Department of French and Italian

• Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, with emphases on humanism, epic, comedy, macaronic and pastoral

I was trained in Italy and the United States as a historian and critic of Italian literature. My research focuses on Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, with particular attention to macaronic, pastoral, and lyric poetry, as well as comedy and heroic and mock-heroic genres. My scholarly interests include literary memory and genealogy; comedy as a formative force in the Italian literary tradition; the relationship between elite literary production and popular culture; and the interplay between philology and literary criticism. My work examines the ethical and political dimensions of literature, especially the humanist concept of literary education (humanæ litteræ) as a means of fostering a more civilized and “humane” humanity, as well as the relationship between literary production and political power. I recently published a critical edition of previously unpublished works by the sixteenth-century philologist and critic Lodovico Castelvetro, and a monograph titled Commedia e civiltà: Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento, which explores the literary culture of Renaissance classicism, the dominant cultural model of early modern courtly and aristocratic society. My current book project, tentatively titled Parody, Satire, and the Human Condition in the Italian Renaissance, investigates representations of creaturely life in Italian Renaissance literature.

Books

• Commedia e civiltà. Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2022). 142 pp. Winner of the 2022 American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Book Award in the category of “Literary, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies.”
• Lodovico Castelvetro. Parere sopra una comedia di Aristophano et sopra ciascuna di Plauto. Ed. critica a cura di Massimo Scalabrini (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 2015). 126 pp. Winner of the XXXII edition (2016) of the Premio “Letteratura” poesia, narrativa, saggistica (sec. XIV, Saggio edito) awarded by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Naples (Italy) and the journal “Nuove Lettere.”
• Folengo in America, Ed. Massimo Scalabrini (Ravenna: Longo, 2012), 216 pp.
• L’incarnazione del macaronico: Percorsi nel comico folenghiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003). 190 pp.

Articles

• “Ancora sulle Muse folenghiane.” Quaderni folenghiani 11 (2021-2025): 207-238.
• “Comicità e vanto nella letteratura rusticale e nenciale.” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana CLXXXVII (2010): 530-542.
• “Pastoral Postures: Some Renaissance Versions of Pastoral.” (with Davide Stimilli). Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance LXXI/1 (2009): 35-60.
• “Esempi di onomastica comica tra Boccaccio e Ariosto.” Strumenti critici XXIV/1 (2009): 55-68.
• “The Peasant and the Monster in the Macaronic Works of Teofilo Folengo.” MLN 123/1 (2008): 179-191.
• “Città e campagna nel macaronico folenghiano: Una lettura di Baldus VI 67-229.” Esperienze letterarie XXXI/3 (2006): 43-60.
• “Gli amori ridicoli dell’eroicomico: Tassoni e la storia di Lucrezia.” MLN 120/1 (2005): 223-238.
• “‘Il piggiore uomo forse che mai nascesse’: La novella di ser Ciappelletto e la poetica del comico.” Italian Quarterly XLI/159-160 (2004): 55-60.
• “Un inedito travestimento secentesco del Baldus.” Rivista di letteratura italiana XIX/1 (2001): 173-179.
• “Umanesimo e anti-umanesimo in Giovanni Della Casa.” Schede umanistiche ns 1999, 1: 81-96.

• The Pen and the Sword: Literature and Power in Early Modern Europe
• The Cultures of the Italian Renaissance
• Laughter, Humor and Wit in the Italian Renaissance
• Masterpieces of Italian Literature I and II
• Italian Short Stories: From the Middle Ages to the Present
• Forms of Civility in the Italian Renaissance
• Teorie e pratiche del classicismo rinascimentale
• Teorie e pratiche dell’anticlassicismo rinascimentale
• The Italian Erudite Comedy
• Macaronico e ‘altro’ Rinascimento
• Ariosto and Folengo
• Categorie dell’eroico e dell’eroicomico
• ‘High’ and ‘Low’ in Italian Renaissance Literature
• What is Italian Pastoral? Pastoral Tradition and Italian Renaissance
• Renaissance Humanism

• College Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship (one course release), Indiana University Bloomington, 2025-26
• 2022 American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Book Award in the category of “Literary, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies” for the book Commedia e civiltà: Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo, 2022).
• Premio “Letteratura” poesia, narrativa, saggistica (sec. XIV, Saggio edito), awarded by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Naples (Italy) and the journal “Nuove Lettere,” for Lodovico Castelvetro, Parere sopra una comedia di Aristophano et sopra ciascuna di Plauto. Ed. critica a cura di Massimo Scalabrini (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 2015), XXXII edition (2016)
• Trustees Teaching Award, Indiana University Bloomington, 2001-02, 2009-10, 2013-14, 2024-25
• Lester J. Cappon Fellowship in Documentary Editing, The Newberry Library, 1-6/2006
• Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Indiana University Bloomington, 2004-05
• College Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship (one course release), Indiana University Bloomington, 2004-05
• James Phillip Holland Award for Exemplary Teaching, Indiana University Bloomington, 2002-03
• Sterling Prize Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
• Baltz-Seronde Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
• University of Bologna Graduate Student Exchange Award, Indiana University Bloomington, 1991-92
• Erasmus Scholarship, Pembroke College, Oxford - The European Union, 4-7/1989