My research interests are focused on medieval Italy, especially the periods between 1200 and 1400. I am especially interested in exploring the relationships between poetic and political cultures in the cities of Italy during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

My research has concentrated especially on Dante, the subject of my monograph, Dante and the City (2003), and of numerous journal articles and contributions to scholarly volumes. In recent research I have been examining the early transmission history of Dante’s Vita nova in manuscript and in print, and exploring the work's themes of absence and mourning. This chimes with my interest in the lyric poetry of Italy, written in both Italian vernaculars and Occitan, in the Duecento and Trecento, particularly in the poets Cino da Pistoia and Petrarch. Another strand of my research examines Brunetto Latini, especially in his translation and/or mediation of classical Latin and vernacular French literary and rhetorical traditions into Florentine during the late Duecento.  

I welcome proposals for PhD research projects across a broad range of medieval Italian literary and cultural topics. I am happy to supervise work on Dante, covering the Commedia and the minor works, as well as Dante's intellectual formation and his experience of exile, and the history of Dante reception. Other areas include: the vernacular lyric from the Sicilians to Petrarch; the works of Brunetto Latini; medieval translation and reception of the classics (especially Cicero and Ovid); pilgrimage, exile, and other forms of mobility and displacement in medieval Italy.