Donatella Tronca works at the University of Bologna (Ravenna Campus), Department of Cultural Heritage in the following roles:
- Adjunct professor of the following courses:
- Christianity and Cultural Heritage, part of the Master’s degree course International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage (I-Contact);
- History of Christian Late Antiquity, part of the Master’s degree course History, preservation and enhancement of artistic and archaeological heritage and landscape.
- History of Christianity (with Luigi Canetti), part of the Bachelor’s degree course on Cultural Heritage. Subjects covered in the teaching modules: Christianity and performance (2021-2022); The regulation of gesture in late antique and medieval Christianity (2022-2023); Gesture, sin and sickness (2023-2024).
- Research fellow in a project concerning the lexicon of the Vita nova by Dante Alighieri (ParNov – AlmaIdea 2022, PI: Nicolò Maldina).
- As teaching tutor for humanities research databases, she organizes workshops on sources for historical research (Laboratorio sulle fonti per la ricerca storica).
- Donatella Tronca coordinates the activities of Eurythmia – International Research Network on the Cultural History of Dance.
Donatella Tronca has worked at the Laboratorio di studi medievali e danteschi (LaMeDan) of the Department of Cultures and Civilizations at the University of Verona in the following roles:
- 2019-2020: research fellow in Latin Palaeography with a project concerning the juridical manuscripts held at the Biblioteca Capitolare (Cathedral library) of Verona (supervisor: Massimiliano Bassetti).
- 2020-2021: research fellow in Philology of Italian literature with a project entitled Fragmenta Literaria Antiqua [FRAG(i)LIA] (supervisor: Paolo Pellegrini).
- 2021-2022: research fellow within the project concerning the cataloguing and digitization of the medieval manuscripts held at the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona (supervisors: Massimiliano Bassetti and Tiziana Franco).
Conferences, seminars and workshops
- Western Michigan University – International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo/online – 8-10 May 2025): Session Images of Dancing Women in the Middle Ages: Joy and Sorrow (3): Postmedieval (Sponsor: International Center of Medieval Art – ICMA); paper From Salome to Jane Avril: Dancing Sorrow Between Religion, Neurology, and Medievalism.
- Pontificium Institutum Patristicum ‘Augustinianum’ – Pontificia Studiorum Universitas a Sancto Thoma Aquinate in Urbe: conference Nicaea 2025: Event, Context, Reception (2-5 aprile 2025). Paper entitled: Il Concilio di Nicea nei manoscritti della Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona: un’auctoritas tra diritto canonico e pratica penitenziale.
- University of Florence and Società Dante Alighieri, presentation of the book Christiana choreia. Danza e cristianesimo tra Antichità e Medioevo, by Enrico Magnelli and Barbara del Giovane, organized by Giulia Lovison (online, 11 December 2024).
- University of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Convegno internazionale di studi La ricezione del Simbolo niceno-costantinopolitano nella cultura medievale fra l’età carolingia e il tempo di Dante (Bologna, 12-13 November 2024). Paper entitled: Il Simbolo niceno-costantinopolitano nei codici maioris ecclesiae veronensis.
- University of Bologna, Centro studi Medical Humanities: Summer school La prospettiva delle Medical Humanities. Il rapporto col paziente tra evidence-based medicine e narrative medicine (2-6 settembre 2024). Lecture on Corea e ballo di san Vito: religione, danza e malattia.
- 15th MOISA International Conference, Theatres in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Architectural Spaces and Venues for Musical Performance; paper entitled: Bassilla in Context: The Social Status of Female Performers (Aquileia – National Archaeological Museum, 19-21 June 2024).
- University of Bergamo, international conference La Vita nova di Dante: un testo fiorentino; paper entitled: Dal vizio al compianto «secondo l’usanza de la sopradetta cittade»: la tristizia nella Vita nova (20-21 May 2024).
- Consulta Universitaria per la Storia del Cristianesimo e delle Chiese – panel entitled Furore e malinconia. Patologie dell’anima nella cultura medievale, paper: «Et est quaedam vagatio corporalis, et est quaedam vagatio spiritalis». Per una storia religiosa del rapporto tra danza e malattia (Roma – Università Tor Vergata and Università Europea, 9-10 May 2024).
- March 2024 – Visiting Professor at the Department of History, Bilkent Üniversitesi – Ankara, Türkiye. Lectures on Dance, sin and sickness in late antique and early medieval Christianity.
- University of Bergamo, conference Ripensare la «Vita nova» di Dante. Fonti e forme del libello nel contesto fiorentino, organized by Luca Lombardo and Luca Carlo Rossi (16-17 November 2023), paper entitled Le forme dell’immaginazione nella Vita nova.
- Universidad de Sevilla, conference Dancing in the Dark: la danza come espressione dell’oscurità (secoli XIII-XVII), organized by Isabella Gagliardi, Giulia Lovison, Clara Stella (25 October 2023), paper entitled L’invenzione moderna delle danze oscure medievali.
- International Dante Conference “Alma Dante 2021” – organization of two sessions entitled Parole nove: indagini sul lessico della Vita nova; paper entitled La semantica religiosa dell’immagine e della forma nella Vita nova (Ravenna – online – 17-20 May [and 29-30 September] 2023).
- Milan, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Dipartimento di Scienze Religiose, presentation of the book Christiana choreia. Danza e cristianesimo tra Antichità e Medioevo, Viella, Roma 2022, by Alessandro Saggioro and Marco Rainini, organized by Giuliano Chiapparini and Marco Rochini (3 May 2023).
- University of Turin, Department of Historical Studies: seminar on Christiana choreia within the Master's degree in Religious Studies organized by Andrea Nicolotti (28 April 2023).
- CMXXX Patrimonio dell’Umanità. A cinquant’anni dalla Convenzione UNESCO – Conference Itinerari tra il materiale e l'immateriale (Ravenna, 29 November 2022), paper entitled Lo studio dei manoscritti giuridici come esempio di valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale materiale e immateriale.
- Paper on Performance deforme: iconoclastia della figura in movimento at the workshop L’iconoclasmo bizantino, organized as part of the series Immagini proibite. Iconoclastie fra antico e contemporaneo (Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna - Ravenna 21 November 2022).
- Presentation of the book Christiana choreia. Danza e cristianesimo tra Antichità e Medioevo, Viella, Roma 2022, during the Festival di Antropologia e Storia delle Religioni "Nella Terra di Diana" (Nemi, 8-11 September 2022).
- Conference on La Performance prima della Performance. Dialoghi sulla danza dall’antichità ad oggi, organised by the Circolo Culturale Crociano – Parco Letterario Benedetto Croce e l’Abruzzo (Raiano, 5 August 2022).
- 16th Moisa Research Seminar on Ancient Greek and Roman Music (Bressanone/Brixen, 6-10 July 2022): Lucian On Dancing. The Art of Dance in Antiquity and Its Reception in Literary and Visual Media. Paper entitled: Where Orchesis is, There is the Devil: Christian Perspectives on Dancing.
- Department of Cultural Heritage (University of Bologna), roundtable on Confessione e penitenza nella storia del cristianesimo dall’Antichità alla Riforma (Ravenna, 24 May 2022). Paper entitled: L’invenzione dei libri penitenziali: un’ipotesi a partire dalle collezioni canoniche tardoantiche e altomedievali.
- Western Michigan University – International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo – online – 9-14 May 2022): Session Emotion and Martyr Celebration in Late Antiquity; paper Guilty feet have got no rhythm: dancing in martyr celebrations in Late Antiquity.
- Conference entitled Schemata sunt ornamenta eloquii: dalla danza alla Scrittura (6 April 2022) as part of the research seminars on The Roots of Writing, organized in collaboration with the ERC project Inscribe. Invention of Scripts and their Beginnings and the RAM - Ricerche e Analisi Manoscritti Centre at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies at the University of Bologna.
- Medieval Colors Network – International Conference The Traces of the Colorful Souls: Visual & Material Arts in the Chromatic Middle Ages (Madrid 2-4 March 2022), paper with Sara Fiorentino entitled Heaven is a Place on Earth. The significance of glass from the material to the imaginary.
- Associazione Italiana dei Paleografi e dei Diplomatisti (AIPD), VIII International Conference Città, cattedrali e biblioteche al passaggio tra tardo antico e alto medioevo: A partire dal caso di Verona (Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, 16-18 September 2021), paper entitled Collezioni di norme ecclesiastiche: verso un canone librario?
- International Dante Conference “Alma Dante 2021” – Session Amica sollicitudo: lavori in corso nella Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona, paper entitled La catalogazione analitica dei manoscritti come strumento e metodo di ricerca (Ravenna – online – 15-18 September 2021).
- University of St Andrews – Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research, Comparative Law Workshop 2020 – Law in Transmission: The Movement of Practices, Texts and Concepts across Time and Space, c. 400-1500 (5-7 May 2021 – online), paper entitled Canonical collections in late antique and early medieval manuscripts at the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona.
- Literary Society of Verona, conference on Verona Capitale di Stato (secc. V-IX) (15 October 2020).
- Together with Licia Buttà and Luigi Canetti, she organised the international workshop on Formae and Choreutic Rituals between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (10 December 2019 – Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna – Ravenna Campus).
- Société Internationale pour l’étude du théâtre médiéval – SITM Genova (8-13 July 2019), paper entitled In modum filiae Herodiadis: La danza del giullare.
- Université catholique de Louvain – Versions of the Apostolic Past: Ancient Translations of the Apostolic Fathers (22-23 May 2019) – paper entitled: The versio latina of the First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians.
- Comitato Nazionale dell’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire di Verre (AIHV), XX Giornate Nazionali di Studio sul Vetro – La multidisciplinarietà nella ricerca sul vetro (Ravenna 18-19 May 2019), joint paper with Sara Fiorentino entitled Heaven is a Place on Earth. Un progetto sul significato del vetro dalla storia dell’oggetto alla storia dell’immaginario.
- Together with Licia Buttà and Luigi Canetti, she organised the international workshop on Schemata and Choreutic Rituals between Antiquity and the Middle Ages (University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona, 11 March 2019), where she presented a joint paper with Luigi Canetti entitled Schemata rituali tra la vita e la morte: aiora e oscillatio.
- Classicamente – Dialoghi senesi sul mondo antico: ricerche e nuove prospettive nello studio dei greci e dei romani (II edizione) – Sentire il divino. Costruzioni e pratiche culturali tra politeismo e monoteismo (University of Siena – Centro AMA-Antropologia del Mondo Antico, 14-15 January 2019) paper entitled: Tra choreia e saltatio, schemata e turpitudo. I fondamenti antichi dell’antropologia cristiana del gesto coreutico.
- Coordination of and participation in the round table on the book by Alessandro Arcangeli, L’altro che danza. Il villano, il selvaggio, la strega nell’immaginario della prima età moderna, Milano, Unicopli, 2018, organised by Luigi Canetti and Nicoletta Guidobaldi (Ravenna, 10 December 2018). Title of paper: Antico pagano e moderno villano: una comparazione possibile?
- Conference Uomini e lupi: genetica, antropologia e storia, paper entitled Balla coi lupi: tra Baccanti e Luperci (Department of Cultural Heritage – University of Bologna, Ravenna 25-26 October 2018).
- 16th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) “Multiple Religious Identities – Individuals, Communities, Traditions” (Bern, 17-21 June 2018), panel organized by Mar Marcos (University of Cantabria) on “Multiple Religious Identities in Late Antiquity – with a focus on the individual”, paper entitled Dancing Outside the Christian Chorus: To Be or Not to Be a Pantomime in Late Antiquity.
- University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona, doctoral seminar entitled Dove c’è l’orchesis c’è il diavolo. Un approccio storico-semantico allo studio della danza nella Tarda Antichità (16 March 2018).
- Casa de Velázquez – La implantación de nuevos fenómenos religiosos en la Península Ibérica (siglos III-XI). Aceptaciones, rechazos y compromisos – L’implantation de nouveaux phénomènes religieux en Péninsule Ibérique (IIIe s. – XIe s. apr. J.-C.). Acceptations, refus et accommodements (Madrid, 5-6 March 2018): paper entitled Spumansque ore lymphatico bacchabundus: Dancing in the Christian Iberian Peninsula.
- International Congress of Medieval Studies (Leeds, 3-6 July 2017): chair of session 1325 on Otherness, Religion and Local Identities: Religious, Cultural Practices and Inclusion in the Medieval West; speaker at session 1728 on The Body on Stage: Otherness, Image and Gaze from Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages with paper entitled Out of the Mould: Defining Otherness through Choreutic Gesture.
- Workshop Corpi danzanti dall’Antichità al Rinascimento, Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna (Ravenna, 15-16 June 2017); paper entitled Aschemosyne esti tou diabolou: gli schemata cristiani del corpo.
- Uppsala University – International Conference organized by the Department of Linguistics and Philology, From the Human Body to the Universe: Spatialities of Byzantine Culture (Uppsala, 18-21 May 2017), paper entitled From the Musical Microcosm of the Human Body to Universal Harmony: Perspectives on Dancing in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.
- Poikilia: Corpi. Tra manipolazioni e percezioni, paper entitled Il corpo danzante nel cristianesimo della Tarda Antichità (Università Ca’ Foscari - Venezia, 29 March 2017).
- I Seminario nazionale dei dottorandi medievisti della Società Italiana degli Storici Medievisti (SISMED) (Salerno, 19-21 January 2017), session Pratiche religiose e interazioni culturali tra Tardo Antico e Tardo Medioevo, paper entitled Il gesto coreutico nelle culture religiose tra tarda Antichità e alto Medioevo.
- Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte Rom / The Swiss Institute in Rome, The Spectacle of the flesh. Iconic Living Bodies in Late Antiquity and Beyond (Rome, 30-31 May 2016), paper entitled Spectacula turpitudinum: dancing bodies between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.
- University of Padua – La Costruzione Culturale dell’Alterità Religiosa nel Mediterraneo Tardo Antico (sec. IV-IX) (25-26 May 2016), paper entitled L’uso della danza nella costruzione dell’alterità religiosa: la polemica antipagana e antigiudaica.
- University of Oslo – Institutt for kulturstudier og orientalske språk - PhD workshop “The Body in Cultural History” (4-6 November 2015), paper entitled Dancing Bodies and Possessed Bodies.
- University of Bristol, Centre for Medieval Studies – 21st Annual Postgraduate Medieval Studies Conference, Rule and Recreation (28 February-1 March 2015), paper entitled Dancing between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Christian Worship, Recreation and Prohibitions.
- Leiden University Centre for the Art in Society - LUCAS International Graduate Conference, Breaking the Rules! Cultural Reflections on Political, Religious and Aesthetic Transgressions (29- 30 January 2015), paper entitled Breaking the Rules by Dancing. The Regulation of Dancing between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.
- Italian Centre for Advanced Studies on Religions – Annual Meeting on Christian Origins (Bertinoro, 2-5 October 2014), thematic unit “Religious Practices in Early Christianity (I-II centuries CE)”: paper entitled Dancing in Ancient Christianity.
- Fifth British Patristics Conference (organised by King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London and Oxford University; London, 3-5 September 2014), paper entitled Late Antique and Early Medieval Patristic Manuscripts at the Cathedral Library of Verona.
- XII Seminar of the History and Theology of Mysticism “Claudio Leonardi”, For a critical edition of Ubertino of Casale’s Arbor vitae (Fondazione Ezio Franceschini, Florence, 9 July 2014), paper entitled Qualche osservazione catalografica sulla storia dei codici dell’Arbor.
- XVIIIe Colloque International de Paleographie Latine (Sankt Gallen, 11-14 September 2013), Le scriptorium, paper entitled Lo scriptorium della cattedrale di Verona attraverso l’analisi dei manoscritti delle opere di sant’Agostino.
- Medioevo in formazione. I giovani storici e il futuro della ricerca (Villa Lanzi, 5-7 October 2012), paper entitled La catalogazione dei manoscritti delle opere di Agostino conservati presso la Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona.
- University of St Andrews – The 2nd St Andrews Graduate Conference in Biblical and Early Christian Studies: Manuscripts and their Texts: Perspectives on Textual Criticism (8-9 June 2012), paper entitled The manuscripts of Augustine of Hippo’s works in the Cathedral Library of Verona.
- Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz (Forschungsschwerpunkt Historische Kulturwissenschaften): conference on Concepts, practices and narratives as tools of studying cultural history - Current research projects from the Later Middle Ages until the 19th century (8-9 September 2011), paper entitled Towards a catalogue of the manuscripts of St. Augustine’s works held at the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona: writings, readings and ‘overreadings’.
Higher education qualifications
Ph.D. in Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Bologna, awarded on 26 April 2018 with the evaluation excellent cum laude, with a dissertation entitled Christiana choreia. Un’antropologia cristiana della gestualità coreutica nella Tarda Antichità (supervisor: Luigi Canetti). The dissertation has been awarded the "Barbara Sparti" prize by AIRDanza - Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sulla Danza.
Master’s degree in History and Geography of Europe at the faculty of Arts and Philosophy at the University of Verona, awarded with a mark of 110 cum laude out of 110. Thesis in Latin Palaeography entitled Per un catalogo dei manoscritti delle opere di Agostino conservati presso la Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona. Scritture letture sovraletture (supervisor: Massimiliano Bassetti).
Bachelor’s degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage following the medieval archaeology course at the University of Bologna (Ravenna campus), awarded with a mark of 110 cum laude out of 110. Thesis in History of the Medieval Church entitled Il Volto Santo di Manoppello tra storia e iconografia (supervisor: Luigi Canetti).
