PERSONAL INFORMATION
Beretta, Marco
Researcher unique identifier: orcid.org/0000-0002-4102-571X
Date of birth: 20/09/1962
Website: https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marco.beretta/en
• EDUCATION
1994 PhD in History of Science and Ideas, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, Sweden
1986 BA with honours in History of Science, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, University of Milan, Italy
• CURRENT POSITION
2005 – Professor of History of Science, Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna, Italy
• PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2004 – 2012 Vice director of the Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy
2000 – 2005 Associate Professor of History of Science, University of Bologna, Italy
1995 – 2000 Research fellow at Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy
1994 Research fellow at the Office of History of Science, Uppsala University, Sweden
• FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
2022 HIST Award for outstanding achievement in the history of chemistry (from the Division of the History of Chemistry of the Americal Chemical Society)
2019 – PI of a national research project (Prin 2017) coordinating four University teams of researchers (Bologna, Cagliari, Insubria, and Pisa, Italy)
2018 Franklin-Lavoisier Prize awarded by the Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie (Paris) and Science History Institute (Philadelphia) to the Comité Lavoisier
2019 Invited Professor at the Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, USA
2017 – 2021 Co-director (with P. Brenni) of a scientific project at the Musée des arts et métiers, Paris, France
2014 – Elected effective member of the International Academy of the History of Science
2015 Invited Professor at the Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, CNRS‐ENS‐Paris 1, France
2013 Paul-Bunge-Prize awarded for my monograph The Alchemy of Glass (pub. end 2009)
2006 Honourable mention winner of the Dibner Award for outstanding museum work by the Society for the History of Technology (exhibit: Arts et sciences. Le verre dans l’Empire romain, Paris la Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, France)
2005 Research fellowship of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Centre for the History of science, Stockholm, Sweden
2001 Invited Professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan
1998 Post rouge at the Centre de Recherche en Histoires des Sciences et des Techniques, CNRS, Paris, France
1995 – 1997 Research Fellowship at the Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy
1995 Prize for young historians awarded by the International Academy of History of Science
1995 Lindroth & Nordström Prize for best PhD thesis
1992 Research Grant, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, USA
1992 – 1994 Research Doctoral Fellowship, Office for History of Science, Uppsala University, Sweden
1990 Partington Prize awarded by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry for best essay in the history of chemistry (published in Ambix the same year)
1989 Research Fellowship awarded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affair
1987 Scholarship of the Swedish Institute for research at the Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, Sweden
1986 Scholarship awarded by the Fondazione Confalonieri, University of Milan, Italy
• TEACHING ACTIVITIES
2000 – 2022 Courses in History of Science (introduction, BA); History of Science and Technology in Classical Antiquity (advanced, MA); History of Medieval Navigation (advanced, MA); The Scientific Revolution through its Instruments (advanced, MA), Informatics and History of Science (Master in scientific museology), Material History of Science (PhD seminars)
• MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO THE EARLY CAREER OF EXCELLENT RESEARCHERS
I have supervised several PhD students. Among them Matteo Martelli (recipient of an ERC consolidator grant in 2016) has been appointed full professor in 2020; Francesco Barreca is research fellow at the University of Milano; Gerardo Ienna recipient of a Marie-Curie Global Research Fellowiship; Alice Graziadei (PhD 2020) has won a scholarship at the Montessori Archive Institute in Amsterdam. I am currently supervising the Phd thesis by Noemi Di Tommaso, Elena Danieli and Stefano Mulas. Regarding post-doctoral researchers I am currently the co-tutor for José Beltran (Marie Curie grant, EHESS Paris – University of Bologna) and the tutor of Francesca Antonelli and Luca Tonetti (postdoctoral fellows)
• INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
2022 – President of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Ulisse Aldrovandi (funded by the Ministry of Culture – MIBAC)
2019 – Elected member of the Scientific Committee of the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy
2016 – Director of OFFISS University of Bologna, Italy
2016 – 2019 Coordinator of PhD Programme of Philosophy, Science, Cognition, and Semiotics (PSCS), University of Bologna, Italy
2009 – 2012 Manager of the new website of the Museo Galileo, Italy www.museogalileo.it
2001 – 2017 Elected (three times) member of the Scientific Council of the Museo di Palazzo Poggi of the University of Bologna, Italy
• COMMISSIONS OF TRUST AND EDITORIAL ROLES
2022 – Co – editor of Aldrovandiana. Historical Studies in Natural History (international journal OA published by Bononia University Press)
2021 – Member of the editorial board of Physis. International Journal of History of Science
2018 – Elected member of the editorial board of the Archives internationales d’histoires des sciences
2017 – Editor of Storie di scienza (book series published by Editrice Bibliografica, Milan)
2016 – Member of the International Advisory Board of the ERC grant AlchemEast
2016 – Co-editor with Sven Dupré of Nuncius Series: Studies and Sources in the Material and Visual History of Science (Brill)
2016 – Elected member of the editorial boards of Substantia: International Journal of History of Chemistry, of Nuncius and of Organon
2015 – Elected member of the editorial board of Lychnos: An Annual for History of Ideas and Science
2012 – 2016 Member of the International Advisory Board of the project Science and Modernization in Sweden, promoted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
2011 – 2012 Elected member of Group of Experts for the Evaluation of Research of the ANVUR - National (Italian) Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes
2010 – Member of the scientific committee of the book series Scholarly Communication (Brill)
2010 – 2014 Member of the co-ordinating committee of the 5-year international project Sites of Chemistry 1600-2000 promoted by the Wellcome Trust
2008 – 2014 Member of the International Advisory Committee of the Centre for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
2006 – 2018 Member of the advisory board of Science History Publications/USA
2005 – 2016 Editor of Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science
2006 – Elected corresponding member of the International Academy of the History of Science
1994 – Elected member of the Comité Lavoisier at the Académie des Sciences (Paris)
• ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS
2020 (co-chair of the organisation) 9th ESHS Conference “Visual, Material and Sensory Cultures of Science” (University of Bologna)
2019 (co-chair of the organisation in collaboration with Centre Koyré Paris) “Gendered Touch: Women, Men, and Knowledge-Making in Early Modern Europe” (University of Bologna)
2018 (co-chair of the organisation) Leonardo 1939: la costruzione del mito (Museo Nazionale della Scienza Milano)
2016 (co-chair of the organisation) Prizes and Awards in Science before Nobel (Nobel Museum, Stockholm)
2015 Savant Relics: Brains and Remains of Scientists (University of Pavia)
2014 Fakes!? Hoaxes, Counterfeits and Deception in Early Modern Science (Museo Galileo)
2012 Tennis and the Scientific Revolution (Museo Galileo)
2007 The Accademia del Cimento in the European Context (1657-2007) (Museo Galileo)
2007 Seneca e le scienze naturali (University of Bologna)
2006 Lucrezio. La natura e la scienza (University of Bologna)
2003 Lavoisier in Perspective (Deutsches Museum)
2002-2005 Chair of the international network New Perspectives in the Enhancement of Scientific Heritage promoted by the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg.
2001 Reconstructing Science: Contributions to the Enhancement of European Scientific Heritage (University of Bologna)
1998 Informatique et Histoire des Sciences (CNRS)
1997 Journals and History of Science (Institute and Museum of History of Science, Florence)
1995 Sidereus Nuncius & Stella Polaris: The Scientific Relations between Italy and Sweden in Early Modern History (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
• INVITED PRESENTATIONS (a selection)
2021 “Glassmaking at the Medici Court during the Sixteenth Century” (University of Milano within ERC Project Tacitroots)
2019 “Politics, Science and Display: A Geohistory of Lavoisier’s Collections (1794-1994)” STS Department (Cornell University)
2019 “The Material Realm of Lavoisier’s Chemistry”. Keynote speaker at the 12th International Conference in the History of Chemistry (Maastricht)
2018 “How Oxygen Conquered the World: Authority and Revolution in Lavoisier’s Reform of Chemical Nomenclature” (École Française de Rome)
2017 “The Chemical Revolution on Stage: Two Centuries of Uses and Public Exhibits of Lavoisier’s Collection of Instruments” (Centre Koyré, Paris)
2016 “Alchemy, Art and Manufacture in 16th Century Florentine Glassmaking” (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
2016 “Glass-Making Goes Public: the Cultural Background of Antonio Neri’s L’Arte vetraria (1612)” (Freie Universität Berlin)
2015 “Mapping Lavoisier’s Chemical Laboratories: a Preliminary Survey” (Centre Koyré, Paris)
• MEMBERSHIPS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
2021 – Member of the Steering Committee of the Italian Society of History of Science
1999 – 2002 Member of the steering committee of the international association STEP (Science and Technology in European Periphery)
Member of the HSS
