Sandra Toffolo
- Permanent Researcher
Sandra Toffolo is a researcher at the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento (since 2021). She obtained her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, and she also studied at the universities of Nijmegen (The Netherlands), Florence, and Perugia.
Prior to joining ISIG she was a researcher at Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, the University of St Andrews (United Kingdom), the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in Tours (France), the European University Institute, and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome. She has taught at the University of St Andrews, the Université François-Rabelais in Tours, and the Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence.
Her research focuses on mobility, space, and the circulation of people, objects, and ideas in the early modern period, with particular emphasis on the Republic of Venice.
She is also collaboratrice scientifique at the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance in Tours, and member of the EU Cost Action People in Motion: Entangled Histories of Displacement across the Mediterranean (1492-1923).
- Cultural and social history
- History of mobility
- Urban history
- Republic of Venice
- Early modern history
Related Projects
Publications
Monograph
Describing the city, describing the state: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020).
Special issues and edited volumes
Francesca Brunet, Rosa Salzberg, and Sandra Toffolo eds., Mobility and poverty in Europe between the early modern period and the early twentieth century: Networks, infrastructures, control, special issue of Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 51, no. 2 (2025).
Stefano Cassini, Tobias Daniels, and Sandra Toffolo eds., Printing the event: The press as mass medium in Italy and Germany in the first age of print (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2025).
Marta Albalá Pelegrín and Sandra Toffolo eds., Crossroads in early modern Italy: Encounters between foreign travelers and local inhabitants, special issue of Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 49, no. 1 (2023).
Articles and book chapters
(with Francesca Brunet and Rosa Salzberg) ‘Mobility and poverty in Europe: An introduction,’ Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 51, no. 2 (2025): 5-14.
‘The material culture of mobility: A pilgrim’s books between Italy, the Holy Land, and Switzerland,’ in: Stefano Cassini, Tobias Daniels, and Sandra Toffolo eds., Printing the event: The press as mass medium in Italy and Germany in the first age of print (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2025): 89-104.
(with Stefano Cassini and Tobias Daniels) ‘Printing the event: An introduction,’ in: Stefano Cassini, Tobias Daniels, and Sandra Toffolo eds., Printing the event: The press as mass medium in Italy and Germany in the first age of print (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2025): 1-7.
‘Media e mobilità: Circolazione di informazioni lungo la via di pellegrinaggio nel Rinascimento,’ in: Christoph Cornelissen and Massimo Rospocher eds., L’intermedialità in età moderna e contemporanea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2024): 89-115.
‘Encounters in Renaissance Venice: Exchange, communication, and interaction between Jerusalem-bound pilgrims and local inhabitants,’ special issue of Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 49, no. 1 (2023): 49-72.
(with Marta Albalá Pelegrín) ‘Mobility and interactions between travelers and local residents in the early modern period: An introduction,’ special issue of Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento / Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient 49, no. 1 (2023): 9-24.
‘The pilgrim, the city and the book: The role of the mobility of pilgrims in book circulation in Renaissance Venice,’ in: Arthur der Weduwen and Malcolm Walsby eds., The book world of early modern Europe: Essays in honour of Andrew Pettegree, vol. 2 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022): 131-153.
‘Pellegrini stranieri e il commercio veneziano nel Rinascimento,’ in: Elisa Gregori ed., Rinascimento fra il Veneto e l’Europa: Questioni, metodi, percorsi (Padova: Cleup, 2018): 263-284.
‘Cities dominated by lions: The fifteenth-century Venetian mainland state depicted by inhabitants of the subject cities,’ Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 46, no. 1 (2015): 305-325.
‘Beschrijvingen van Rome in de middeleeuwen: De Mirabilia urbis Romae,’ Roma Aeterna, special issue ‘Reizen naar Rome’ 3, no. 1-2 (2015): 72-81.
‘Constructing a mainland state in literature: Perceptions of Venice and its Terraferma in Marin Sanudo’s geographical descriptions,’ Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 37, no. 1 (2014): 5-30.
‘Eten naar stand: De invloed van sociale stratificatie op leefregels in de late middeleeuwen,’ Geschiedenis der Geneeskunde 11, no. 4 (2006): 57-64.