About Prof. Carla Rossi – Official Academic Profile

Carla Rossi is an art historian, Romance philologist and palaeographer. She holds degrees in Romance Philology, Old French Language and Literature, Italian Language and Literature, and Art History, as well as a PhD in Romance Philology, and has obtained subsequent academic qualifications in the fields of Romance Philology and Italian Literature.

Her research is devoted to the study of medieval and Renaissance book culture, with particular attention to illuminated manuscripts, their transmission, and the practices of dismemberment and commercial dispersion. Her work lies at the intersection of philology, archival research, codicology and art history, and focuses especially on manuscripts produced in female monastic contexts, the digital reconstruction of dismembered codices, and the cultural history of the book.

She has carried out academic research, teaching and scientific coordination in university and research contexts across Europe, gaining long-standing experience within the Swiss academic system.

Since May 2026, after serving as Scientific Director of a Veronese research centre, she has accepted the appointment as Director of a prominent Venetian cultural foundation, which has decided to support and protect her in the context of the ongoing campaign of hatred and defamation to which she has been subjected since 2022.

Since 2016, she has served as Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal Theory and Criticism of Literature and Arts.

She is the author of monographs, critical editions and specialist studies published in Italian, French and English. Her most recent publications include Beyond the Margins. Female Illuminators in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (2025), published in Italian translation by Libreria Universitaria Editrice under the title Oltre i margini. Il linguaggio artistico delle miniatrici europee (2025), and The 1879 Theft of Royal MS 16 E VIII from the British Museum (2025).