Alberto Melloni
fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei, he is Chief Scientific Advisor of the European Commission since 2020, is a full professor of History of Christianity in the University of Modena-Reggio E. 2001, and Secretary of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies with Libraries and reseach Centres in Bologna, Palermo and Venice.
Prof. Melloni is also UNESCO Chair on Religious Pluralism & Peace at the University of Rome (olim Bologna) and Coordinator of the European Research Infrastructure on religious studies RESILIENCE, part of the the Esfri roadmap. He also founded the La Pira Library in Palermo on the History and Doctrines of Islam whose aim is to parallel the Dossetti Library in Bologna and to gather one of the largest libraries in the world for the history and doctrines of the various Islam denominations, confessions and traditions.
He is Coordinator of the National PhD Programme on Religious Studies (DREST) with 28 Universities and 43 fellowship and founder of the European Academy of Religion.
He also founded the La Pira Library in Palermo on the History and Doctrines of Islam whose aim is to parallel the Dossetti Library in Bologna and to gather one of the largest libraries in the world for the history and doctrines of the various Islam denominations, confessions and traditions.
He received several academic honors - Premio Capri Storia, Premio Nitti, Premio Omegna Resistenza, Wallenberg Medal, Puskin Medal - and he received from the Presidency of the Republic the honor of Commendatore al Merito della Repubblica and Commendatore della Stella d’Italia in January 2020 for his service to the Italian scientific diplomacy.
Professor Melloni serves the international Advisory Board of the Enciclopedia Italiana and on the Board of the international journal «Cristianesimo nella storia», Bologna; «Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique», Leuven; «Schweizerischen Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte», Fribourg; «Studia Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ», University of Johanesbourg; «Palermo Occasional Papers on the history and doctrines of Islam». He is also member of the board of «Common Knoweldge» edited by Duke University, together with other scholars and three Nobel laureates and editor in chief of the «European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy (EJCMP)».
He has been referee and qualified evaluators for the different national research Agencies and Actors in Italy, Belgium, Canada, France, Spain, the Netherlands and other academic bodies.
He served as Dean of the Dept of Education and Humanities in Unimore and he founde the early childhood education Phd of Reggio Children Foundation.
He studied history, church history and canon law in Bologna and Cornell University, UC Fribourg and he is a member of the Bologna institute for religious studies (now fscire.it) where he entered in 1982; he was a pioneer in the use of computer based analysis of historical sources (A.G. Roncalli, L. Milani, Codex 1917 and 1983, Vatican II, etc.) and digital based tools for critical editions, now developed in the research on Ai 4 humanities rooted in RESILIENCE.
He taught in the University of Bologna and Roma 3, before he took his present positions as professor in Unimore and Unesco Chairholder, and he has been Visiting at Cornell and he taught for seminars in Beida in Beijing, Fudan in Shanghai: he lectured in some 40 countries.
He has founded the series «Politics and Holy See in the 20th Century» (il Mulino, Bologna) , «Christianity and History» (Lit, Münster), «Christianity in History» (Brill); now he is responsible for the two series of the Foundation for Religious Studies published by Brill and by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Prof. Melloni was member and then leader of some International Research programs and acted as general editor like 5 volumes The History of the Second Vatican Council directed by G. Alberigo, mostly for the Russian and Italian editions; he was coordinating editor of the 10 volumes of John XXIII personal diaries; the three volume Costantiniana published on the anniversary of the so-called Edict of Milan and the two volumes on Cristiani d’Italia, both bublished by Treccani, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana; the 3 volumes work on Luther published in English, German and Italian, by De Gruyter/Il Mulino), the critical edition of don Milani Opera Omnia and the two volumes on Benedict the XV and WW1, published in Italian, German and English (Mulino/Brepols).
He is General Editor of the critical edition of the great councils of the Churches in the series Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta with the critical edition of the great councils of all the traditions in Greek, Latin, (vol. 1), Latin, Arabic and Armenian (vol. II,1-2), Latin (vol. III), Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian (vol. IV,1-3), Syriac, Arabic, Armenic, Coptic (vol. V,1-3) and some modern languages beside Latin (vol. VI,1-2): COGD is a special series of the Corpus Christianorum published by Brepols paralleld by the programs of digitalisation lnamed Mansi3 - Amplissima bibliotheca digitalis omnium conciliorum.
Among is 484 publications one may recall as the most recent books: e.g. Innocenzo IV: la concezione e l'esperienza della cristianità come regimen unius personae, Genova 1990, poi Fra Istanbul, Atene e la guerra. A.G. Roncalli vicario e delegato apostolico, Mulino 1992, Giuseppe Dossetti. La ricerca costituente, Bologna 1993 L’altra Roma. Politica e S. Sede durante il concilio Vaticano II, Mulino 2001, e Il Conclave. Storia di una istituzione, Bologna 2003, tr. In 4 languages; Papa Giovanni. Un cristiano e il suo concilio (einaudi.it, Torino 2009), Pacem in terris. Storia dell’ultima enciclica di papa Giovanni (laterza.it, Roma-Bari 2010), Le cinque perle di Giovanni Paolo II (mondadori.it, Milano 2011); Tutto e niente. I nodi della storia dei cristiani d’Italia, 1861-2011, Roma-Bari 2013; Il conclave di papa Francesco, dir. da A. Melloni, Roma 2013; Quel che resta di Dio. Un discorso storico sulle forme della vita cristiana, Torino 2013; Il conclave e papa Francesco, dir. da A. Melloni, Roma 2014; Amore senza fine, amore senza fini. Appunti di storia su chiese, matrimoni e famiglie, Bologna 2015; Il giubileo. Una storia, Roma-Bari 2015; Il concilio e la grazia, Milano 2016. Recently he contributed to Naming the Sacred a Unesco research on the Holy Places, and he editet the European report on Religious Illiteracy with Francesca Cadeddu. In 2019 he published his two last monographs: Tempus visitationis. Storia dell’intercomunione inaccaduta fra Roma e Costantinopoli, Bologna, il Mulino, 2019, 358 pp. and Rimozioni. Lercaro, 1968, Bologna il Mulino 2019, 380 pp.
The complete list of his articles and books in www.fscire.it
In the years 2014-2018 and again from 2019 he served as Advisor of the Minister of Education University & Research in Rome and columnist for «Il Corriere della sera» and then «La Repubblica» since 2000 and for Rai. He also serves as +1 representative in the unesco Global Alliance for the Covid19 Emergency and in the Board of the G20 Interfaith for the 2021 gathering of the G20 in Italy.
Address:
via san Vitale 114, 40125 Bologna Italy
tel.+39.347.210.2787,
melloni@fscire.it / alberto.melloni@hotmail.com
