My research moves from the 16th to the 20th century, from the epistolary of the Estensi to the novel of the Giolitti’s era.
I mainly worked and work on Dante (and his fortune in 1600 and 1800), Goldoni (in particular his musical theatre), Casanova (two monographs and many papers), De Roberto, Brancati and Artusi. A specific field of my research concerns the correspondence of Lucrezia Borgia, Isabella d’Este e Casanova, also defined in ARCE and CRES projects.
The interest in rhetoric is one of my specific fields, mainly derived from the teaching of Ezio Raimondi and Andrea Battistini. The first research concerned the genres of rhetoric (Il Giudice e L'oratore, Bologna, il Mulino 2000), then I approached to the texts of rhetoric opened to dialogue with literature and society, privileging in particular its argumentative part, according to the teaching of Perelman and Lausberg (Presi dalle parole and Non sia retorico, Bologna, respectively 2010 and 2014). The recent and new projects on this area regard the rhetoric of silence, the relationship between rhetoric and politics and the one among rhetoric, medicine and literature.
I give a particular attention to literary divulgation, as I am sure of the importance of sharing researches in humanistic fields through a seminarian speech which does not exclude the prevalent part of non-specialist readings.
In a more philological field, my works concern the edition of texts of the 18th century, novels, autobiographies and corresondance.
