Biography

Paolo Rigo, who earned a PhD in Italian Studies in 2016 from Roma Tre University—where he also earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Italian Literature—is a specialist in Italian literature. After several years of postdoctoral research, he has been a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Humanities at Roma Tre University since November 2023. He is also a member of several university bodies and holds editorial positions at academic journals, notably as editorial secretary for Dante e l’Arte and Scaffale Aperto. His work focuses in particular on the study of Dante and Petrarch. Since 2020, he has coordinated the international project Laureatus in Urbe, a collaboration between Roma Tre University, the University of Notre Dame, and Palacký University in Olomouc, and since 2023 he has participated in the PIM—Petrarch’s Italian Manuscripts research project. He was awarded a tied second prize in the 2022 Casentino Prize for his book Fluctuatio animi, as well as the “Ugolini Jr.” Prize in 2015 for a study on Mario Luzi and a special mention in the Mario Luzi Prize that same year for a poetic translation.

Collaboration with HiSoMA

Paolo Rigo’s arrival at the HiSoMA laboratory will strengthen scientific collaborations with Roma Tre University on the topics of humanism and intellectual exchanges between France and Italy in the 14th century. His visit is part of the Affrica – Petrarch’s Africa: Edition, Translation, Readings project, to which he is contributing, and will foster exchanges with a multidisciplinary team specializing in philology, codicology, and the reception of texts.

His research focuses on the intellectual, literary, and diplomatic relations between Petrarch and his French correspondents, as well as on the circulation and reception of his poem Africa in France. The study of manuscripts, letters, and unpublished sources will deepen our understanding of cultural networks and the dissemination of texts in the Middle Ages.

This visit will contribute to the laboratory’s research areas focused on manuscripts, intellectual history, and Neo-Latin philology. It will also provide an opportunity to develop synergies with other projects—particularly those centered on manuscripts and the circulation of knowledge—and to prepare an ANR application for the Affrica project. Joint publications and new Franco-Italian collaborations are also being considered.

Finally, the researcher will offer seminars and a lecture for students and researchers at ENS de Lyon and its partner institutions, particularly on the dissemination of Africa and the analysis of Petrarch’s correspondence. These sessions will contribute to the dissemination of research findings and to student training.

Major publications

Monographies

• Con occhi di dolor munti. Dante e l’invidia, Milano, Mimesis, 2025.
• «Prima etate». Studio su Petrarca e il Canzoniere, Roma, Tab, 2024.
• Lo Stilnovo, Firenze, Cesati, 2020.
• Fluctuatio animi. Studio sull’immaginario petrarchesco, Firenze, Cesati, 2018.
• «L’incantamento del dolce stilnovo». Studi sui temi e i motivi della tradizione lirica in Mario Luzi, Roma, Aracne, 2018.
• Squillò luce sulla metafora in Mario Luzi, Roma, Arduino Sacco, 2012.

Essays on Petrarch

• Roberto d’Angiò e Francesco Petrarca. Alcune puntualizzazioni, in Petrarchesca, XIII, 2025, pp. 25-37.
• «Io dico Dido». Un problema di stile tra medioevo e modernità ?, in Petrarca medievale, a cura di Sabrina Ferrara, Luca Marcozzi e Gaia Tomazzoli, Firenze, Cesati, 2025, pp. 353-369.
• Petrarca e i Colonna: oltre il Canzoniere, in Fragmenta Recollecta. Atti del Convegno petrarchesco internazionale a trent’anni da ‘I frammenti dell’anima’ di Marco Santagata (Pisa, 12-14 maggio 2022), a cura di A. Borrelli, con una premessa di S. Carrai, Roma-Padova, Antenore, 2025, pp. 531-556.
• Il ‘Triumphus Temporis’ e il ‘Triumphus Eternitatis’: l’estasi e la poesia, in Figure retoriche. Tradizioni, discipline, contesti, a cura di T. Agovino, M. Maselli, M. Staffieri, introduzione di B. Capaci, Milano, LED, 2025, vol. I, pp. 253-272.