Alessandro Metlica (1985) is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies (DISLL).

He completed his Master degree in Modern Literature and Philology (2009) and his PhD in Italian Literature (2013) at the University of Padova, and his diploma in Humanities (2010) at the Scuola Galileiana of Higher Education. He has been Marie Curie CO-FUND Fellow (2013-2015) and FNRS chargé de recherche (2015-2018) at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He also received a Senior postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Padova (2016-2018). His research is focused on the representation of power in early modern Europe, both as regards subversion (libertinism, free thinking) and containment (eulogy, praise literature, propaganda). In 2017, he obtained an ERC Starting grant for the project RISK (2018-2023) to provide a comprehensive overview of the Republican displays of state power in the Europe of absolute monarchies (late 16th- early 18th century). By taking into account a multidisciplinary corpus of sources, including both texts and images (praising poems, civic orations, paintings and engravings, as well as the written accounts of public festivities and civic rituals), RISK aims to comprehend how and to what extent the absolutist framework influences the representation of ideals such as freedom, equality, and the common good.