Susanna Barsella

Dr. Barsella’s main area of research is in Italian Medieval literature with a specific interest in the literature of Early Humanism. Her publications range from Dante, to Petrarca, Boccaccio, Michelangelo, and on the idea of work from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Dr. Barsella’s interests also embrace twentieth-century literature with publications on Pirandello, Gadda, and twentieth-century poetry. She published a book on Dante’s cosmology: In the Light of the Angels. Angelology and Cosmology in Dante’s Divina Commedia, Florence, Olschki, in 2010.

Among her latest publications in this field are “Dante e la machina mundi. Modelli cosmologici e l’Epistola XIII a Cangrande della Scala.” Studi Danteschi (2019) and, together with V. Vespri, “Dante’s Cosmos and the Geometry of Paradise,” Italianistica 2021. Co-edited with Francesco Ciabattoni she has published The Humanist Workshop. Essays in Honor of Salvatore Camporeale O.P. in 2012. Together with A. Andreini, E. Filosa, J. Houston, and S. Tognetti, she co-edited Niccolò Acciaiuoli, Giovanni Boccaccio, è la Certosa del Galluzzo. Politica, religione ed economia nell’Italia del Trecento, Roma, Viella, 2020. Co-edited with Simone Marchesi, is the volume Lectura Boccaccii.

The Day Nine in Perspective, forthcoming for Toronto University Press. She is currently one of the organizers of the conference on Cultures of Exchange. Mercantile Mentalities between Italy and the World for the Center of Medieval Studies at Fordham (March 2022), and of the American Boccaccio Association Paleography Seminar (June 2022).

Education

• Ph.D. in Italian Literature, The Johns Hopkins University
• Master of Art in Italian Literature, The Catholic University of America, Washington D.C.
• M.Phil. in Economics, University of York (UK)
• Post-graduate degree with honors in Economics, Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant’Anna (SSSUP), Pisa, Italy.
• B.A. in Economics, Università di Pisa (Italy)