Dionysus magazine

The editorial choice that marked these first publications of the Institute expressed the need to combine philological study with dissemination , thus creating a magazine full of content but also easy to read, in perfect consistence with the line adopted in the staging of the plays at the Greek Theatre of Siracusa. The summary ranged therefore from insights about the playwrights of antiquity and the plays in the billboard to contributions on the relationship between ancient drama and figurative arts, and even texts on the rewritings of myth and ancient theatre in European literatures. But not only. The bulletins expressed a strong link with the current theatre season and published interesting contributions on its protagonists – actors, set designers, translators, musicians and choreographers – and on the experiences of staging in open-air theatres in Italy and Europe. A space was also reserved for events, with a real cultural newsletter, and for reviews. The search for interaction and “transparency” of the steering committee resulted not only in reflections and notes regarding the cultural choices of the Institute, but also in the publication of the economic report of the activities.
In 1929 the publication began to take the form of a magazine with a periodicity of six bimonthly issues; in 1931 the magazine “Dioniso” was born with the caption “Dioniso.“ Bulletin of the National Institute of Ancient Drama “. The editorial staff was composed by the archaeologist Biagio Pace (president of the Institute), and well-known scholars such as Ettore Bignone, G. Alfredo Cesareo, Nicola Festa. Compared to the previous publication, “Dioniso” immediately became a specialized magazine – substantially released, from a thematic point of view, from the current theatre season – and hosted contributions of classical philology and literary criticism, archeology studies, reviews, essays on topics of classical tradition. The magazine maintained the same line in the 1950s and 1960s under Raffaele Cantarella’s twenty-year direction. In 1960, from “Bulletin of the National Institute of Ancient Drama”, the magazine “Dionysus” became “Quarterly of studies on ancient drama” although the quarterly was respected in the numbering rather than in the issues. Under the heading of “Steering Committee” (and, then, Editorial Committee) we find Paolo Enrico Arias, Raffaele Cantarella, Giacopo Caputo, Quintino Cataudella, Francesco Della Corte, Vittorio De Falco, Eugenio Della Valle, Santo Mazzarino, Ettore Paratore, Nino Sammartano (commissioner of the Institute), Manara Valgimigli. This edition restored an important relationship with the theatrical season, reserving a conspicuous space for Aeschylus precisely in the year of the staging of the entire Orestiade, to which a conference was dedicated, and its proceedings were published. This issue of “Dioniso” also hosted set photos of the play directed by the Gassmann-Lucignani duo, with an editorial choice that recalled the first publications of the Committee. The Proceedings of the International Congresses of Studies on Ancient Drama published in the volumes of 1965, 1967, 1969 were also printed.
After a period of institutional crisis of the INDA, the following publication resumed in 1975 with volume XLV, 1971-74, including the proceedings of the IV International Congress of Studies on Ancient Drama. In 1976 the magazine gave up the quarterly direction, and was named “Review of studies on ancient theatre”; the publication of the Proceedings of the International Congresses also continued. In 1989 substantial changes were introduced in the magazine, directed – since the late 1970s – by Giusto Monaco and Dario Del Corno. It was, in fact, decided to give it a new structure, dividing the volume into two annual publications every six months; the first part of each issue contained philological and theatrological contributions, the second reviews and experiences related to the theatre in progress, with the intention of informing the reader about performances and reinterpretations of texts from the ancient Greek and Latin repertoire through reviews or reports by collaborators and theatre experts. The introductory programmatic note to the first issue of this series clearly expressed the search for a “position of theatrical militancy”, which allowed “to approach the ancient theatrical sector in the double aspect of the word to be interpreted in its theatrical and philological dimension, and of word understood as a “pre-text”, and therefore meant to deal with a scene, a space, a performance ”. In the same year the proceedings of the XII International Congress of Ancient Drama were published. The publication continued until 1994 and, after a hiatus of six years, resumed in 2002, in a renewed form, as the annual magazine of the INDA Foundation. In this new version, between 2002 and 2008, six volumes were published, edited by the Palumbo publishing house, under the direction of Giusto Picone. The editorial committee was composed by Angela Andrisano, Caterina Barone, Oscar Belvedere, Gianni Guastella, Olimpia Imperio, Giuseppina Sartorio Pisani, Nicola Savarese, Maria Clara Ruggieri Tricoli. The magazine initially included three thematic sections (“Texts”, “Scene”, “Monuments”) respectively dedicated to Greek-Latin dramaturgy themes, interventions on the theoretical problems of staging ancient texts, purely archaeological and museographic issues. In 2006 it was decided to add a specific space dedicated to the study of the classical tradition, the section “After Antiquity” which hosted both contributions dedicated to the traditional themes of the “fortune of the ancient”, and broader reflections on the cultural filters through which the ancient Theatre has been read and reinterpreted in modern and contemporary culture. The sixth volume of the new Dionysus series, published in 2008, also contained the proceedings of the INDA conference “Cry and laughter in Greek and Latin theatre” (25-28 September 2003).
After an interruption of a few years, a new series began with the 2011 issue. The magazine is directed by Guido Paduano, has a scientific Committee composed by Remo Bodei, Massimo Cacciari, Bruno Cagli, Luciano Canfora, Giovanni Cerri, Maria Grazia Ciani , Giulio Ferroni, Erika Fischer- Lichte, Hellmut Flashar, Helene Foley, Nadia Fusini, Delia Gambelli, Mario Martone, Marianne McDonald, Carles Miralles, Bernd Seidensticker, Richard Tarrant, Alfonso Traina, Giuseppe Voza. The members of the editorial Board are Anna Beltrametti, Elena Fabbro, Massimo Fusillo, Alessandro Grilli, Serena Mirto, Maria Pia Pattoni, Alessandra Pedersoli, Gianna Petrone, Stefania Rimini, Elena Rossi, Margherita Rubino.
The magazine is published annually, with peer-reviewed contributions on ancient theatre, on its fortune in modern age and problems related to staging.