Current Position:
Associate Professor in the History of Science, Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna
University Education:
1998-2002 University of Cambridge, Ph.D.
1997-1998 University of Cambridge, M.Phil. (Distinction)
1992-1996 Università Cattolica del S. Cuore, Milan, MA in Languages and Literature (German and English) 110/110 cum laude (equivalent to 1*class).
Past Positions:
2013-2017 Senior Lecturer in History, 1500-1800, The University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
2007-2013 Lecturer in History, 1500-1800, The University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
2004-2007 Lecturer in Early Modern History, The University of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia)
2002-2004 Assistant Professor of Italian, The University of Washington, Seattle (USA)
Select Publications:
•Books:
2013. The Duke and the Stars: Astrology and Politics in Renaissance Milan (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press), 392pp. Shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize (2013).
•Edited Volumes:
2017. Italian Renaissance Diplomacy: Texts in Translation (1350-1520), ed. Monica Azzolini and Isabella Lazzarini (Toronto: PIMS/Brepols, 2017) Durham Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Translations 6, 300 pp.
•Articles in Refereed Journals:
2024. “Marvellous Natural Particulars: Testimony, Rumour, and Proof in Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Work.” In Micrologus, 32: 567 – 592, special issue: Dicitur. Funzioni della diceria a corte, nelle scienze, nella memoria e nella poesia, edited by Agostino Parravicini Bagliani e Francesco Santi.
2023. “Under the Surface: Recent Histories of the Earth and the History of Science,” Long Essay Review (8,000 words), in Nuncius, 38.2: 445-463.
2021. “Are the Stars Aligned? Matchmaking and Astrology in Early Modern Italy,” Focus Issue: It’s a Match! (Hansun Hsiung and Elena Serrano, eds.) in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society 112.4: 766-775. https://doi.org/10.1086/716889 (Open Access)
2020. “Farsi una reputazione: Cardano e i suoi avversari,” Schede Umanistiche, 34: 37-58.
2019. “There Were No Medals to be Won: Scientific Duels in the Italian Renaissance,” Nuncius, 34: 258-283.
2017 “Coping with Catastrophe: St Filippo Neri as Patron Saint of Earthquakes,” Quaderni Storici, 156.3: 727–750.
2017. “Talking of Animals: Whales, Ambergris, and the Circulation of Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Rome,” Renaissance Studies, 31.2: 297–318.
2011. “Refining the Astrologer’s Art: Astrological diagrams in Bodleian MS Canon. Misc. 24 and Cardano’s Libelli quinque (1547),” Journal for the History of Astronomy, 42: 1-25.
2010. “The Political Uses of Astrology: Predicting the Illness and Death of Princes, Kings and Popes in the Renaissance,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 41.2: 135-145 [13,000 words], special issue: Stars, Spirits, Signs: Astrology 1000-1800, edited by Lauren Kassell and Rob Ralley.
2008. “The Politics of Prognostication: Astrology, Political Conspiracy and Murder in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” History of Universities 23.2: 6-34, special issue: The Circulation of News and Knowledge in Intersecting Networks, edited by Sven Dupré and Sachiko Kusukawa.
2008. “Annius of Viterbo Astrologer: Predicting the Death of Ferrante of Aragon, King of Naples,”Bruniana & Campanelliana 14.2: 575-588.
2005. “In Praise of Art: Text and Context of Leonardo’s Paragone and its Critique of the Arts and Sciences,” Renaissance Studies19.4: 487-510. Awarded the Society for Renaissance Studies Essay Prize for the best essay published in 2005.
2004. “Anatomy of a Dispute: Leonardo, Pacioli, and Scientific Entertainment in Renaissance Milan,” Early Science and Medicine9.2: 115-35.
•Chapters in Books:
2024. “God’s Underlands. Athanasius Kircher’s Epic Journey in the Mundus Subterraneus.” In Christine Göttler and Wietse de Boer, eds., Space, Time and Experience in the European Eschatological Imagination, 1400–1800, Leiden-London, Brill, 11 December 2024.
2023. “The Making of a Transnational Disaster Saint: Francisco Borja, Patron Saint of Earthquakes from The Andes to Europe.” In Ovanes Akopyan and David Rosenthal, eds. Disaster in the Early Modern World: Examinations, Representations, Interventions, London, Routledge, pp. 272-292.
2023. “Retorica e autopsia negli scritti di Ulisse Aldrovandi: il draco bolognese tra historia e rappresentazione ad vivum.” In Elisabetta Mengaldo, ed., Poetica e retorica del discorso scientifico nelle letterature europee dell’età moderna, Padua: Padua University Press, pp. 33-61. (open access).
2021. “Horoscopes.” In Information: A Historical Companion, ed. Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja-Silvia Goeing, and Anthony Grafton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 486-490.
2017. “Ritual” and “Medicine and Astrology.” In Monica Azzolini and Isabella Lazzarini, eds, Italian Renaissance Diplomacy: Texts in Translation (1350-1520) (Toronto: PIMS/Brepols).
—with Isabella Lazzarini. “Church.” In Italian Renaissance Diplomacy: Texts in Translation (1350-1520) (Toronto: PIMS/Brepols).
2014. Monica Azzolini and Adam Mosley, “Astronomy and Astrology.” In Philip Ford, Jan Bloemendal and Charles Fantazzi eds., Brill's Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World (Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2014), pp. 667-677.
2013. “A Starry Gift: A New Horoscope for Cosimo I de’ Medici.” In Machtelt Isräels and Louis A. Waldman, eds, Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, 2 vols (Florence: Villa I Tatti-The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2013), vol. 2, pp. 126-132.
2013. “L’insegnamento dell’astrologia e dell’astronomia.” In Dario Mantovani et al, eds. Almum Studium Papiense. Storia dell’Università di Pavia, vol. 1, t. 1 (Milan: Cisalpino Editore, 2013), pp. 562-568.
2012. “Consiglieri celesti: astrologi e politica nel Rinascimento Italiano.” In Germana Ernst ed., Astrologia e divinazione nel Rinascimento (Rome: Carocci), pp. 187-201.
2011. “Exploring Generation: A Context to Leonardo’s Anatomies of the Female and Male Bodies.” In Domenico Laurenza and Alessandro Nova eds, Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical World: Language, Context and “Disegno” (Venice: Marsilio Editore), pp. 79-97.
2006. “Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Studies in Milan: A Re-examination of Sites and Sources.” In Jean Givens, Karen Reeds, and Alain Touwaide, eds, Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Science, Technology and Art, Vol. 5 (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 147-176.
2005. “Reading Health in the Stars: Prognosis and Astrology in Renaissance Italy.” In Günther Oestmann, H. Darrel Rutkin and Kocku von Stuckrad eds, Horoscopes and Public Spheres (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter), pp. 183-205.
