Giovanni Brizzi was full professor in Roman History at the University of Bologna; he previously taught also the University of Sassari and of Udiene. In the academic year 1993/1994 and in the first term of the academic year 2005/2006 he acted as professeur associé d’Histoire romaine at the Université de Paris IV – Sorbonne.
He stayed and held conference and seminars at several Universities and cultural organizations abroad as: Fondation Hardt pour l'Etude de l'Antiquité Classique; Institut National d'Archéologie et d'Art della Repubblica di Tunisia a partecipare ai cicli di lezioni dell'Ecole Pratique en Sciences et Techniques du Patrimoine; Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III; Université de Caen; Université Paris IV-Sorbonne; Ecole Normale Supérieure; Ecole Supérieure Militaire Saint-Cyr; Centre Gustave Glotz; Maison Suger de Sciences de l'Homme; l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes - Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques; l’Université Bordeaux III-Michel de Montaigne. Finally, in academic years 2012/2013, 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 he held classes at the Université de Paris XIII-Villetaneuse.
He took part in several judging commissions for PhD, research grants and teaching posts in Italy and France; he has been, and he still is member of many international research teams (Université de Caen; Centre de Recherches et Histoire Quantitative du C.N.R.S.; Séminaire d'Histoire Grecque dell'Université de Liège).
He has been often involved by Italian and international judging committees for the evaluation of research centres and programs (Centre Glotz Sorbona, programma scientifico dell’Année Epigraphique, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, CNRS program on “War”, Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa, Centro SAET, etc.). He was member of the jury of the “Prix International Thapsus”, assigned by Tunisia for a literary or historical work concerning this country. He was one of the only two non-French European scholars to take part in the celebratory day for the 60th anniversary of the SO.P.H.A.U (Société des Professeurs Français d’Histoire Ancienne à l’Université).
He is fellow of the “Accademia delle Scienze dell’Isituto di Bologna” and of the “Deputazione di storia patria” for the provinces of Romagna; he is secretary for the “SISM. Società Italiana di Studi Militari”. He is the honorary president of the “Phoenician’s Route (Route des Phéniciens) and the “Cultural Route of the Council of Europe” (“Itinéraire culturel du Conseil de l’Europe”). He has been appointed “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques de la Republique Française” with decree of July 27th 1995 and he has been promoted to the rank of “Officier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques de la Republique Française” in 2007. In 1999 he received the award “Mario di Nola” by the “Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei” for the historical commitment and the results achieved with his essay Annibale. Come un’autobiografia.
He is interested in middle-republican age and especially in the Roman expansion from Tyrrenic to Adriatic area, in the II Punic War and the figure of Hannibal, and in the age of the overseas conquests. He is a specialist in ancient military history and he was sub-editor and supervisor of the section dedicated to Roman Republic in the The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Roman Army. He wrote a treatise on Roman republican age and four chapter (two of them with Dominique Briquel) of an analogue essay in French. More recently (2012) he wrote a general treatise of Roman history that follows original reconstructive lines, from the genesis of Rome to the birth of the Christian empire. He authored more than 300 hundred works and among them there are more than 20 monographs: many of these works have been translated in French, Spanish, English, German and Portuguese. He is a renowned specialist in Hannibalic history and ancient military history.
He collaborated in the preparation of numerous exhibitions (such as “I Fenici”, held in 1988 in Venice, conceived by Sabatino Moscati). He is still in the organizing committee of the important international conference “L’Africa romana”, organised by the Università di Sassari. In this university he has been one of the promoter (and then director) of the “Centro Interdisciplinare di Studi sulle Provincie Romane”.
He participated in radio programs (“Alle 8 della sera”, Radio RAI 2; “Il terzo anello”, Radio RAI 3) and tv programs (“La straordinaria storia d’Italia”, “Annibale”; “Spartaco”). He was part – along with Andrea Giardina, Angela Donati, Geza Alföldy and Robert Etienne – of the advisory group for the historical fiction titled Imperium (Luxvide) and for a similar tv program about Filippi’s and Atium’s wars for French television. He contributed and still contributes regularly to newspapers and periodical magazines, such as “Il Corriere della Sera”.
