Stefano Villani
Senior Research Fellow
Stefano Villani is Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his Ph.D. in Early Modern History from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 1999 and holds an MA in the History of Philosophy from the University of Pisa. From 2002 until 2013 he was a member of the Department of History at the University of Pisa.
Villani is a specialist in early modern religious history and has worked extensively on the cross-cultural, political, and religious relations between Britain and Italy. He has written five books, co-edited four volumes of essays, and has published more than one hundred articles, book chapters, and reviews. His first three books published in Italy deal with the history of Quaker missions in the Mediterranean. More recently he has worked on the history of the missionary and intellectual interactions between the Church of England and Italy. His latest book, Making Italy Anglican: Why the Book of Common Prayer Was Translated into Italian (Oxford University Press, 2021), is a comprehensive study of the Italian translations of the Book of Common Prayer undertaken between 1608 and the early twentieth century.
Thomas Ashby
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
May 2024 – April 2025
Thomas Ashby is a postdoctoral historian of the English republic and its afterlife in global context. He was awarded his PhD in March 2024 at the European University Institute, Florence, for a thesis reassessing the thought and activities of Algernon Sidney (1623-1683), including a deep study into Sidney’s tenure as ambassador from the English republic to the monarchies of Denmark-Norway and Sweden during the Second Northern War (1655-1660). Alongside his research on English republicanism and its transatlantic reception, particularly within the Italian Enlightenment, he is also interested in the English encounter with Japan in the late Sengoku and early Edo periods (c.1600-1623). He currently works on the editorial board of Global Intellectual History and co-organises the Association for Global Political Thought based at Harvard University and partner institutions.
Meet the Junior Fellows
Miriam Campopiano
Junior Research Fellow
December 2020 - June 2021
Miriam Campopiano is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Historical Sciences at the University of Naples “Federico II”. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in 2019, with a thesis on the reception of the Reformation in Southern Italy thanks to the Archbishop of Salerno, Girolamo Seripando. Her current interests are focused on the news concerning geographical discovery and how they were received in Early Modern Italy. Since 2018 she works for the magazine “La COOLtura” writing articles in the historical section. In December 2020 she joined the EURONEWS Project as Junior Research Fellow.
Federica D'Augelli
Junior Research Fellow
February 2021 - October 2021
Federica D'Augelli is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Historical Sciences at the University of Naples "Federico II". In 2019, she graduated in Philosphy, with a thesis on the circulation of news in the "Gazzetta di Napoli" in the central decades of the 18th century. Her current M.A. thesis project concerns the literary influences that permeate the Eighteenth-century news world. In particular, her research aims to analyse the circulation both of novels and news reported in gazettes and handwritten avvisi. In other words, it investigates how narrative styles are grafted onto the information market, researching the already blurred boundaries between entertainment, literature and news.
Enrico De Prisco
Junior Research Fellow
December 2020 - June 2021
Enrico De Prisco graduated in Historical Sciences at University of Naples “Federico II” in 2019. In his MA thesis, he focused on Marian devotion and analysed the relationships between the political power and sacred worship in the Kingdom of Naples during the XVIII century (mark: 110/110 cum laude). This research focused in particular on the representation of the miracles performed by Marian icons and saints within the media landscape. His main research interests lay between religious history and the history of media during the early modern period. He is currently Junior Research fellow within the EURONEWS project, while he is also carrying out research to draw up a doctoral proposal on the Italian media network of early modernity.
Davide Limatola
Junior Research Fellow
December 2020 - June 2021
Davide Limatola is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Historical Sciences at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree with a thesis on the controversy between State and Church in the Kingdom of Naples at the turn of the XVII and XVIII centuries, with particular attention given to the trials for the Holy Inquisition. Since December 2020, he joined the EURONEWS project, where he is working on his dissertation.
Alba Malcangi
Junior Research Fellow
April 2022 -
Antonello Mori
Junior Research Fellow
November 2020 - June 2021
Antonello Mori obtained a Master's degree cum laude in Historical Sciences at the University of Federico II in Naples, with a thesis in modern history focusing on the relationship between the State and the Church in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies in the 1700s. He also obtained a second Master's degree in Digital & Public Humanities at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice, with a thesis focuesd on document digitization, data analysis, and the public use of history. He has been a member of the ERC DisComPoSe project and currently works as researcher at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. His fields of interest include digital humanities and data analysis. In November 2020 he joined the EUORNEWS project as Junior Research Fellow.
Iolanda Pentella
Junior Research Fellow
December 2020 - June 2021
Iolanda Pentella studies Historical Sciences at the University of Naples “Federico II”. She obtained a Bachelor's degree in History, with a thesis about the printing industry and the gazettes of Naples during the Eighteenth century. Her interests focus on the production and circulation of news, political and religious information, in the modern age. In December 2020 she joined the EURONEWS Project as Junior Research Fellow where she is working on the depiction of crime and natural events reported in the handwritten avvisi.
Guido Precchia
Junior Research Fellow
December 2020 - June 2021
Guido Precchia completed a Bachelor's degree in History with a thesis concerning the State's control over the periodical press in the Eighteenth century Naples, with a particular focus on the narratives regarding the expulsion of the Jesuit Order in 1767. He is currently attending a Master's degree in Historical Sciences at the University of Naples "Federico II". In December 2020 he joined the Euronews Project as Junior Research Fellow. His main interest is the circulation of news and information during the natural disasters of the Early Modern Age, addressed in a cross- and trans-medial perspective.
Rebeka Leite Costa
Visiting Research Fellow
August 2022
Professor of International Relations at the State University of Paraíba (UEPB). Doctor of the Postgraduate Program in History at the University of Brasília, she carried out a doctoral internship at the Gregorian University (Rome - Cnpq Scholarship), worked as a guest researcher at the Secret Vatican Archives, Archive of the Vatican Secretariat of State, Pontifical Library, Archive of the West Indies and Archive of the Spanish Court. She holds a degree (2016), a master's degree (2017) in History at the University of Brasília and a bachelor's degree in Law (2013) from the Catholic University of Brasília. She was a professor at the University of Brasília in the discipline of International Law in South America. As part of the EURONEWS Project, she focuses on the case study of Sixtus V conclave, using a methodologic network map to dynamically to observe the networks of influence of that conclave. Also collaborates with the Ciphers Project.