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Ermelinda M. Campani

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Ermelinda M. Campani has been Director of Stanford’s Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence since 1993. A native of Emilia Romagna, she earned a master’s degree in Italian literature and a Ph.D. in film studies from Brown University. Prior to joining Stanford University, she taught courses at both Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design and served as acting director of the Brown University Program in Bologna, Italy. She has been a member of the steering committee of the Association of American College and University Programs in Italy since 1993.

 

Her areas of research include: contemporary Italian cinema, early silent cinema, 1930s and 40s cinema, classical Hollywood cinema, and post-structuralist film theory. Her publications include a monographic work on Bernard Bertolucci, a book on cinema and the sacred (translated into French in 2007), and a book on cinema's representations of the human body. She is currently working on a book on Italian cinema under the Fascist regime and discovering long forgotten archives on the topic.

An expert on a vast range of subjects within film theory, she lecures widely, has published in numerous Italian, German, and U.S. journals, periodicals and encyclopedias and serves as a film critic for a national Italian newspaper. In 1999, she was a visiting professor at Yale University and has taught frequently on Stanford's main campus.

Campani has received various awards for her work, including that of the Centro Studi Americani, Rome.

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Stefano Cannicci

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Stefano Cannicci received his Ph.D. in Animal Biology (Ethology) in 1995 from the University of Florence.  Since 2005 he has been a Senior Researcher at the University of Florence’s Department of Evolutionary Biology where he teaches Marine Biology and the Biology of Climate Changes. Among his scientific interests are the effects of climate changes on the biology and physiology of Mediterranean and tropical intertidal invertebrates and the ecological functioning of Mediterranean and tropical coastal ecosystems. Since 1992 he has led approximately 40 scientific expeditions in Portugal, Croatia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Mauritania and Sri Lanka. He has also been in charge of the scientific coordination of three International projects funded by the EU on the ecology and biodiversity of East African mangroves; on the ecology of the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean rocky shores; and of the PUMPSEA project for the study of the environmental impact in the East African Mangroves.  At present he is coordinating the Marie Curie EU Project, “Coastal Research Network On Environmental Changes” (CREC).
Cannicci is the author of an academic textbook, in Italian, about Teaching methods for the Natural Sciences and of more than 60 papers published in ISI ranked International journals.

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Pompeo Della Posta

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Pompeo Della Posta holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Warwick and a Ph.D. in Economics from the European University Institute and was a visiting student at both Princeton University and Stanford University. He is Associate Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Pisa and the author or editor of a number of books including: Europe and the Financial Crisis (edited by Pompeo Della Posta and Leila Simona Talani, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Globalization, Development and Integration (Edited by Pompeo Della Posta, Milica Uvalic and Amy Verdun, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and many articles on issues relating to International (Monetary) Economics published in periodicals such as:  The Journal of Policy Modeling, Open Economies Review, Current Politics and Economics of Europe and Economia Internazionale/International Economics.

His recent publications include, among others: Crisi economica e crisi della teoria economica? Teoria economica tradizionale e nuova economia civile a confronto(editor, Liguori Editore, forthcoming); Crisi Finanziaria Globale, Stato e Mercato, (editor, Liguori editore, 2009); Effetti Potenzialità e Limiti della Globalizzazione: Una Visione Multidisciplinare (edited with Anna Maria Rossi, Springer, 2007); “Strategic Interactions among Central Bank and National Fiscal Authorities in a Monetary Union Subject to Asymmetric Country Shocks” (with Valeria De Bonis), Open Economies Review (2009); “Self-fulfilling Currency Attacks with Biased Signals” (with Bruno Cheli), Journal of Policy Modeling (2007); “Making sense of fiscal rules” (with Valeria De Bonis), Current Politics and Economics of Europe (2007); “Non credible intervention commitments and the 1992-93 EMS crisis,” Economia Internazionale/International Economics (2002).

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Paolo Galluzzi

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Paolo Galluzzi studied under Eugenio Garin at the University of Florence where he received his Ph.D. in 1968.  From 1970 to 1980, he was a Researcher at the Lessico Intellettuale Europeo in Rome where he was in charge of digitizing Galileo’s monumental Lessico delle Opere. He was subsequently appointed Professor of the History of Science at the University of Siena and, from 1994 to 2010, he was a Full Professor of History of Science at the University of Florence. Professor Galluzzi has also held visiting professorships at Harvard University, Princeton University, UCLA, New York University, the University of Hamburg, the Centre Koyré, and the Ecole des Haute Etudes (Paris).
Galluzzi has been Director of Florence’s Museo Galileo (formerly the Institute and Museum of the History of Science) since 1982. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. His numerous publications focus on the activity of Renaissance scientists and engineers, on science during the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution, on scientific terminology, on the activities of Galileo and his school, on the history of the European scientific academies and on the birth and history of the historiography of science. His studies have also included the history of scientific instrumentation, of scientific museums and of scientific heritage.

 

During the past 15 years he has been involved in the preparation of multimedia applications designed as resources and tools for researchers and the public alike.

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Pier Francesco Indelli

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Pier Francesco Indelli is an orthopedic surgeon with extensive experience in joint replacement and Sports Medicine. A graduate of the University of Florence's School of Medicine, he completed a research fellowship at Stanford University's Department of Orthopedic Surgery. Later on, Dr. Indelli did two clinical fellowships in the United States; one in Sports Medicine at the University of Arizona and another in Adult Reconstruction at Duke University. Dr. Indelli also participated in a number of seminars on public health at the Harvard University School of Public Health. In 2001 Dr. Indelli won an award for the Most Innovative Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons; in 2002 he won the Leonard F. Peltier Excellence in Research Award at the University of Arizona and was the recipient of the AIRCAST European Traveling Fellowship, granted by the Italian Society of Arthroscopy and the German Orthopedic Traumatology of Sports. In 2010 he won the Best Paper Award at the 3rd SIGASCOT Annual Meeting (Italian Society Knee Surgery, Arthroscopy, Sport, Cartilage and Orthopedic Technologies).

 

He is currently Assistant Professor in Adult Reconstruction at the University of Florence¹s Department of Orthopedic Surgery. He is a co-founder of CESAT, The Total Joint Institute of the University of Florence, located in Fucecchio, and his research is focused on the prevention and surgical treatment of knee osteoarthritis. He has authored a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research, The Journal of Arthroplasty, and International Orthopedics, and has presented more than 100 papers at several international orthopedic surgery meetings. Dr. Indelli is also Professor at the M.A. Program in Health Care Management at the University of Pisa where he teaches a course on International Health Care Systems.

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Antony Molho

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Antony (Tony) Molho is Professor Emeritus of History and Civilization at the European University Institute and taught from 1966 to 2000 at Brown University, from which he retired as the David Herlihy University Professor Emeritus. He received his pre-University education in his native Greece and his graduate education in the United States and in Italy. He also taught at the University of Vermont and at Michigan State University, and, as Visiting Professor, at the University of Florence and at the University of Athens. He served as Directeur d' études invité at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and visiting scholar at the Maison des sciences de l' homme.

 

His scholarly interests encompass the history of Italy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, with special emphasis on the history of Florence in the Renaissance; the Mediterranean world in the age of the great empires (from the fifteenth century to the rise of the national states in the early nineteenth century), with a focus on the transcultural commercial networks, especially in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. In recent years he has been drawn to the study of the histories of those European scholars, mostly Jews, who were forced to leave their homes in the 1930s, to settle in the United States. In 2010, he was awarded the Galileo Galilei Prize.  

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Leonardo Morlino

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Leonardo Morlino is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Research Center on Democracies and Democratizations at LUISS, Rome.  He is currently serving a three-year term as President of IPSA, the International Political Science Association. Morlino’s most recent books include: Democracias y Democratizaciones (CIS, 2008); International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law: Anchoring Democracy? (Routledge 2008, with Magen); Democratization and the European Union: Comparing Central and Eastern European Post-Communist Countries(Routledge 2010, with Sadurski), and Changes for Democracy (Oxford UP 2011).  He was also one of the three editors of the International Encyclopedia of Political Science (8 Volumes, Sage Publications, 2011).

 

Morlino was Professor of Political Science at the University of Florence and at the Istituto di Scienze Umane in Florence and has held a number of visiting professorships.  In 2002-03 he was the Bechtel Visiting Professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business; in 1995 a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution; and in 1989-90 a NATO Fellow of the Center for European Studies. His academic credentials also include stints as the Monte dei Paschi Fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford (2010), the Jemolo Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (2007 and 1998); visiting professor at the Juan March Institute, Madrid (1995-96); and visiting professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris (1993-95 and 2006). Since 2003 he has been a member of the International Political Science Association’s executive committee and the deputy rector of the University of Florence. 

 

Morlino is a leading specialist in comparative politics with expertise on Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece), Eastern Europe, and the phenomenon of democratization.  He is the author of several books and more than 200 journal essays and book chapters published in English, French, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Chinese, Mongolian, and Japanese.

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Lapo Pistelli

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Lapo Pistelli holds a degree in international law from the University of Florence and began his political career in Florence when he was elected as a city councilman (1985 to 1990) and subsequently as Chairman of the city’s Education Committee (1991-1995).  He was then elected to the Italian Parliament in 1996 and re-elected in 2001.  Pistelli has also been member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee and of the Foreign and EU Affairs Committee. In June 2004 he was elected to the European Parliament where he served both as Head of the Italian Delegation and as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.  In May of 2008 he was re-elected to the Italian Parliament and is currently a member of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies (representing the Partito Democratico).  He has also been in charge of International Relations for his Party since 2002. 

 

Pistelli’s political career has taken him all over the world and he has visited more than 70 different countries and cooperated with a number of progressive think tanks such as Policy Network in London, The Center for American Progress in Washington, and IDEAS in Madrid.  He is also the author of several articles, essays, and books on foreign policy and is a member of the Board of IAI (International Affairs Institute) and of IPALMO (Institute for Relations between Italy and Africa, Latin America and the Middle and Far East).  He recently completed a tour of three Australian Universities where he lectured on the history and the perspective of European Integration. A journalist since 1991, Pistelli also founded and directed the Centro Toscano di Documentazione Politica, an association for political and administrative training, from 1987 to 1995 and Input, a political think tank based in Florence, from 2002 to 2009.

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Fiorenza Quercioli

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Fiorenza Quercioli holds a degree in Modern Languages from the University of Florence, an M.A. from the University of Venice, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Florence. She has extensive experience teaching Italian as a second/foreign language and as a teacher trainer, and has worked for several Italian institutions, both public and private. She also tutors graduate students enrolled in the teaching Italian to foreign students M.A. Program at the University of Venice.  She is an active member of several professional associations including AATI (American Association of Teachers of Italian) and ILSA (Insegnanti di Italiano Lingua Seconda Associati). 

 

Quercioli has published several articles relating to the teaching and acquisition of Italian as a second/foreign language, as well as didactic material.  She has co-authored an Italian language manual for intermediate students entitled L’Italiano all’Università (Edilingua, in press).

 

Her courses are strongly focused on communication and culture so that grammar and vocabulary are always presented in a communicative context. Through the analysis of material such as songs, newspaper articles, video clips, and literature, students are guided to develop basic and integrated language skills.

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Filippo Rossi

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After receiving a degree with high distinction in art history from the University of Florence, Filippo Rossi earned a certificate in “Planning and Managing Cultural Events and Enterprises” at the Arts International University of Florence. In 1990, he enrolled at the “Scuola Libera del Nudo” of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence where he worked with Maestro Vignozzi. Since 1997 Rossi has also worked with Professor Mons. Timothy Verdon in the Archdiocese of Florence’s office, which deals with catechesis through art.

A well-known painter, Rossi has had solo art exhibits in Milan, Bologna, Venturina, Florence, Barcelona, Trento, and Parma, to name a few. Recent awards include the “Under 30 Awards” for Etruriarte 10 and the XVI Italian award for the visual arts, held in Palazzo Pretorio, Certaldo.

Professor Rossi has been teaching painting and drawing to Stanford students since 2000 and helping them organize an art exhibit at the end of each quarter. He also co-teaches “Sharing Beauty: Florence and the Western Museum Tradition” and “Space as History: Urban Change and Social Vision: Florence 1059-2008” with Professor Timothy Verdon. Rossi is president of Ars et Fides - Firenze, a prestigious organization which aims at sharing the deeper meaning of religious art and monuments to visitors thanks to a network of volunteer guides. Rossi also writes art reviews for several magazines specializing in art and art history, including FlashArt, Il Corriere dell’Arte, Next, D’ARS Agency, Eco d’Arte Moderna, Il Giornale dell’Arte, Firenze Informa, and Toscana Oggi. He also works for http://www.disegnamo.it, a website devoted to painting and drawing, and is artistic consultant for http://www.neropaco.net/, a Florence-based web agency. He has also authored several catalogues for Italian painters such as E. Savelli, T. Bonanni, A. Bimbi, G. Risito, and A. Facchini.

Rossi recently completed an important commission for a chapel at Careggi, Florence's University Hospital, and is currently working on a project for the new Meyer Pediatric Hospital. Rossi also represented Italy at the VI International Biannual Festival of Contemporary Art in Florence (2007).

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Monica Toraldo di Francia

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Monica Toraldo di Francia studied at the University of Florence where she received her Ph.D. in Moral Philosophy in 1971. For several years Toraldo has collaborated with the cultural programs produced by RAI Radio 3, and, since 1981, has been senior researcher and lecturer in Political Philosophy at the University of Florence's Philosophy Department. From 2000 until 2011, when she retired, Toraldo taught courses on Bioethics at the University of Florence and was involved in the organization of (and teaching in) an M.A. Program in Philosophy devoted to bioethical issues and medical humanities. Since the publication of her book, Pragmatismo e disarmonie sociali (Franco Angeli, Milano 1983), she has been engaged in philosophy and theory of society, with particular attention to moral and political philosophy. She also works on the topic of the bio-medical revolution, with an emphasis on the transformation of gender and individual identity, as well as on crucial themes in bioethics, and has published many papers and essays on these topics. Toraldo has also participated in numerous national and international seminars and conferences on bioethics and has been involved in several research and strategic projects funded by the European Union.

 

From 1999 to 2002 Toraldo was President of the Florence ASL Ethics Committee and, from 2003 to 2006 she was a member of the Interdisciplinary Advisory Board for Engaging Tuscans in Italy in the Haplotype Map Project (National Human Genome Research Institute). Since 2006, she has also been an active member of the National Bioethics Committee (NBC). In the years 2008-2010 she was also member of the Joint Group, composed by members of the NBC and the CNBBSV (National Committee for Biosecurity, Biotechnology and Life Sciences), which produced several documents on the scientific, social, ethical and legal issues relating to contemporary human genetics.

 

Currently her scholarly interests in bioethics encompass issues regarding neuroscience, human genetics, and converging technologies (Nano-Bio-Info-Cognitive sciences). She is at work on a book, Biotechnology and Biopower: Contemporary Issues, that addresses these questions.

 

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Augusto Valeriani

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Augusto Valeriani received his Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of Siena in 2008. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Bologna's Political Science Department where he lectures on Media and International Politics. He is also a Fellow at the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School of Communication (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia) and the Arab Media Centre at the University of Westminster (London). His main scientific interests focus on journalistic culture, media, and international politics, new media and society, transnational migrations and the media. Valeriani has published extensively on these topics and is the author of three monographs: Il giornalismo arabo (2005), Effetto Al Jazeera (2010) and Twitter Factor (2011). In 2009 he co-edited the volume Un Hussein alla Casa Bianca (Hussein goes to the White House) on Arab and Muslim opinions --including Arab and Muslim migrants living in the United States -- during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign.

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Timothy Verdon

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Interview with Timothy Verdon

A Ph.D. from Yale University, Timothy Verdon is a former Fulbright Fellow, Chester Dale Fellow (National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.), and Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence (Villa I Tatti).  Director of the Florence Cathedral Museum, he is the author of books on religious iconography and articles on Renaissance artists, including Masaccio, Donatello, Michelozzo, Piero della Francesca, Ghirlandaio, Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Pontormo, and Frá Bartolomeo.

His most recent publications include:

• Maria nell’arte fiorentina, (Mandragora, Firenze 2002);
• Arte e catechesi: La valorizzazione dei beni culturali in senso cristiano (EDB, Bologna 2002);
• Vedere il mistero: Il genio artistico della liturgia cattolica (A. Mondadori, Milano, 2003);
• Maria nell’arte europea (Electa, Milano, 2004);
• Cristo nell'arte europea (Electa, Milano, 2005);
• La Basilica di San Pietro: I Papi e gli artisti (A. Mondadori, Milano 2005);
• Michelangelo Teologo (Ancora, Milano, 2005);
• L’Arte cristiana in Italia. vol. I-III., (Ed. San Paolo, 2005-2008);
• Attraverso il Velo: Come leggere un'immagine sacra (Ancora, Milano, 2007);
• Arte nella vita della Chiesa (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Rome, 2009);
• Arte della Preghiera (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Rome, 2010).

He has taught art history at Yale, Syracuse University, Florida State University, and Georgetown. The six art history courses he teaches at the Stanford center, which normally enjoy the program’s highest enrollment figures, engage students in a deep analysis of Italian Renaissance masterpieces through on-site classes, which Verdon likes to describe as “street theater.”

 

Professor Verdon is also a Roman Catholic priest who serves as a canon of the Florence Cathedral. He is also director of the Diocesan Office of Sacred Art and of the Diocesan Art Collection.

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