Leonardo Giorgetti

Profile

I was born and raised in a small town near Florence (Firenze), Tuscany, in central Italy, where I grew up in a white, middle-class family. I received a M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Florence (Italy) and a Doctorate in Humanism and Renaissance Civilization at the National Institute of Renaissance Studies in Florence. In 2023, I earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Davis, with a concentration in Italian literature and Designated Emphasis in Classics and Classical Reception.

For the past fifteen years, I taught Italian language and culture at all levels in the US, holding lectureships both at public community colleges (College of the Desert, Butte College, American River College) and at private and public liberal arts colleges (Santa Clara University, Stanford University). My course repertoire ranges from Elementary Italian to Dante’s Commedia (both in Italian and in translation), from general cultural surveys on World literature to upper-division courses on specific topics such as contemporary Italian society, the Renaissance, Italian women writers, the Counter-Reformation, the Three Italian Crowns and their European reception, and Italian food culture. I am now honored to return to UC Davis and share my enthusiasm and expertise with its vibrant student population. In all my courses, I strive to create a caring and welcoming class environment that is a safe space for everyone’s learning and expression, as well as a place where we can all venture beyond our comfort zone while upholding inclusivity and equity as shared values.

Research Interests

My research explores the intersection of religious and secular knowledge in late medieval and early modern Italy and Europe, with an emphasis on the topics of canonicity, gender, female spiritual literature, and the reception of the three Italian “crowns” (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio). I have published on the intellectual history of fifteenth-century Florence and seventeenth-century Venice with a focus on the eclectic nature of the so-called “religious humanism,” the representation of otherness in early modern women’s spiritual experience, and the philosophical foundations of the European querelle des femmes. My first book project focuses on rediscovering the lyric voice of the Venetian writer Lucrezia Marinella (1571/9–1653), one of the most notable intellectual women of early modern Italy. Her varied corpus of spiritual and secular lyric poetry is foundational to understanding her renowned defense of women’s moral and intellectual excellence. I am working on publishing the first modern edition, English translation, and commentary of Marinella’s Sacred Verses (Venice, 1603), a collection of spiritual poetry that uniquely employs the Counter-Reformation’s model of heroic sainthood to support the author’s proto-feminist stance.

You can read more about my research and publications in my Academia Profile.

Education and Degrees:

• Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Davis
• Doctorate in Humanism and Renaissance Civilization at the National Institute of Renaissance Studies in Florence (Italy)
• M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Florence (Italy)