After the Ph.D in History (University of Venice, 1992), I was assistant professor at the University of Naples (1998-2006; Faculty of Political Sciences), where I taught History of modern historiography and History of early modern Italy. In 2006 I moved to the University of Padua (Faculty of Political Sciences; now Department of Political science, Law and International Studies). I’m also a member of the teaching board of the Ph.D school in «Historical, Geographical and Anthropological Studies» (Universities of Padua, Venezia, Verona) and supervisor of doctoral thesis.
I participated in various research projects dealing with Italian catholicism, culture and religious life between sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, financed by the Italian Department of University and Research (PRIN 2001-05; 2007-09). In 2008-2011 I was a member of the international research project «Hétérodoxies croisées et controverses doctrinales entre France et Italie, XVIe–XVIIe siècles» (École française de Rome, Université Paris IV Sorbonne, Università di Parma; dir. by G. Fragnito and A. Tallon); at present I am responsible of the Padua unit of the project (PRIN 2017) «The Nuncio’s Secret Archives. Papal Diplomacy and European Multi-denominational Societies Before the Thirty Years War». I am also a member of the Ateneo Veneto, the Deputazione di storia patria per le Venezie and the Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere e arti. I joined the editorial board of the historical journals «Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa» and «Ateneo veneto»; member of the board of directors of "Studi storici". I’m a referee for scientific journals on early modern history and related disciplinary areas.
My main scientific interests lie in the cultural, political and religious history of Italy between the late sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. After the first studies about Fulgenzio Micanzio, disciple and biographer of Paolo Sarpi, and consultant of the Venetian government (see my book I consulti di Fulgenzio Micanzio, Pisa, Giardini Editore, 1986), I published a series of the diplomatic correspondence between Venice and Naples (Corrispondenze diplomatiche veneziane da Napoli. Dispacci, vol. III, 1597-1604; Roma, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1991). Then I turned my attention on the cultural activity and organization of the Italian religious orders (schools and teaching to the ruling elites; libraries and book-exchange; commitment in the intellectual debate, both erudite and scientific; role in the ecclesiastical and State censorship), focusing in particular on the Venetian context (on these subjects I published several articles and the monograph Gli affanni dell’erudizione. Studi e organizzazione culturale degli ordini religiosi a Venezia tra Sei e Settecento, Venezia, Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2004). More recently I investigated the cultural and social role of the book collections, both private and institutional, between the Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment. This is the topic of my last book (Collezioni librarie in una capitale di antico regime. Venezia, secoli XVI-XVIII, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2017). At present I’m working on the development and decline of the intellectual networks connecting Venice and the University of Padua to Europe between the late sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth.

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