Alessandra Quaranta
- Researcher
Holder of a post-doctoral Marie-Curie fellowship at FBK-ISIG
Titles
– PhD
– Holder of the post-doctoral lecture qualification in Early Modern History (Abilitazione scientifica nazionale 2023-2025 a professore universitario di II fascia in Storia moderna)
Short bio-note
Academic positions held up to date
2023–2025: Post-doctoral researcher, University of Liège, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Department of Historical Sciences, Liege, Belgium – position funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS)
2020–2022: Post-doctoral researcher, University of Vienna, Department of History, Vienna, Austria – position funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
2020: Collaborator on a research project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Freie Universität of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2016–2018: Post-doctoral researcher, University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy, Trento, Italy – position funded by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto (CaRiTRo) and the University of Trento
2014–2015: Prae-doctoral researcher, University of Basel, Philosophical-Historical Faculty, Basel, Switzerland – position funded by Government of the Confederatio Helvetica
Other academic tasks accomplished up to date
2024 up to date: Holder of the qualification ‘Subject Specialist in Economic History’, Department of Economics and Management of the University of Brescia
2024 up to date: Permanent member of the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat of the peer-reviewed journal Innsbrucker Historische Studien (Innsbruck, Innsbruck University Press, ISSN: 1011-2316)
2024: Collaborator of the Fondazione Brescia Musei (Brescia, Italy)
2020, 2019 and 2018: Practical lessons given within the class ‘Methodology for Historical Research’, included in the Bachelor’s Degree Program in ‘Historical and Philological-Literary Studies’, University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy
2019 up to date: Holder of the qualification ‘Subject Specialist in Early Modern History’, Department of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Trento
2016: Participant in a project for the innovation of the teaching of the subject Methodology for Historical Research, Department of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Trento
Education
2023–2024: Course Professional Skills for Research Leaders (PSRL), University of Liege
2021: Course Data Management and Data Archiving an der Universität Wien, University of Vienna
2016: PhD in Humanities, Specialization in Historical Studies, University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy
2012: Master’s Degree in Historical Sciences and Forms of Memory (final mark: 110/110 with honours), University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy
2009: Bachelor’s Degree in Historical Sciences (final mark: 110/110 with honours), University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy
Membership
· Member of the Renaissance Society of America
· Member of the Italian Society of Female Historians
Acknowledgements
2014: Winner of the Best Graduate Award in the Department of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Trento for the academic year 2011–2012, Trento, Italy
2013: Winner of the ‘Antonio e Luigi Goi Award’ (eighth edition) for the Best Master’s Degree Thesis Award, assigned by the University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
- • Early Modern History • Social History of Medicine, Health Care and Pharmacy • Cultural History of the Body • History of the Senses • Cultural-scientific Relationships between Italian and German-speaking Territories • Gender History • Renaissance Studies • History of Culture, Press and Book Circulation • History of the Protestant Reformation in Italy
Related Projects
Publications
Monographs
· Medici-physici trentini nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. Sapere medico, identità professionale e scambi cultural-scientifici con le corti asburgiche, Trento, Università degli Studi di Trento. Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, 2019.
· Medici italiani eretici nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. Esperienze d’esilio e rapporti culturali e scientifici con il mondo di lingua tedesca, Palermo, New Digital Press, 2019.
Articles in peer-reviewed journals
· ‘Italian Physicians at the Habsburg Courts (1550–1620). Hiring Processes, Professional Networks and Integration into the Court Space’, in: European History Quarterly, 53/4 (2023), 549–578.
· ‘Gender and the Doctor-Patient Relationship. The Casebook of Doctor Francesco Partini (1500–1569)’, in: Genesis. Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche, 22/1 (2023), 201–227.
· ‘The Consilia by Learned Physicians Pietro Andrea Mattioli and Francesco Partini. Dialectic Relations between Doctrine, Empirical Knowledge and Use of the Senses in the Sixteenth-Century Europe’, in: Social History of Medicine, 35/1 (2022), 20–48.
· ‘L’inventario della spezieria di Giovanni Zavanti al Cairo (1732). Una rara testimonianza dell’arte farmaceutica europea ai confini tra Oriente e Occidente’, in: Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 101 (2021), 421–495.
· ‘Difficoltà e speranze nell’esilio religionis causa di Marcello Squarcialupi da Piombino (1538–1592)’, in: Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo, 15/1 (2018), 107–127.
Book chapters in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, edited books and exhibition catalogues
· ‘Italian Medical Practice at the Habsburg Courts (1550–1600). Encounters and Exchanges between Learned Physicians, Empirics and Patients’, in Sandra Cavallo and John Henderson (eds.), Medicine in Early Modern Italy: between Theory and Practice (The Medici Archive Project 9), London–Turnhout, Brepols, 2024, 22–36.
· ‘Learned Physicians from the Prince-Bishopric of Trento at the Habsburg Courts in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century. Social and Intellectual Resources of Successful Medical Careers’, in Elena Taddei and Georg Neuhauser (eds.), Rohstoffe – Menschen – Wissen: Einblicke in die Ressourcengeschichte des historischen Tirols (Innsbrucker Historische Studien 35), Innsbruck, Innsbruck University Press, 2024, 121–142.
· ‘La scienza come potere. Conoscere e governare la natura nella Brescia rinascimentale’, in Roberta D’Adda, Filippo Piazza and Enrico Valseriati (eds.), Il Rinascimento a Brescia. Moretto, Romanino, Savoldo, 1512-1552, Milan, Skira, 2024, 190–207.
· ‘Women as Patrons and Patients in the Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Territories: The Feminine Role in Medical Encounters’, in Lilla Krász and Brigitta Pesti (eds.), Die Frau als Gönnerin Kulturvermittlung, Repräsentation und Fördernetzwerke in der frühneuzeitlichen Habsburger Monarchie, Wien: Praesens Verlag, 2023, 253–279.
· ‘Learned Physicians from Brescia at the Habsburg Courts (1537–1566). Professional Paths, Relationship with the Imperial Power and Transfer of Italian Medical Knowledge’, in Carlo Bazzani (ed.), Da Brescia all’Europa. Viaggiatori e itinerari in età moderna (= Annali di Storia Bresciana 8), Brescia, Morcelliana, 2023, 51–74.
· ‘Medici eruditi e terapeutica nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. Pluralità di fonti e metodi’, in Egidio Ivetic (ed.), Attraverso la Storia. Nuove ricerche sull’età moderna in Italia, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica, 2020, 409–422.
· ‘Medici trentini e società nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. I rapporti con il potere, i colleghi, i pazienti’, in Giovanni Ciappelli and Alessandra Quaranta (eds.), Medicina e sanità in Trentino nel Cinque-Seicento tra saperi, società e scambi culturali. Atti del convegno internazionale (Trento, 14–15 Novembre 2018), Trento, Università degli Studi di Trento. Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, 2019, 89–126.
· With Gianni Gentilini, ‘Il caso clinico del barone Nicolò Madruzzo (1507–1572). La sua salute e il rapporto con il suo medico curante Francesco Partini di Rovereto’, in Giovanni Ciappelli and Alessandra Quaranta (eds.), Medicina e sanità in Trentino nel Cinque-Seicento tra saperi, società e scambi culturali. Atti del convegno internazionale (Trento, 14–15 Novembre 2018), Trento, Università degli Studi di Trento. Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, 2019, 153–194.
· ‘Exile Experiences Religionis causa and the Transmission of Medical Knowledge between Italy and German-Speaking Territories in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century’, in Cornel Zwierlein and Vincenzo Lavenia (eds.), Fruits of Migration. Heterodox Italian Migrants and Central European Culture 1550–1620, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2018, 72–101.
Book reviews
· ‘Mairin Odle, Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023’, in Renaissance Quarterly, in corso di stampa, 2025.
· ‘Hannah Marcus, Forbidden Knowledge. Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy, Chicago–London: University of Chicago Press 2020’, in Sehepunkte. Rezensions journal für die Geschichtswissenschaften, 22/3 (2022), http://www.sehepunkte.de/2022/03/35113.html.
· ‘Giuseppe Mazzanti, Matrimoni post-tridentini. Un dibattito dottrinale fra continuità e cambiamento (secc. XVI–XVIII), Bologna, 2020’, in: Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 101 (2021), 756–758.
· ‘Jana Madlen Schütte, Medizin im Konflikt. Fakultäten, Märkte und Experten in deutschen Universitätsstädten des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts, Leiden–Boston, 2017’, in: Annali.Recensioni.Online (ARO), 2/1 (2019), https://aro-isig.fbk.eu/issues/2019/1/medizin-im-konflikt-alessandra-quaranta.
Dictionary entries
· Squarcialupi, Marcello, in Dizionario di eretici, dissidenti e inquisitori nel mondo mediterraneo, 2022, http://ereticopedia.wikidot.com/marcello-squarcialupi.
· Duni, Taddeo, in Dizionario di eretici, dissidenti e inquisitori nel mondo mediterraneo, 2020, http://www.ereticopedia.org/taddeo-duni.
Pubblications for wide audience
· Women as Patients and Healers at the Habsburg Courts: A Gender Perspective on Medical Encounters (16th century), accettato, in corso di pubblicazione, 2025, https://manmax.hypotheses.org/.