Staff profile

I am an Assistant Professor in Italian Studies at the University of Durham. After graduating in Lettere moderne (BA) and Filologia moderna (MA) from the University of Pavia as an alumnus of the Collegio Ghislieri, I completed a Master of Arts in Romance Languages (2015) and a Ph.D. in Italian Studies at the University of Notre Dame (2020). I then held postdoctoral and teaching positions at the University of Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, before coming to Durham, first as a Teaching Fellow (2023), then as an Assistant Professor (2024). Over the years, I have been awarded a University Presidential Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences (2015), an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021), an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022), and a William M. Calder III Fellowship (2023). 

My research focuses on Dante and medieval literary studies at the intersection of manuscript studies, intellectual history and digital humanities. Starting from one of the most important questions in recent Dante studies, that of Dante's intellectual formation, my research investigates how medieval Italian literature was shaped by the philosophical, theological and scientific knowledge of the time, and how these literary works served as a means of transmitting this knowledge. It does so by focusing on a hitherto neglected fundamental element of late medieval culture: the oral lectures and intellectual disputes that took place in the scholastic institutions of the late Middle Ages. This approach has led me to develop research projects on the intersections between vernacular literature and the Latin philosophy, medicine and law taught in late medieval universities (in particular the Bolognese Studium), and on the reconstruction of damaged medieval Latin and vernacular manuscripts through the contribution of digital humanities (especially AI). 

I have edited volumes and published articles and book chapters on the oral transmission of theological, philosophical and medical knowledge in the Italian Middle Ages (especially in Florence and Bologna), on Dante (his intellectual formation, Vita nova, Convivio, Commedia), on Boccaccio (his Volgarizzamento of Titus Livius, Expositions of the Comedy), the humanist culture of the 15th century (Filippo da Strada and the polemic against the invention of the printing press), the reception of Dante in the Renaissance (analysis and editions of unpublished postille by anonymous readers of the Commedia) and Giambattista Vico (the 'Scienza nuova' and Vico's concept of philology). My first monograph will be published in 2025 by Carocci Editore (Rome) under the title of Dante e le 'scuole delli religiosi'. Poesia, teologia e filosofia nella Firenze tardo-medievale ("Dante and the 'Schools of the Religious Orders'. Poetry, Philosophy and Theology in Late-Medieval Florence"). My full CV is available here. 

You can watch some of my talks on Dante on YouTube here: 1, 2, 3, 4. 

• Dante Studies
• Medieval Italian Literature
• Early Modern Italian Literature
• Vernacular transmission of Aristotle
• Late-Medieval Aristotelianism
• Reception Studies
• Intellectual History
• Manuscript Studies
• Digital Humanities

Chapter in book

• Dell'Oso, L. (2023). Vita nova XLI [30]. In Z. G. Baranski, & H. Webb (Eds.), Dante’s ‘Vita nova’: A Collaborative Reading (366–371). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
• Dell'Oso, L. (2022). Dispute bolognesi al tempo di Dante: un Quodlibet medico di Giovanni da Parma (Vat. Lat. 4452, 144r-v). In A. Antonelli, & F. Meier (Eds.), Dante e Bologna. Istituzioni, convergenze e saperi (195-214). Giorgio Pozzi Editore
• Dell'Oso, L. (2021). Lettori cinquecenteschi della Commedia. Postille e stampe dantesche nell’Università di Notre Dame. In A. Sorella (Ed.), Integrazioni all’esegesi dantesca nel cinquecentenario della morte di Bernardo Bembo (167–184). Firenze: Franco Cesati Editori
• Dell'Oso, L. (2019). Tra Bibbia e ‘letteratura di costumanza:’ un’ipotesi su ‘Ecce deus fortior me’ (Vita nova, II.4). In Dante e la cultura fiorentina. Bono Giamboni, Brunetto Latini e la formazione intellettuale dei laici (221–240). Salerno Editrice
• Dell'Oso, L. (2017). Dal Trattatello di Boccaccio alla formazione di Dante: alcune note di lavoro. In Boccaccio e Dintorni. Atti del seminario internazionale di studi, Certaldo Alta, Casa del Boccaccio, 9 Settembre 2016, ed. Stefano Zamponi (1–12). Firenze University Press. https://doi.org/10.36253/978-88-6453-844-0

Edited book

• Meier, F., & Dell'Oso, L. (Eds.). (2024). ‘In terra per le vostre scole’ (Par. XXIX, 70): Dante’s Paradiso and the Medieval Academic World. Special Issue of Humanities. MDPI
• Dell'Oso, L. (2021). Aggiornamento bibliografico dell’Enciclopedia Dantesca (2006-2021). Treccani

Journal Article

• Dell'Oso, L. (in press). L’Inferno a Firenze? Su alcuni elementi teologici dei primi canti della Commedia (Inf. I-IV). Italianistica: Rivista di letteratura italiana,
• Dell'Oso, L. (2022). Dante, Peter of Trabibus, and the ‘Schools of the Religious Orders’ in Florence. Italian Studies, 77(3), 211-229. https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2022.2040866
• Dell'Oso, L. (2022). Astronomy, Philosophy, and Theology in Dante’s Florence: from Vita nova II.1-2 to Paradiso XXIX, 85-102. Dante Studies, 140, 22-44. https://doi.org/10.1353/das.2022.a903955
• Dell'Oso, L. (2018). Su Dante e la dialettica: Convivio II. XIII.11-12 e la logica in Santa Croce. L'Alighieri, 52, 37-49. https://doi.org/10.1400/266842
• Dell'Oso, L. (2018). Looking at Books, Instead of Reading Them: A Conversation with Randall McLeod. Tipofilologia: Rivista internazionale di studi sui testi a stampa della letteratura italiana ed europea, 11, 131-141. https://doi.org/10.19272/201810201003
• Dell'Oso, L. (2017). Per la formazione intellettuale di Dante: i cataloghi librari, le tracce testuali, il ‘Trattatello’ di Boccaccio. Le Tre Corone, 4, 129-161. https://doi.org/10.19272/201712101007
• Dell'Oso, L. (2017). Dalla filologia alla tipografia: su due varianti sostanziali tra la Dipintura nella ‘Scienza Nuova’ del 1730 e del 1744. Historia Philosophica: An International Journal, 15, 43-62
• Dell'Oso, L. (2014). Un domenicano contro la stampa. Nuove acquisizioni al corpus di Filippo da Strada. Tipofilologia: Rivista internazionale di studi sui testi a stampa della letteratura italiana ed europea, 7, 69-102
• Dell'Oso, L. (2013). Reopening a Question of Attribution: Programmatic Notes about Boccaccio and the Translation of Livy. Heliotropia, 10(1-2), 1-16
• Dell'Oso, L. (2013). Versi volgari del tardo Quattrocento nel ms. Notre Dame Lat. d. 5. Studi di filologia italiana, 71, 347–353

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Dell'Oso, L. (2023). ChatGPT e il futuro della medievistica: alcune proposte. [Le parole e le cose]