– PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR –
Domenico Cecere
Domenico Cecere teaches Early Modern History at the University of Naples Federico II. He completed his PhD in History at the University of Bari (2010) and carried out his research at different Universities: Geneva, Naples Federico II, Aix-Marseille and Lyon – Institute of Advanced Studies. He has dealt with social conflicts and popular protest in early modern Southern Italy and with mobility and migratory flows in the cities of Mediterranean Europe, with particular attention to Naples. .
– SENIOR STAFF –
Armando Alberola Romá
Armando Alberola Romá is Catedrático de Historia Moderna at the University of Alicante. His main lines of research concern the impact of different natural, hydrometeorological, biological or health disasters on the society and economy of the modern age. He is the author of 170 publications and over 150 reports at national and international conferences. Among the main publications: Catástrofe, economía y acción política en la Valencia del siglo XVIII (1999),
Giancarlo Alfano
Giancarlo Alfano is Professor of Italian literature at the University of Naples. His most recent books deal with trauma studies (Ciò che ritorna. Gli effetti della guerra nella letteratura italiana del Novecento, 2014), history of ideas ((L’umorismo letterario. Una lunga storia europea (secoli XIV-XX), 2016), literature and psychoanalysis (Il testo del desiderio. Letteratura e psicoanalisi, 2018, with Carmelo Colangelo), History of Literature (Il romanzo in Italia, volumes 1-4, with Francesco de Cristofaro, 2018). He is now studying the literary figure of the impostor.
Chiara De Caprio
Chiara De Caprio is Associate Professor of History of Italian Language and Italian Linguistics at the University of Naples Federico II. She dealt with the writing of the history in the vernacular between the late Middle Ages and early modern times (Scrivere la storia a Napoli fra Medioevo e prima età moderna, Roma, Salerno, 2012), techniques of vulgarization and translation between the Middle Ages and early modern times (Volgarizzare e tradurre i grandi poemi dell’antichità (XIV-XXI secolo) in Atlante della Letteratura italiana, Torino, Einaudi, 2012).
Francesco Montuori
Francesco Montuori is Associate Professor of Italian Linguistics and History of Italian at the University of Naples Federico II. His main research interests concern the history of the Italian language of the fifteenth century, in particular in the Kingdom of Naples; the writing of history at the end of the Middle Ages; the Latin and vulgar works of Dante and their diffusion;
Valerio Petrarca
Valerio Petrarca is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Naples Federico II. His main research interests concern the history of popular culture in modern and contemporary times; the ethnographic survey in West Africa; the history of contacts between Europe and black Africa; the condition of African migrants in Europe;
Anna Maria Rao
Anna Maria Rao teaches Modern History and Methodology of Historical Research at the University of Naples Federico II. Her main research interests concern the social, political and cultural history of the eighteenth century and the revolutionary and Napoleonic age. She has dealt, in particular, with Bourbon reforms and feudal questions; history of books and publishing; antiquarian and collectibles;
Alessandro Tuccillo
Alessandro Tuccillo is Professor of Early Modern History at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. He has primarily worked on intellectual and political history of the 18th‐19th centuries, especially on the debates about colonial slavery. As part of the DisComPoSE project, he deals with the ecclesiastical information networks, missionary activity and devotional practices in case of natural disasters (Hispanic Monarchy, 17th-18th centuries).
Vittorio Celotto
Vittorio Celotto is Professor in Philology of Italian literature at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He is editor of the “Rivista di studi danteschi” and of “Ticontre. Teoria Testo traduzione». He mainly deals with Dante, the ancient exegesis of the Comedy , the comic and troubadour medieval poetry. He has published several journal and volume contributions on these topics. He edited the critical edition of the Excellent Commentary on Paradise , as part of the “Edizione Nazionale dei commenti danteschi” (Salerno Editrice, 2018).
– RESEARCH FELLOWS –
Gennaro Schiano
Gennaro Schiano is a fixed term Lecturer (RTDa) in Spanish Literature at the University of Naples Federico II and a member of the ERC project DisComPoSE (Disasters, Communication and Politics in Southwestern Europe). His research interests focus on popular informational genres and their relationship with high literature. In particular, he has been studying the representation of natural disasters in the relaciones de sucesos published in the territories of the Hispanic Empire, a topic on which he has recently published the monograph Relatar la catástrofe en el Siglo de Oro. Entre noticia y narración (Berlin, Peter Lang, 2021).
Gennaro Varriale
Gennaro Varriale is a research fellow at the University of Valencia, where he won a María Zambrano grant – European Union, NextGeneration EU, 2022-2024, with a project titled Informar de la plaga. La Monarquía Hispánica frente a la peste en el Mediterráneo moderno (INFOPLA). As part of the DisComPoSE project, he focuses on the production and circulation of news on natural disasters between the 16th and 17th centuries. He holds a PhD in History at the University of Genoa and the University de Valencia, with a thesis on the role of the Kingdom of Naples in the Habsburg intelligence against the Ottoman Empire.
Milena Viceconte
Milena Viceconte has been educated in Art History at the University of Naples “Federico II” (and in cotutela at the Universitat de Barcelona). From 2010 to 2013 she worked as a project manager and researcher for the European research project ENBaCH (European Network for Baroque Cultural Heritage), for which she coordinated, together with Ida Mauro and Joan Luís Palos, the printed edition of the virtual exhibition Visiones cruzadas. Los virreyes de Nápoles y imagen de la Monarquía de España en el Barroco (Barcelona, UB Edicions, 2017).
Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia
Yasmina Rocío Ben Yessef Garfia is a postdoctoral researcher at the Federico II University. She obtained in 2015 her Ph.D. in History from the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, for which she got the Extraordinary Doctorate Award. Previously, she had conducted postdoctoral research in Spanish and Italian centers such as the Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología de Roma (CSIC) and the Società Napoletana di Storia Patria.
Beatriz Álvarez García
Beatriz Álvarez García holds a PhD in History from the Complutense University of Madrid (2020), where she was a member of the project Conforming the Spanish Monarchy. She is a researcher at the Fundación Carlos de Amberes. Her research interests focus on the interplay between political communication and public opinion in the Early Modern Age, with a special focus on the diplomatic sphere.
Alfredo Chamorro Esteban
Alfredo Chamorro Esteban is a PhD doctor in modern history at the University of Barcelona with a doctoral thesis Ceremonial monárquico y rituales cívicos. Las visitas reales a Barcelona entre los siglos XV y XVII (2013), published with the title Barcelona y el rey. Las visitas reales desde Fernando el Católico a Felipe V (2017).
Matteo Lazzari
Matteo Lazzari obtained his Phd in Modern History at the University of Bologna in 2019. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II. His research is focused on African slavery in the New World, particularly in New Spain, and on the Holy Office of the Mexican Inquisition.
Anna Chiara Monaco
Annachiara Monaco graduated in 2014 in Modern Literature at the University of Naples Federico II with a thesis in History of Italian Language dedicated to the second part of the Chronicle of Partenope. In 2017 she earned her master’s degree in Modern Philology at the same university discussing a thesis on the strategies of composition and transmission of the second part of the Chronicle of Partenope.
Antonio Perrone
Antonio Perrone holds a PhD in philology at the University of Naples Federico II and Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis. His research deals with baroque poetry in Southern Italy and topics of disasters in the lyrical between the 16th and 17th centuries. He is currently a research fellow, teaches Italian literature at Federico II University and studies theory of metaphor. His research field is lyric poetry in ancient and modern age.
Umberto Signori
Umberto Signori is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II. He has been a research fellow at the Haifa Center for Mediterranean History (University of Haifa) and at the National and Koper University of Athens.
Antonietta Molinaro
Antonietta Molinaro is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests focus on Spanish Golden Age Poetry, both in its traditional and erudite forms.
Antonello Mori
Antonello Mori obtained a Master’s degree cum laude in Historical Sciences from the Federico II University of Naples with a thesis in modern history dedicated to the delicate balance of power between the State and the Church in the Kingdom of Naples in the late eighteenth century.
– PhD STUDENTS –
Valeria Enea
Valeria Enea graduated in 2014 in Modern Literature at the University of Palermo with a thesis in Modern History on the betrayed ideals of the French Revolution. In 2018 at the same university she obtained a master’s degree in “Modern Philology and Italian Studies” discussing a thesis in modern history on the encomienda de indios, with particular reference to the complexity of the relations between the Spanish monarchy, the Holy See, missionaries and conquistadors in the American colonial territories during the sixteenth century.
Valentina Sferragatta
Valentina Sferragatta graduated in 2014 in Modern Literature at the University of Naples Federico II with a thesis in History of Italian Language dedicated to the first part of the Chronicle of Partenope. In 2017 she earned a master’s degree in Modern Philology at the same university discussing a thesis on the compositional strategies of the commentary on the Comedy by Andrea Lancia, after a period of study at the Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle.
– PROJECT MANAGER –
Manuela Pitterà
She holds a M.A. degree in Modern Literature and is an expert in EU project design and management as well as in science communication and dissemination. She has taught European Project Design for Education at the M.A. level (Educational Counselling degree course) at the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa and at the teacher training level (PON-POR projects). She also taught Dissemination of Science at the PhD level at SEMM, the International School of Molecular Medicine of CEINGE, Research Center for Genetic Engineering.
Roberta Moscarelli
Project manager and trainer, she graduated in Italian Literature and specialized in designing and managing innovative services for publishing and libraries through new technologies. Since 2004 she deals with communication, content management and coordination of working groups in web-based environments. Since 2005 she has been developing and managing several European projects for third parties or for ARACNE Aps, a non-profit organization of which she has been president until 2017.
– RESEARCH ASSOCIATES –
Gaia Bruno
Gaia Bruno is a post-doc researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice for the ERC-2018-Advanced Grant project Water Cultures. The water cultures of Italy, 1500-1900 (P.I. Prof. David Gentilcore). She obtained her PhD in History of the European Society in 2016 at the University of Naples Federico II under the guidance of Prof. Anna Maria Rao.
Rosa Anna Paradiso
Rosa Anna Paradiso earned her master’s degree in “Modern Philology” in 2016 with a thesis in History of the Italian language which compares the lexicon of the three Italian translations of The Catcher in the Rye (1951) from a historical-linguistic point of view. In May 2018 she participated in the Seminar “La narrativa italiana del Novecento. Lingue, stili, tecniche” at the University of Naples Federico II,
Adrián García Torres
Adrián García Torres is a PhD in Modern History, a Lecturer in Modern History and a researcher in the History and Climate Research Group at the University of Alicante. His line of research is related to the analysis of the socio-economic impacts of natural disasters in pre-industrial times and the responses applied by Spanish civil and ecclesiastical institutions.
