SIMONA IARIA (Ph.D. in ‘Humanism and Renaissance Civilization’, University of Florence; National Scientific Qualification - ASN for associate professor in "Italian Linguistics and Philology" and in "Medieval Latin, Romance Philology and Literature") is at present researcher at the University of Turin, where she teaches Italian Literature and Italian Grammatic, and Marie Skłodowska-Curie - IF- Global Fellow between the University of Turin and Toronto. She has carried out postdoctoral research in Italy (Trento, Kessler Foundation; Catholic University, Milan; University of Pavia) and in Germany (‘L.M.’ University, Munich) and she has contributed to a large number of international conferences in Italy and abroad. She also has taught ‘Medieval and Humanistic Philology’ at the University of Pavia and she has been co-advisor of several M.A dissertations in Italian literature. Her research mainly concerns the 15th century with particular regard to the diffusion of Humanism in Europe. She has published several articles about Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and his legacy outside Italy, his library and his Commentaries; and she has also published the critical edition of his Libellus dialogorum with introduction and commentary (honourable mention at the ‘Certamen capitolinum’, Rome 2017). Two other books are dedicated to the documents about the history of the University of Pavia in 15th century and another to the monastery of Rodengo near Brescia. Finally, she has published numerous contributions on the monk and humanist Ambrogio Traversari and his relationship with the Medici’s family in Florence, his disciples and his Hodoeporicon; and she has taken an interest in the dissemination of Petrarch's Latin works in the German territories. 

ERMINIA ARDISSINO (Ph.D., Yale University; Dottorato di Ricerca, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano) was associate professor at the University of Torino. She has taught also in several Universities in North and South America. Her research deals with Italian literature from Dante to the Baroque age, with special attention to the relationship with history of ideas and religious experience. She has published several books on Dante (Tempo storico e tempo liturgico nella “Commedia” di Dante, 2009; L’umana ‘Commedia’ di Dante, 2016), Tasso (‘L’aspra tragedia'. Poesia e sacro in Torquato Tasso, 1996; Tasso, Plotino, Ficino. In margine a un postillato, 2003), Galileo (Galileo. La scrittura dell’esperienza. Saggio sulle lettere, 2010), and Baroque Italian literature (Il Barocco e il sacro. La predicazione del teatino Paolo Aresi tra letteratura, immagini e scienza 2001; Il Seicento, 2005), criticle editions of ancient texts (Giovanni di Bonsignori’s Ovidio Metamorphoseos Vulgare; Angelo Galli’s Operetta, both for the Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 2001 e 2006; Giambattista Marino’s Dicerie sacre for the National Edition of Marino’s works, 2014; Lucrezia Tornabuoni’s Poemetti biblici, 2015), articles in the main journals in the field of philology and literary studies. Currently she is exploring reading and writing by women in Early Modern Italy, focusing on women interpretative communities, on which has published Donne interpreti della Bibbia nell’Italia della prima età moderna. Riscritture e comunità ermeneutiche (Turnhout, Brepols, 2020) and several essays. She has also edited several volumes in Italy and abroad, including a volume on Dante in Renaissance Europe (in print). She received numerous awards, including Newberry Library Weiss-Brown Subvention Award, Renaissance Society of America Fellowship, Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University Fellowship, Fulbright Distinguished Lecturership at the University of Chicago, Fellowship at the Institut for Advanced Studies Le Studium-CESR (Orléans-Tours FR).

FRANCO PIERNO, Canadian-born, is a Full Professor (Italian Linguistics) and a member of Trinity College at the University of Toronto. His academic degrees are the following: Laurea in Storia della lingua italiana, Pavia; Doctorat en linguistique et philologie romanes, Strasbourg; Habilitation en Linguistique Italienne, Strasbourg. Before coming to Toronto, he taught at the universities of Strasbourg, Basel, and Neuchâtel. He has also been invited as Visiting Researcher by the following academic institutions: John Carter Brown Library (Brown University, Providence; Visiting Fellow); "Fondation Maison Sciences de l'Homme" (Paris; "Directeur d'Études Associé"); Universität Dresden (Senior Fellow). His main field of research is the History of the Italian language, with a focus on relations between language and religion. He published articles in the following journals Lingua nostra, Vox Romanica, Romance Philology and in others, European and Northamerican ones, as well as some books (more recently: La Parola in fuga. Lingua italiana ed esilio religioso nel Cinquecento, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2018). He collaborated with the Lessico Etimologico Italiano and he is currently supervising the chapter “Canada-USA-Puerto Rico” for the Osservatorio degli italianismi del Mondo (OIM) of the Accademia della Crusca.