infamanti" (infamous posters); but also between prison graffiti and those preserved in other peculiar detention facilities, the asylums. From the methodological point of view, the research will not only be based on the identification and analysis of prison graffiti and on the study of a bibliography on the subject that has so far focused only on some cases to the detriment of others, but also on an accurate research in State Archives, municipal, diocesan and inquisitorial archives, in order to collect information that integrates that which can be obtained from the graffiti.
The multi-disciplinary nature of the project, which will involve palaeographers, historians, linguists, philologists, anthropologists and art historians, will clearly emerge also in the products of the research and in the actions of dissemination of the project: a monograph, at least five articles in open-access scientific journals, the organization of an international conference and a series of meetings and seminars for dissemination in schools and cultural institutions, as well as the preparation of a virtual exhibition.