Growing up in Italy, history and culture have consistently shaped both my academic path and personal life. My education at a classical high school, where the humanities formed the core curriculum, combined with a deep passion for ancient history, led me to pursue a joint bachelor’s degree in Ancient Civilisations for the Contemporary World at the University of Milan and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. This interdisciplinary programme provided me with a wide knowledge on the ancient world, through teachings of historic-archaeological, literary, and religious-philosophical nature.
Having always been fascinated by the material traces left behind by past civilisations, I decided to dedicate my academic career to archaeology. Later on, I developed a profound interest in Late Antiquity, a not-strictly defined historical period spanning from the last centuries of the Roman Empire to the rise of the Middle Ages, defined by significant socio-political shifts, human mobility, and cultural reconfiguration. For my undergraduate dissertation, I analysed the road networks of Late Antique northern Italy through a GIS-based project. This thesis allowed me to learn advanced techniques for archaeological research while studying the means through which people moved in antiquity, roads. Indeed, human mobility represents one of my main interests, from an historic and archaeological point of view as well as from a more contemporary, anthropological lens.
As part of the MPhil in Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford, I intend to dedicate my research to Late Antique human mobility, particularly in the post-Roman northern Italian peninsula. Rather than exploring the political consequences of migrations during the Late Roman Empire and after its fall, I aim to investigate how mobility influenced existing cultural identities in northern Italy, while driving the emergence of new ones. Furthermore, current archaeological approaches to migration in Late Antique Italy will be analysed, to examine how these movements are narrated and interpreted. Examining how scholarly narratives on ancient migrations significantly impact our current perception of the Roman and post-Roman worlds represents a central goal of the research, while also shaping contemporary perspectives on cultural change and human mobility. Studying past human mobility can indeed provide insights on present-day identity, diversity, and migration processes.
I am profoundly grateful to the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship for granting me the opportunity to pursue the MPhil in Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and for offering the ideal interdisciplinary environment to study a broad subject such as human mobility. During my time here, I plan to create culturally meaningful research, advancing my primary aim of promoting culture as a living force, capable of shaping civic consciousness and inclusive development, as opposed to the widespread view – especially in my country of origin – of the humanities and culture as static monuments to the past.
Outside of my academic work on Late Antique migrations, I enjoy spending my free time watching sports – especially Alpine skiing – leaning about classical mythology, finding the best plant-based restaurants, and rewatching my favourite sitcoms over and over again.
