Dr Lorenza Gianfrancesco
Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History
About
BA Hons (Italy), MA (London), PhD (London)
Dr Lorenza Gianfrancesco is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History. She holds a Laurea (BA Hons) in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature and History (Italy), an MA in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe from Royal Holloway, University of London and a PhD in Early Modern Italian Cultural History from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has previously taught at Royal Holloway, University of London, Goldsmiths, University of London, The Institute of Advanced Studies, University of London, Reading University and Sussex University. Lorenza also sits on the Board of Directors of The Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction.
Lorenza is a cultural historian. Her research investigates communication, propaganda and dissent in early modern southern Italy with a focus on Naples. As the largest European capital in the early seventeenth century, Naples was a multicultural port city and a major commercial and cultural hub. Lorenza has worked extensively on the trans-national dimension of Naples’ urban sphere and its vibrant milieu. She has published extensively on the political and civic function of Neapolitan academies in early modern Italy and Europe; book history in early modern southern Italy, orality and cheap print, Vesuvius and alchemy in early modern Naples. She is currently completing a monograph titled Academies and the urban sphere in early modern Naples (1611-1648). Lorenza’s current research explores the role of Naples within a broader Mediterranean context with a focus on slavery and communities on the margins. As part of a large academic team, Lorenza has worked on a major project on early modern Italian academies funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
TEACHING
Level 4, ‘Europe and the Mediterranean World: Society, Identity, Encounters (1450-1700)
Level 4, ‘The Black Death
Level 5, Art & Knowledge in Europe: from Early Renaissance to Baroque (1250-1650)
Level 5, Kingdom of Heaven: Crusading and The Holy Land: 1095-1492
Key Publications
Selected Publications
Database of Italian Acadamies (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ItalianAcademies) 8000 entries, in charge of research on Naples and Southern Italy
Monograph:
Academies and the Urban Sphere in Early Seventeenth Naples (forthcoming, 2020)
Edited Volumes:
- Disaster Narratives in Early Modern Naples. Politics, Communication and Culture, Rome, a cura di D. Cecere, C. De Caprio, L. Gianfrancesco e P. Palmieri, Roma, Viella, 2018 (ISBN 978-88-6728-645-4)
- Napoli ed il Gigante: Il Vesuvio nella prima età moderna, a cura di R. Casapullo e L. Gianfrancesco, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2014, (ISBN 9788849843279)
Special issues of academic journals:
- A. Campbell, L. Gianfrancesco, N. Terrant (eds.), Alchemy and the Mendicant Orders in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, special issue of Ambix, vol. 65, issue 3, 2018.
Co-publications and translations:
- Co-writer and translator (from Italian into English) of Naples, School of Music. A Journey Through the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Neapolitan Music Scene (Regione Campania, Settore Musei e Biblioteche, 2009). Booklet co-written for a book exhibition titled Naples, School of Music, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, London (9-30 November 2009)
Essays and articles:
- Accademie, scienza e celebrazioni a Napoli nel primo Seicento, Quaderni di Symbolon, V (2010), pp. 177-213.
- Nota preparatoria di un repertorio delle opere teatrali scritte da autori del Regno di Napoli o pubblicate a Napoli nel secolo xvii in Michele Rak, L’occhio barocco. Dieci lezioni su immagini teatro e poesia da Napoli a Roma, Firenze e oltre, Due Punti Edizioni, Palermo, 2011, pp. 325-367.
- From Propaganda to science: looking at the world of Academies in Early Seventeenth-century Naples, in J. A. Marino and C. Vecce (eds.), The Disciplines of the Arts and Sciences in Naples: Medieval, Early Modern, Contemporary, (, California Italian Studies Journal (ISSN: 2155-7926), Volume 3, Issue 1, (2012), pp. 1-31 (http://escholarship.org/uc/ismrg_cisj)
- Di alcuni documenti sulle feste a Napoli (1599-1709). Relazioni di festa, orazioni, panegirici, rime celebrative, azioni teatrali, pompe, ragionamenti spirituali in Michele Rak, A Dismisura D’Uomo. Feste e spettacoli del barocco tra Napoli e Roma, Due Punti Edizioni, Palermo 2013, pp. 400-450.
- Vesuvio e società: informazione, propaganda e dibattito accademico a Napoli nel primo Seicento in Rosa Casapullo & Lorenza Gianfrancesco (eds), Napoli ed il Gigante: Il Vesuvio nella prima età moderna, Rubbettino, 2014, pp. 56-94
- And the voice of the people climbed Parnassus: Lingua Napolitana from Street Dialect to Canon in L. degl’Innocenti, B. Richardson & C. Sbordoni (eds.), Interactions between Orality and Writing in Early Modern Italian Culture, Routledge, 2016, pp.145-160.
- Narratives and representations of a disaster in seventeenth-century Naples in D. Cecere, C. De Caprio, L. Gianfrancesco and L. Palmieri (eds), Disaster Narratives in early Modern Naples. Politics, Communication and Culture, Rome: Viella, 2018, pp. 163-86.
- Books, Gold and Elixir: Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Naples in A. Campbell, L. Gianfrancesco, N. Terrant (eds.), Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Europe, special issue of Ambix, 2018, (DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2018.1512777), pp. 250-74.
- La lingua Napolitana nel primo Seicento tra tradizione e innovazione. in A. Moroncini, D. Schetcher & F. Vighi (eds.), Resistance in Italian Culture from Dante to the 21st Century Firenze, Cesati, 2019, pp. 93-110.
Research
Organised Conferences and Workshops
- 2020 Co-organiser: Perceptions of Disasters in early Modern Cities (Panel and discussion), European Association for Urban History Conference, Antwerp, 2-Semptember 2020
- 2018 Co-organiser: International Conference Disasters and the Apocalypse:1500 to present (Panacea Trust, Cambridge, 13-14 September 2018)
- 2018 Co-organiser: International Workshop The Science of Naples: Making Knowledge in Italy Pre-Eminent City, 1500-1700 (University College London, London 20 April 2018) ,
- 2013 Co-organiser International Conference Napoli ed il Gigante: il Vesuvio tra scittura ed immagine dall’Europa moderna all’era dell’umanistica digitalizzata (University Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples, 10 MAy 2013)
- 2012 Co-organiser International Conference The Italian Academies 1525-1700: the first intellectual networks of early modern Europe’ (The British Library, London, 9-11 September 2012)
- 2011 Co-organiser International Workshop The Italian Academies 1525-1700. Science, learning and censorship (Royal Holloway, University of London, 27 June 2011)
Invited Lectures and Presentations
- 2018 Manuscript culture and oral communication in early modern Italian Academies: the case of Naples. International conference Archiving the Italian Academies: Critical methodologies and digital tools’ (University College London, 28 June 2018)
- 2017 Dal palazzo alla strada: l’accademia degli Oziosi tra cerimoniale, editoria e propaganda. (1629-1637).International Conference Il Manso ovvero dell’amicizia. Vita e cultura di un Gentiluomo della Napoli spagnola (1567-1645) (Fondazione Real Monte Manso di Scala and ‘L’Orientale’ University, 9-10 December, 2017)
- 2017 Alchemy in early modern Naples. Seminar in the history of Alchemy (University of Oxford, 10 May 2017)
- 2016 Searching for the essence: alchemy in early modern Naples. Paper delivered at the International Conference Scientiae. Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern World. (University of Oxford, 5-7 July 2016)
- 2016 Antiquity and civic identity in early modern Naples: historiography, iconography and politics. International workshop The Neapolitan Phoenix: Heritage and Renewal in Renaissance and Early Modern Naples (1350-1650) (University of Warwick, 26 May 2016)
- 2015 Exploring the Inquisition in early seventeenth-century Naples. Seminar paper delivered at Goldsmiths, University of London (25 November 2015)
- 2015 Books and academies in early seventeenth-century Naples. Seminar paper delivered at The Warburg Institute, London (28 October 2015)
- 2015 Dangerous devotion in early modern Naples: the case of Giulia De Marco. International Conference Domestic Devotion in the Early Modern World 1400-1800 (University of Cambridge, 9-11 July 2015)
- 2014 Religious dissent in early modern Naples. Paper delivered at the RSA Annual Conference: Renaissance Society of America, New York (27-29 March 2014)
- 2013 Editoria vesuviana nella cutura europea del Seicento. International conference Napoli e il Gigante tra scrittura ed immagine dall’Europa moderna all’era dell’umanistica digitalizzata, (Suor Orsola Benincasa University, 10 May 2013)
- 2013 Academies and cultural exchange in early modern Spanish Naples: from intellectual debate to propaganda Seminar paper (University College London, London, 20 March 2013)
- 2012 From manuscript to print: written and visual tributes to Margaret of Austria, queen of Spain (1612). International Conference The Italian Academies 1525-1700: the first intellectual networks of early modern Europe’ (The British Library, London, 9-11 September 2012)
- 2011 Editoria e propaganda: agiografia antropologica ed iconografia agiografica tra Napoli e Sicilia nel XVII Secolo. AATI (American Association of Italian Teachers) Annual Conference (Erice, Sicily, 28-30 may 2011)
- 2010 The world of academies: patronage, propaganda and public festivals in early modern Naples. International workshop Citizen cultures and ritual in early modern Italy and Spain (Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, Cambridge 26 May 2011)
- 2009 Scienza e medicina a Napoli e Roma nel periodo moderno. Seminar paper (Dipartimento di Studi Filologici, Linguistici e Letterari, University ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, 18 April 2009).
Research Output
Articles
Campbell, A., Gianfrancesco, L. and Tarrant, N. (2018) Introduction: Alchemy and the Mendicant Orders of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ambix, 65 (3). pp. 201-209. ISSN 1745-8234 10.1080/00026980.2018.1512778
Gianfrancesco, L. (2018) Books, Gold, and Elixir: Alchemy and Religious Orders in Early Modern Naples. Ambix, 65 (3). pp. 250-274. ISSN 1745-8234 10.1080/00026980.2018.1512777
Book Sections
Gianfrancesco, L. (2018) Narratives and representations of a disaster in early seventeenth-century Naples. In: Disaster Narratives in Early Modern Naples: Politics, Communication and Culture. Viella Historical Research (10). Viella, Rome, pp. 153-176. ISBN 978-88-6728-645-4
Books
Gianfrancesco, L., De Caprio, C., Cecere, D. and Palmieri, P. (2018) Disaster Narratives in Early Modern Naples. Politics, Communication and Culture. Viella Historical Research (10). Viella, Rome. ISBN 978-88-6728-645-4