EDITOR IN CHIEF
Nicola Bergamo
Nicola D. Bergamo was born in Venice in 1977, and graduated in Byzantine history with honors from the University of Venice. He earned a Master of Arts with commendation from Queen’s University of Belfast and had research experiences in American colleges (University of Notre Dame and Fordham); he should defend his thesis this year at the EHESS in Paris with a thesis on the game in the Byzantine world. He published five books, Constantine V (2007), The Lombards (2012), Irene of Byzantium (2015), Byzantine Venice (2018) and Carlo Zen, hero of Chioggia (2018). He founded and directs Porphyra, the international journal in Byzantine studies.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Deputy Editor, Reviews editor and reference for “Confronti su Bisanzio”
Lorenzo Ciolfi
Lorenzo M. Ciolfi holds a Ph.D. from the EHESS – Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux, Paris (équipe byzantine; advisor: P. Odorico) and has been affiliated with New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest, as International Fellow. After completion of his undergraduate studies in philology and Greek palaeography at Sapienza – University of Rome on the manuscript traditions of Demosthenes’ and Lucian’s corpora from Antiquity to the mid-Byzantine era (advisors: G. Cavallo and D. Bianconi), gaining expertise which he applies to the translation of classical as well as early modern Greek and Latin texts into Italian, he is concentrating on the figure and role of John III Vatatzes in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine eras, with particular attention to the question of the emergence of his cult within the framework of Byzantine imperial sainthood. In parallel, he is working on Greek paremiographic collections in XV and XVI centuries, and their relationship with the developments of Western proverb anthologies (with a special focus on Apostolis’ Violarium and Erasmus’ Adagia).
Deputy Editor, Giovanni U. Cavallera
Is graduated in the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano. From 2009 to 2012 attended the PhD “Metodologie della Ricerca Pedagogica. Teorie e Storia “at the University of Florence. He edited the inventory of ”Archivio della Pedagogia Italiana”(Florence) for the”Fondazione Nazionale Vito Fazio-Allmayer “of which was responsible from 2009 to 2012. In 2013 he obtained teaching qualification in high schools, and currently teaches in high schools. Is member of the “Italian Center for Research Historical-Educational” (CIRSE) and contributes to several scientific journals and the “Enciclopedia di Bioetica e Scienza giuridica”. Member of the editorial board of some scientific collections, has published several monographs and scientific papers.
Editorial Assistant (for Italian language), Marco Fasolio
Marco Fasolio (Turin, 1988) holds an M.A. in history and archival studies from the University of Turin (2013), a diploma in palaeography, diplomatics and archival studies from Turin’s State Archive (2015) and a PhD in medieval and Byzantine history from the University of Eastern Piedmont (2017). He has been short-term pre-doctoral resident at Dumbarton Oaks (2016), lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Genoa
(2017/2018) as well as post-doctoral fellow at the Vehbi Koç Foundation of Istanbul (2017/2018), at the Italian Institute for Historical Studies of Naples (2019-2021) and at the University of Eastern Piedmont (2021/2022).
Since 2019 he is lecturer in Latin palaeography at the University of Eastern Piedmont and is currently also
research assistant at the University of Molise within the framework of the European project DiplomatiCon. His research mainly focuses on the later centuries of Byzantine history, with special interest in the relationships between Byzantium and the feudal principalities of northern Italy, the role of Byzantine provincial aristocracies, the issues concerning the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Trebizond, Byzantine political ideology and the exploitation of Byzantium’s image in video games. He is author of more than 20 scholarly contributions about these topics and in 2022 he published his first monography, Ai margini dell’Impero. Potere e aristocrazia a Trebisonda e in Epiro da Basilio II alla quarta crociata.
Editorial Assistant (for English language), Lucas McMahon
Lucas McMahon has a BA in ancient history from the University of Calgary, an MA in classics (late antiquity) from the University of Ottawa, an MA in medieval studies from Central European University in Budapest, and is currently a PhD candidate in history at Princeton University. His dissertation deals with communication and intelligence at the state level in the middle Byzantine period as a means of examining the functioning of the medieval Roman Empire and its place in the broader world.
ASSISTANT EDITORS
(Italian language)
Elisa Bianchi
Elisa Bianchi is graduated in Byzantine Philology with onors from the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Milan with a thesis on the colometry of the Pindar’s Second Olimpic in two codices of Comnenian Age. She obtained a Phd in Greek and Latin Palaeography at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” with a thesis dealing with Fettaugen-Mode scripts. She has carried out research activities in the field of manuscript cataloguing, such as: Nuova Bibliotheca Manuscripta. Descrivere, valorizzare, documentare i manoscritti medievali d’Italia (Prin 2010-2011); Censimento dei Manoscritti d’Italia sponsored by ICCU. Her research interests relate to the production of books of Greek Paleologan period and Byzantine chancery production. Since 2019 she is member of the “Associazione Italiana Paleografi e Diplomatisti”.
Matteo Di Franco
Matteo Di Franco is a PhD Candidate at the Università di Palermo and at the Université de Strasbourg. After graduated in Palermo (2013) on the Heracles of Aelius Aristides (or. XL Keil), he took a degree on Greek Palaeography at the Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, and he is now working on the textual tradition and the critical edition of the speech To Rome of Aelius Aristides (or. XXVI Keil).
(Greek language)
Apostolos Kouroupakis
I was born in Chania, Crete. I graduated from the History Department of the University of Trieste. Then I followed courses at the Ionian University, Department of History. I have received my master’s degree in “Critical Methodology and Publication of Historical Sources”, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece. Since 2010 I am a PhD student at the University of Cyprus in Byzantine Studies Interdepartmental Program. My Thesis is entitled “The Latin Church of Cyprus during the period of the Great Schism (1378-1415)”. I am member of the “Byzantinist Society Of Cyprus”.
(German language)
Martina Leitner
Studied art history and Romance studies at the University of Vienna. From 2011 to 2013 research assistant at the DiFaB (Digitales Forschungsarchiv Byzanz) at Vienna University. Since 2012 member of the editorial board of the online magazine Porphyra – International academic journal in Byzantine Studies. In 2013 associate for the art department of the Austrian National Bank. Since 2014 research assistant at the Klimt Foundation in Vienna.
(Spanish language)
Aitor Fernández
Aitor Fernández Delgado, born in Barakaldo (Spain) in 1987, was graduated in Ancient and Medieval History in the University of Deusto (2009), and obtained his Master in History and Sciences of Antiquity (2010) in both the Universities Autónoma and Complutense of Madrid. As FPI scholar, is actually finishing his PhD in the University of Alcalá de Henares about the mechanisms and evolution of the diplomatic relationship between Constantinople and his northern neighbours during the second half on the so-called “long” sixth century. Academic visiton at the Universities of Oxford (2014) and Princeton (2015), he was also scholar of the research project “Exile and Banishment in Late Antique Mediterranean” (2012-2015) and actually member of its continuation, “Historical contexts and application forms of the seclusion penalties in the Eastern Mediterranean (2015-2018)”, both under the supervision of the Prof. Margarita Vallejo Girvés
(French language)
Jeanne Devoge
Jeanne Devoge is born in Paris in 1980 and studied Art History at the Université Panthéon Sorbonne. She chose to begin research on French fortified castles during the Middle Age. Then she worked on a Greek illuminated manuscript, the famous Book of Job kept at the National Library (Paris. Gr. 135). She defended her thesis in 2013. So she is now a specialist of the Byzantine illuminated Books of Job and writes regularly some papers about them. She taught Medieval Art History at the Université Panthéon Sorbonne since a few years and now is working at the Institut de Recherches et d’Histoire des Textes in Paris as a research assistant in the Greek section.
(English language)
David Heayn-Menendez
David Heayn-Menendez is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY GC) and an Visiting Assistant Professor at Susquehanna University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in History from Villanova University focusing on the history of the Mediterranean and the MENA region from Late Antiquity to the Modern Era; his Master of Philosophy from the CUNY GC focused on the socio-religious and cultural history of Christian and Muslim South West Asia; he is currently an ABD Ph.D. candidate with a dissertation on the development and character of monasticism and monasteries in 6th and 7th century Anatolia. His research centers on periods of transition and transmission between religious and ethnic communities and the conflicts and syncretisms that occur as a result.
Zeynep Olgun
Zeynep Olgun is a PhD student at the Faculty of History, Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Her thesis focuses on the Byzantine approaches to, perceptions of, and the experiences with the sea, through an investigation of the ship in the Byzantine culture and society between seventh and thirteenth centuries. Her research interests are the maritime culture, materiality, and society of the Byzantine Empire: ships and shipbuilding, merchant and sailor communities, naval administration, and warfare. Zeynep holds an MA degree in Maritime Archaeology from Koç University where she investigated the Byzantine sailor, and an MA degree in Medieval Studies from Central European University where she focused on Byzantine shipbuilding