About

I am a specialist in Renaissance philosophy and intellectual history and teach both in Italian Studies and in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance (which I directed from 2018 to 2023). I held a variety of doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, and taught for a few years at the University of Miami (Florida) before joining Warwick in 2006. I am Senior Editor of the book series Warwick Studies in Renaissance Thought and Culture and serve on the editorial boards of several journals and book series.

Research and Publications

Many of my publications have focused on the legacy of ancient thought (particularly Aristotelian moral and natural philosophy) in Latin and the vernacular in Italy. My interests, however, reach across Europe, particularly to France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. I have published on Renaissance universities (especially Bologna) and their configuration of knowledge and learning; philosophical commentaries and translations; ethics and politics; cultural polemics; and the history of libraries (particularly that of Ulisse Aldrovandi).

My most recent monograph studies the changing configuration of the disciplines at the University of Bologna. The Dynamics of Learning in Early Modern Italy: Arts and Medicine at the University of Bologna (Harvard University Press, 2023) argues that, between c. 1400 and 1750, the curriculum was constantly being reimagined, and that substantial changes can be observed from both the institutional and pedagogical points of view. For examples of my research on Renaissance ethics see my earlier monograph Aristotle's Ethics in the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1300-1650): The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education (Brill, 2002; follow the link for the Open Access version) and the collection of essays (co-edited with Sabrina Ebbersmeyer) Rethinking Virtue, Reforming Society: New Directions in Renaissance Ethics, c. 1350–1650 (Brepols, 2013).

Publications connected to the 'Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries' project (a Leverhulme International Network, of which I was PI), include the following volumes, co-edited with Jill Kraye and Marc Laureys: Forms of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2015), Spheres of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2020) and Management and Resolution of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2023).

Grants and Fellowships

In addition to a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Italy and an Ezio Franceschini Fellowship (SISMEL, Florence), I have held an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich) and a Villa I Tatti Fellowship (from the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies near Florence). I was the Principal Investigator for an AHRC standard grant on Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy and for a Leverhulme International Network on Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries. I led the Warwick portion of an ERC starting grant on Aristotle in the Italian Vernacular and have recruited several research fellows (including Marie Curie fellows) to Warwick.

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Supervision

I give close attention to my PhD students and early career research fellows already from the start of the application process and am happy to hear from potential, suitably qualified candidates. I am able to supervise in any of my areas of specialism listed above. I also strongly welcome expressions of interest for Feodor Lynen Fellowships.

Main administrative roles

Professional associations

• Renaissance Society of America; Society for Italian Studies; British Society for the History of Philosophy.
• Member, editorial board, for journals including Mediaevalia et Humanistica, Bruniana & Campanelliana, Italique, and Annali di storia delle università italiane
• Board member of book series: Studies in the Faculty of Arts: History and Influence (SFIHA) (Brepols); Semper Virens (Lysa); I sentieri della letteratura (Pàtron); Series in Philosophical Historiographies (Brill)

Qualifications

• BA (History, English, Ancient Greek; Bryan College, Tenn., 1987)
• MA (English, UNC-Chapel Hill, 1991)
• AM, PhD (History, Harvard University, 1997)