Personal Biography

I came (back) to CCC in 2021, after five beautiful years of teaching in St Andrews (2016–2021), and research fellowships at Magdalen College Oxford (2013–2015) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2016). I have been fortunate to be able to study and work in excellent collegiate institutions, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (2003–2008) and the University of Oxford (D.Phil. 2012). From 2010 to 2013 I worked as Assistant Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin, a rewarding experience that has helped me move beyond the classical horizon as traditionally defined. My career has been enriched by a diversity of academic experiences. I was visiting professor at the University of Turin in 2020, visiting fellow at Leiden University in 2015, and visiting student at CCC itself, back in 2006, where everything began. 

Research and Teaching

My main area of research is Latin Language and Literature, with a special focus on Early Latin (3rd – 1st c. BC). I have always been fascinated by this period, which is still largely approached from the biased perspective of canonical classical literature, even if crucial issues such as the relationship between Roman and Greek culture and identity, to name just one, are shaped at this time. 

I supervise(d) research projects on the origins of Latin literature, the language and style of Early Latin epic and tragedy, the Comoedia Togata, fiction theory in late Antique commentaries, Plato’s theory of humour, and Tolkien’s literary theory. I would be very happy to supervise research in any of the above areas, and beyond.

I was trained as a linguist and philologist, and have a special interest in ancient metre, textual criticism, and digital humanities. I have published widely in these areas but always tried to put my technical expertise at the service of broader issues, and investigate the mutual relation between the detail and the general picture (minima cura si maxima uis).

My broader cultural concerns are also reflected in volumes on the theory of Classical scholarship and the political history of Venice, as well as in substantial pieces on the ancient theory of comedy. My interests also extend well beyond the ancient world, and have converged into works on modern English literature and its classical ancestry. These include in particular a monograph on Tolkien’s theory of imagination (Cambridge University Press 2025), stemming from my work as Tolkien Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies and collaborations with the ITIA Institute at the University of St Andrews and the Oxford Tolkien50 project.

My publications include a monograph on the Verb ‘to be’ in Latin (Oxford 2015), and volumes on the Ancient Philosophy of Language (Cambridge 2019), Early Latin (Cambridge 2023), and Roman Cultural History (Oxford 2025). I am currently finalising an edition of and commentary on Terence's Heauton Timorumenos, forthcoming in the Cambridge ‘Orange Series’, and working on a commentary of Lucretius DRN 4 (with Fondazione Lorenzo Valla).

Selected Publications

Terence and the Verb ‘To be’ in Latin (Oxford: OUP, 2015)

Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation (Cambridge, CUP, 2015)

with T. Nelson and S. Rebeggiani (ed.) Pergamon and Rome: Culture, Identity, and Influence (Oxford, OUP, 2025)

(ed.) J.R.R. Tolkien and G.B. Smith: With Wind in our Ears(London, Palgrave, 2025).

with James N. Adams and Anna Chahoud (ed.), Early Latin: Constructs, Diversity, Reception (Cambridge: CUP, 2023)

with Barney Taylor (ed.), Language and Nature in the Classical Roman World (Cambridge: CUP, 2019)

'The Classical Style of Terence', in P. Dainotti, S. Harrison, and A.P. Hasegawa (eds.), Style in Latin Poetry. Trends in Classics (Berlin: De Gruyter), 37–53. 

‘‘Classical’ Narratives of Decline in Tolkien: Renewal, Accommodation, Focalization’, in M. Paprocki and A. Matz, eds., There and Back Again: Tolkien and the Graeco-Roman World, Thersites 15 (2022).

‘Terence and the speculum uitae: Realism and (Roman) Comedy’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 111 (2021).

‘Tamen apsentes prosunt pro praesentibus: ‘Proxied’ Absences and Roman Comedy’ in T. Geue and E. Giusti (eds.), Unspoken Rome: Absence in Latin Literature and its Reception (Cambridge: CUP, 2021)

‘Caesar the Linguist: The Debate about the Latin Language’ in C.B. Krebs and L. Grillo, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar (Cambridge: CUP, 2017)

‘Comic Lexicon: Searching for Submerged Latin from Plautus to Erasmus’ in J. N. Adams and N. Vincent, N. (eds.), Continuities between Early and Late Latin (Cambridge: CUP, 2016)