Alessandra Quaranta

  • Researcher
FBK-ISIG
Contacts

Current position

Researcher at FBK-ISIG

 

Titles

  • PhD
  • Holder of the post-doctoral lecture qualification in Early Modern History – Associate Professor, Abilitazione scientifica nazionale 2023-2025 a professore universitario di II fascia in Storia moderna

 

Main areas of research

  • 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

 

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

 

Academic positions held up to date
2025 2027: Postdoctoral researcher Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Grant – European Fellowship – at the Italian-German Historical Institute of Trento

2023–2025: Postdoctoral researcher, University of Liège, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Department of Historical Sciences, Liège, Belgium – position funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS)

2020–2022: Postdoctoral 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: Postdoctoral 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: Praedoctoral researcher, University of Basel, Philosophical-Historical Faculty, Basel, Switzerland – position funded by Government of the Confederatio Helvetica

 

Other academic tasks accomplished up to date

July 2025 up to date: Member of the Scientific Board for the peer-reviewed editorial series of the Italian-German Historical Institute of Trento (Quaderni; Studies in Early Modern and Contemporary History; Transfer; Fonti)

2024–2025: Member of the Scientific Committee of the exhibition The Power of Machines: Man, Environment, Technology in Sixteenth-century Trentino (Trento, Museum of Sciences – MUSE, 21.11.2025-31-5.2026); scientific reference person for the section Medicine and Pharmacy.

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)

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

 

Additional research fellowships I was selected for

2025: an eighteen-month postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bonn, Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (Bonn, Germany), funded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD)

2023: a six-month postdoctoral fellowship at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom (DHI Rom, Rome, Italy)

 

Academic teaching experience

2025 – University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy

Seminar within the Doctoral Program ‘European Cultures. Environment, Spaces, Histories, Ideas’

Topic of the seminar: Women and anatomy (1500–1750)

 

2024 – University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy

Seminar within the Doctoral Program ‘European Cultures. Environment, Spaces, Histories, Ideas’

Topic of the seminar: Diagnosing plague in the Republic of Venice (15th and 16th centuries)

 

2024 – University of Brescia, Department of Economics, Unit Historical Studies

Lecture within the course ‘Economic History of Professions’. The course was included in the Master’s Degree Program ‘Business Consultancy and Free Lancer Work’.

Topic of the lecture: Male Medical professions in the early modern period (1450–1800 ca)

 

2024 – Brescia, University of Brescia, Department of Economics, Unit Historical Studies

Lecture given within the course ‘Economic History of Professions’. The course was included in the Master’s Degree Program ‘Business Consultancy and Free Lancer Work’.

Topic of the lecture: Female medical professions in the early modern period (1450–1800 ca)

 

2021 – University of Vienna, Department of History

Lecture within the class ‘Gesundheitswesen und medizinische Forschung in Wien im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert’. The course was included in the Master’s Degree Programs in ‘History and Philosophy of Science’, and ‘History, Social Studies and Political Education’.

Topic of the lecture: Medical theories and debates in the sixteenth century

 

2021 – University of Vienna, Department of History

Lecture within the class ‘Gesundheitswesen, Körperverständnis und Therapiekonzepte’. The course was included in the Master’s Degree Programs in ‘History and Philosophy of Science’, and ‘History, Social Studies and Political Education’.

Topic of the lecture: Negotiations between physicians and patients in the sixteenth century

 

2020, 2019 and 2018 – University of Trento, Department of Letters and Philosophy

Fifteen lectures in all within the class ‘Methodology for Historical Research’, which is included in the Bachelor’s Degree Program in ‘Historical and Philological-Literary Studies’.

Topics of the lectures: History of historiography and practical issues related to historical research

 

Organisation of international conferences

  • As member of the Scientific Committee, I co-organized together with Prof. Viktoria von Hoffmann (University of Liège) and Dr Alessandro Laverda (University of Liège) the international conference titled Female Anatomists. A Gendered Perspective of Sensory Expertise in Northern Italian Cities (1550- 1700), University of Liège, 10–11 December 2025.
  • As member of the Scientific Committee, I co-organized the international conference titled Medicine and Health Care in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries among Knowledge, Society, and Cultural Exchanges. The Trentino and Other Italian and European Realities, University of Trento, 14–15 November 2018.

 

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, 2025, 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, accepted, forthcoming, 2025.
  • ‘Elisa Andretta, Le Monde sous l’oeil des médecins: Nature et politique à l’Escorial et au Vatican (XVIe siècle), Paris: Classiques Garnier’, in European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, 1–3 (2025), 367–369.
  • ‘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.Reviews.Online, 2/1 (2019), https://aro-isig.fbk.eu/issues/2019/1/medizin-im-konflikt-alessandra-quaranta.

Dictionary entries

Online articles