Short Bio

I was born in Bologna, and I spent the first five years of my life there, the next eight in Bassano del Grappa and the next five in Venice (well, Mestre, actually, not quite the same thing). I then moved to a College in Pisa (it is now called S.Anna, but at the time it had a plainer name, SSSUP), were I graduated in 1982. I stayed in Pisa one more year (spending most of my time playing Risiko), before joining the first ever wave of Italian Doctoral students in Siena; here I was living in a house in a charming wild wood in the Chianti hills, near Vagliagli (my flatmate and I were very poor, and, yes, we soon found that wine was the cheapest form of heating).

Age 4      Age 40   More Photos

Our teachers in Siena encouraged us to go abroad, and after one year in Siena, I went to Oxford, where I soon met my future wife Kate. After two years in Oxford I had to go back to Italy (to defend my homeland from the foreign invader, in Albenga, Udine, and Rome). Back to Oxford, for one more year before starting my first job, in Leicester. I stayed there for one year, followed by two years in Bristol. My first permanent job was in York, where I started in September 1991. We moved into our lovely old house in March 1993, where our three children were born. I have also had several breaks (four months in Tokyo, two in Bonn, three in Barcelona, two in Ningbo, and the entire academic year 2003/04 in Rome). After 13 years in York, I moved back to Leicester in September 2004. After 8 years there, including three as HoD, I moved to Nottingham, and we still live in a beautiful Old Rectory in the Leicestershire countryside. My book (in Italian) contains observations and the occasional anecdote about life here.