Marco Franceschini

• INDIAN CLASSICAL POETRY (KĀVYA) IN SANSKRIT: critical edition and translation of kāvya texts, with special reference to sargabandhas and anthologies of stanzas of different authors; analysis of the relationships and mutual influences between different authors.
• BUDDHIST LITERATURE: study and translation of Buddhist texts in Sanskrit, with special reference to kāvya works.
• GRANTHA SCRIPT AND INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY: study of the major South Indian scripts and, in particular, of the Grantha script; analysis of the main features of the Grantha script, its geographic variations, diachronic developments and contaminations with other Indian scripts; analysis of the methods and of the peculiar signs used for the transmission of the Vedic texts in manuscripts (specific "Vedic" characters, signs used for marking the Vedic accents, symbols used for the conversion of a Padapāṭha text into its Saṃhitāpāṭha counterpart, etc.).
• examination of the characters, symbols and diacritics specifically used for the transmission texts (such as the Padapāṭhas); research on the methods and signs used for marking the Vedic accent in Grantha manuscripts.
• INDIAN MANUSCRIPTOLOGY: study of Indian manuscripts, with particular attention to those written in South Indian scripts; analysis of the paratexts, with special reference to the colophons.
• VEDIC LITERATURE, with particular attention to the mantric formulary that represents the oldest stage of the Vedic language, and to the collection (saṃhitā) of the Paippalāda school.

Selected publications:

• Franceschini, Marco, On some markers used in a Grantha manuscript of the Ṛgveda Padapāṭha belonging to the Cambridge University Library collection (MS Or.2366), in E. Vergiani, D. Cuneo, C.A. Formigatti (eds), Indic Manuscript Cultures through the Ages. Material, Textual, and Historical Investigations. (Studies in Manuscript Cultures 14). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 377-406.
• Franceschini, M., Ciotti, G., Certain Times in Uncertain Places: A Study on Scribal Colophons of Manuscripts Written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha Scripts, in G. Ciotti and H. Lin (eds), Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space through Paratexts. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 59-130.
• Franceschini, M., La tradizione medievale della Paippalādasaṃhitā. Due ipotesi a confronto. Bologna: Libreria Bonomo Editrice, 2012.
• Franceschini, M. (ed. trans.), Padyacūḍāmaṇi. Il diadema dei versi (with new critical edition and first translation of the work). Milano: Edizioni Ariele, 2010.
• Franceschini, M., An Updated Vedic Concordance, Harvard Oriental Series 66 (two volumes and CD). Cambridge (Mass.)-Milano: Harvard University Press and Mimesis Edizioni, 2007.