The Alberto Melloni System: Great Power, Extensive Public Funding, Limited Results? DREST, Italy's National Doctoral School in Religious Studies, as a Litmus Test

National Doctoral Programmes (Dottorati di Interesse Nazionale, DIN) are a distinctive feature of the Italian higher education system. Established under the auspices of the Ministry of University and Research, they bring together numerous universities within a single inter-university doctoral programme intended to promote research and doctoral training in fields considered to be of strategic national importance.
One such programme has, in recent years, become one of the leading reference points in the field of Religious Studies in Italy.
It is a project supported by substantial public funding, presented as a national centre of excellence and placed at the heart of an elaborate academic system built around the Bologna-based Foundation for Religious Studies (FSCIRE) and the figure of Alberto Melloni, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, who has served as the Foundation's Secretary General since 2007.
This is DREST, the Italian Doctoral School in Religious Studies (Dottorato di Interesse Nazionale in Studi Religiosi), whose administrative headquarters are located at Melloni’s own university and whose national coordinator is Melloni himself; FSCIRE plays a leading scientific and organisational role within it. 

The publication of the latest call for applications now offers an opportunity to raise a question that has so far remained largely in the background. After years of public funding, institutional centrality and considerable academic visibility, has DREST produced results proportionate to the resources from which it has benefited?
This is a question concerning DREST, but one that inevitably extends to the entire “Alberto Melloni system”. DREST is not just another project: it is one of the fullest expressions of that system, the testing ground for a model of governance in religious studies that, for almost twenty years, has concentrated resources, academic networks and institutional responsibilities around the same individuals and institutions. If that model works, DREST should be the project best placed to demonstrate it. If, on the other hand, structural weaknesses emerge, it becomes inevitable to question not only the doctorate itself, but also the system that conceived, promoted and governed it.

Il sistema Melloni: molto potere, molti finanziamenti, pochi risultati? Il dottorato DREST come cartina di tornasole

I Dottorati di Interesse Nazionale (DIN) sono una peculiare istituzione del sistema universitario italiano. Istituiti sotto l'egida del Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca, riuniscono numerosi atenei in un unico programma di dottorato interuniversitario, finalizzato a promuovere la ricerca e la formazione dottorale in ambiti disciplinari considerati di interesse strategico per il Paese.

C'è un Dottorato di Interesse Nazionale che, negli ultimi anni, è diventato uno dei principali punti di riferimento nel settore degli studi religiosi in Italia.
Un progetto sostenuto da ingenti risorse pubbliche, presentato come un'eccellenza nazionale e collocato al centro di un articolato sistema accademico costruito attorno alla Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose di Bologna (FSCIRE) e alla figura di Alberto Melloni, ordinario di Storia del Cristianesimo presso l’Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, che ne è segretario generale dal 2007.
Si tratta del DREST (Dottorato di Interesse Nazionale in Studi Religiosi), con sede amministrativa presso l’ateneo di Melloni che ne è coordinatore nazionale; la FSCIRE vi svolge un ruolo scientifico e organizzativo di primo piano.
L'uscita del bando del 42° ciclo offre oggi l'occasione per porre una domanda che, finora, è rimasta sullo sfondo.
Dopo anni di finanziamenti pubblici, di centralità istituzionale e di grande visibilità accademica, il DREST ha prodotto risultati proporzionati alle risorse di cui ha beneficiato?
È una domanda che riguarda il DREST, ma che finisce per investire l'intero "sistema Melloni". Perché il DREST non è un progetto qualsiasi: è una delle sue espressioni più compiute, il banco di prova di un modello di governo delle scienze religiose che da quasi vent'anni concentra risorse, reti accademiche e responsabilità istituzionali attorno agli stessi soggetti. Se quel modello funziona, dovrebbe essere proprio il DREST a dimostrarlo. Se invece emergono criticità strutturali, è inevitabile interrogarsi non soltanto sul dottorato, ma sul sistema che lo ha concepito, promosso e governato.

Regular Republics, Authorial Monarchies

On Antonella Barzazi, Repubbliche regolari. Ordini religiosi, cultura, politica nell’Italia moderna, Padova University Press, Padova 2025

Repubbliche regolari brings together four studies devoted to figures and contexts of the Italian regular clergy between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, preceded by an extensive introduction in which Antonella Barzazi revisits some of the major historiographical developments concerning religious orders in the early modern period. The author explicitly presents the volume as a composite work, resulting from the re-elaboration of research conducted at different stages of her scholarly career and brought together under the category of “regular republics.” This choice constitutes one of the book’s most interesting and, at the same time, most problematic features. While the individual contributions display the documentary solidity that has long characterized Barzazi’s scholarship, the question remains whether they genuinely converge within a coherent interpretative framework. The volume therefore invites reflection not so much on the value of the individual essays as on the capacity of the category proposed in the title to transform independently conceived studies into a unified account of the political and cultural organization of religious orders in early modern Italy.

Three of the four chapters derive from studies previously published elsewhere and subsequently reworked, while the essay devoted to Girolamo Vielmi develops a line of inquiry that the author has cultivated for some time, as evidenced by her entry on Vielmi in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (2020). The explicitly composite nature of the volume is not in itself a limitation; it does, however, make the presence of a strong interpretative framework all the more necessary if chronologically and thematically heterogeneous case studies are to be brought into meaningful dialogue. It is precisely on this level that some of the book’s most significant historiographical questions emerge.

Barzazi herself acknowledges this point (p. 18): “Le pagine che seguono non hanno l’ambizione di contribuire a una discussione che meriterebbe ben altro spazio. Intendono piuttosto proporre alcuni spunti di riflessione a margine di vicende e figure di una Chiesa regolare saldamente radicata al di qua delle Alpi, in un orizzonte lontano dagli stimoli di società multiconfessionali e di quotidiani contatti con differenti culture, ma condizionato dall’intreccio tra centralismo pontificio, contiguità con la corte romana, logiche politiche degli Stati. I quattro capitoli, che raccolgono contributi di ricerca redatti in momenti diversi di un itinerario intorno agli ordini religiosi iniziato molti anni fa e diramatosi in varie direzioni, costituiscono degli affondi su una serie di passaggi politici e culturali cruciali che marcarono l’ultima fase di capillare presenza della rete conventuale e monastica negli spazi della penisola, tra la crisi religiosa del Cinquecento e l’impatto, due secoli più tardi, con l’Illuminismo”. (“The pages that follow do not aspire to contribute to a debate that would require far more space. Rather, they aim to offer a number of reflections on events and figures belonging to a regular Church firmly rooted on this side of the Alps, in a setting far removed from the stimuli of multiconfessional societies and from everyday encounters with different cultures, yet shaped by the interplay of papal centralization, proximity to the Roman court, and the political logics of the states. The four chapters, which collect research contributions written at different moments within a scholarly itinerary on religious orders begun many years ago and developed in various directions, focus on a series of crucial political and cultural turning points that marked the final phase of the dense conventual and monastic network throughout the Italian peninsula, from the religious crisis of the sixteenth century to the encounter with the Enlightenment two centuries later.”).

Yet some reservations arise from the introduction’s definition of the Italian regular Church as a reality “firmly rooted on this side of the Alps,” operating within a horizon relatively distant from the stimuli of multiconfessional societies and from daily encounters with different cultures. Although this is a declared interpretative choice—one that tends to identify the governance of religious orders with the orders themselves—it risks producing an image of the regular world that is excessively compact and centripetal. Documentation produced by the orders themselves, inquisitorial records, and recent scholarship on early modern networks point instead to a far more mobile and permeable reality: friars and monks engaged in constant movement, libraries nourished by international circuits of book circulation, epistolary exchanges crossing political and confessional boundaries, and a continuous exposure to the cultural and religious tensions of the age. Rather than institutions defined exclusively by their relationship with Rome and the states of the peninsula, religious orders often appear as spaces of mediation, traversed by influences, exchanges, and conflicts that significantly complicate their institutional profile.

Repubbliche regolari, monarchie autoriali

A proposito del volume di Antonella Barzazi, Repubbliche regolari. Ordini religiosi, cultura, politica nell’Italia moderna, Padova University Press, Padova 2025

Repubbliche regolari raccoglie quattro contributi dedicati a figure e contesti della Chiesa regolare italiana tra Cinque e Settecento, preceduti da un'ampia introduzione nella quale Antonella Barzazi ripercorre alcuni snodi della storiografia sugli ordini religiosi nell'età moderna. L'autrice dichiara esplicitamente la natura composita del volume, nato dalla rielaborazione di ricerche sviluppate in momenti diversi del proprio percorso scientifico e qui riunite sotto la categoria delle "repubbliche regolari". Proprio questa scelta costituisce uno degli aspetti più interessanti e, al tempo stesso, più problematici del libro. Se infatti i singoli contributi mostrano la consueta solidità documentaria che caratterizza la produzione dell'autrice, resta aperta la questione della loro effettiva convergenza entro un quadro interpretativo unitario. Il volume invita dunque a interrogarsi non tanto sul valore dei singoli studi, quanto sulla capacità della categoria proposta nel titolo di trasformare materiali nati autonomamente in una riflessione coerente sulle forme di organizzazione politica e culturale degli ordini religiosi nell'Italia moderna.

Dei quattro capitoli, tre derivano da contributi già pubblicati in sedi differenti e successivamente rielaborati, mentre il saggio dedicato a Girolamo Vielmi si inserisce in una linea di ricerca già coltivata dall'autrice, come testimonia anche la voce pubblicata nel Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani nel 2020. La natura dichiaratamente composita del volume non costituisce di per sé un limite; tuttavia rende ancora più importante la presenza di una forte cornice interpretativa capace di collegare casi di studio cronologicamente e tematicamente eterogenei. È precisamente su questo terreno che emergono alcune delle principali questioni storiografiche poste dal libro.

Certo, lo scrive anche l’Autrice (p. 18): “Le pagine che seguono non hanno l’ambizione di contribuire a una discussione che meriterebbe ben altro spazio. Intendono piuttosto proporre alcuni spunti di riflessione a margine di vicende e figure di una Chiesa regolare saldamente radicata al di qua delle Alpi, in un orizzonte lontano dagli stimoli di società multiconfessionali e di quotidiani contatti con differenti culture, ma condizionato dall’intreccio tra centralismo pontificio, contiguità con la corte romana, logiche politiche degli Stati. I quattro capitoli, che raccolgono contributi di ricerca redatti in momenti diversi di un itinerario intorno agli ordini religiosi iniziato molti anni fa e diramatosi in varie direzioni, costituiscono degli affondi su una serie di passaggi politici e culturali cruciali che marcarono l’ultima fase di capillare presenza della rete conventuale e monastica negli spazi della penisola, tra la crisi religiosa del Cinquecento e l’impatto, due secoli più tardi, con l’Illuminismo”.

Tuttavia, emergono alcune perplessità dalla definizione della Chiesa regolare italiana proposta nell’introduzione come realtà “saldamente radicata al di qua delle Alpi”, operante in un orizzonte relativamente distante dagli stimoli delle società multiconfessionali e dai contatti quotidiani con culture differenti. Pur trattandosi di una scelta prospettica dichiarata (l’Autrice identifica e sovrappone il governo degli ordini agli ordini stessi), essa rischia di restituire un'immagine eccessivamente compatta e centripeta del mondo regolare. La documentazione prodotta dagli stessi ordini religiosi, così come le fonti inquisitoriali e la più recente storiografia sulle reti della prima età moderna, mostrano infatti una realtà assai più mobile e permeabile: frati e monaci coinvolti in continui spostamenti, biblioteche alimentate da circuiti librari internazionali, relazioni epistolari che attraversavano confini politici e confessionali, oltre a una costante esposizione alle tensioni culturali e religiose del tempo. Più che organismi definiti esclusivamente dal rapporto con Roma e con gli Stati della penisola, gli ordini religiosi appaiono spesso come spazi di mediazione, attraversati da influenze, scambi e conflitti che ne complicano sensibilmente il profilo istituzionale.

Against Over-Interpretation, Once More: Multiconfessional Europe between Historiographical Construction and Historical Evidence

This piece further develops some of the methodological concerns raised in Against Over-Interpretation: When a Single Source Becomes a System, applying them to a recent historiographical essay on early modern multiconfessionalism.

In the first issue of Studi Storici for 2023, Elena Bonora published the article Quale Controriforma? Roma e l'Europa multiconfessionale (What Counter-Reformation? Rome and Multiconfessional Europe), a historiographical essay examining recent international scholarship on early modern multiconfessionalism and its implications for the study of the Counter-Reformation. The article also provides the historiographical framework later developed in the edited volume The Roman Church and Multiconfessional Europe in the Early Modern Period (Rome: Viella, 2026), where many of the same themes are explored through archival case studies. Drawing upon a substantial body of primarily Anglo-American and German scholarship, Bonora argues that the traditional paradigm of confessionalization has largely been superseded by a new understanding of early modern Europe as a fluid, multiconfessional space characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, negotiated coexistence, and shifting confessional boundaries.

The article offers a broad overview of recent historiographical trends. At the same time, however, it raises a number of methodological questions concerning the relationship between interpretative paradigms, the nature of archival evidence, and the extent to which local case studies may legitimately support broader historical generalizations.

Carlo Ginzburg after Carlo Ginzburg: Reassessing a Master

In our recent tribute to Carlo Ginzburg, we emphasized the originality of his scholarship and the decisive role he played in reshaping historical studies during the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. For that very reason, it is worth recalling an aspect that is often overlooked in commemorative accounts: many of his most celebrated interpretations have since been subjected to substantial criticism and revision. This is the destiny of every great historian. Works that open new paths inevitably become the object of critical scrutiny by both contemporaries and later generations. If this were not so, historical scholarship would cease to be critical inquiry and become little more than hagiography.

In the days following the publication of our obituary, Carlo Ginzburg (1939–2026): Between Innovation and Controversy, we were particularly pleased to receive a message from Franco Cardini. For the benefit of our international readers, we reproduce below an English translation of his tribute:

With the passing of Carlo Ginzburg, the international scholarly community loses a mind of the highest originality, one of the leading voices in historical studies over the past sixty years, as well as a free and rigorous spirit, deeply committed to original research and always willing to engage, without prejudice yet with courageous critical judgment, with ideas emerging from an admirably broad range of scholarly fields. He was also a citizen who never hesitated to speak with authority wherever culture and civic life intersected. His works are destined to retain their authority and relevance for many years to come, while I benandanti, Il formaggio e i vermi, and Storia notturna are already regarded as classics of historical and anthropological scholarship. His lesson on the "evidential paradigm" remains fundamental.

Cardini's appreciation is particularly meaningful in light of the well-known public disagreement that opposed the two historians during the 2007 controversy surrounding Ariel Toaff's Pasque di sangue. On that occasion, Cardini openly challenged Ginzburg's criticism of Toaff and, more broadly, questioned aspects of Ginzburg's historical method.
We could hardly agree more with Cardini's overall assessment. Ginzburg's influence on modern historiography is beyond question, and his books profoundly transformed the way historians approached popular culture, heresy, witchcraft, and historical evidence.
Precisely because of that influence, however, it is worth recalling another aspect of his legacy—one that is often overlooked in commemorative accounts. Virtually all of his best-known interpretations were later subjected to extensive criticism and substantial revision. This is not a contradiction, but rather the normal destiny of historians who truly change a discipline. Their works become unavoidable reference points not only for admiration but also for debate, correction, and reassessment.
In Ginzburg's case, however, the phenomenon is particularly striking.

Quando il denaro pubblico non serve più l'interesse pubblico: il caso degli studentati finanziati dal PNRR a Caserta e in provincia

N.B. Quella che segue è la versione italiana di un intervento già pubblicato sul presente blog in lingua inglese con il titolo When Public Money Stops Serving the Public: The Controversy Surrounding PNRR-Funded Student Residences in the Caserta Area. La versione originale è disponibile all'indirizzo: https://www.cantierestoricofilologico.it/2026/06/when-public-money-stops-serving-public.html

La controversa vicenda degli studentati finanziati dal PNRR a Caserta e in provincia merita un'attenzione (inter)nazionale.

I dati emersi dalle inchieste della stampa locale sono impressionanti. Secondo quanto riportato, oltre 32 milioni di euro di fondi PNRR sono stati destinati a progetti di studentati nella provincia di Caserta. Eppure, le tariffe pubblicizzate risultano particolarmente elevate: 722,50 euro al mese per una camera singola e 528 euro per un posto letto in doppia a Caserta, sede di uno dei principali poli dell'Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", mentre ad Aversa i canoni oscillerebbero tra 410 e 595 euro mensili. Si tratta di importi che superano non solo il prezzo medio di mercato di una stanza singola in Campania (circa 423 euro al mese), ma persino la media degli altri studentati finanziati dal PNRR presenti nella regione. Per molti studenti ciò significherebbe una spesa per il solo alloggio superiore agli 8.000 euro l'anno, senza considerare tasse universitarie, libri, trasporti e costi ordinari di mantenimento.

A ciò si aggiunge un ulteriore elemento: la collocazione geografica delle strutture. Diversi studentati non sorgono infatti in prossimità delle principali sedi didattiche dell'Ateneo vanvitelliano, ma sono distribuiti in differenti comuni della provincia. Gli studenti che frequentano le varie sedi dell'Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", in particolare quelle di Caserta e Aversa, potrebbero quindi dover sostenere ulteriori costi e tempi di spostamento, oltre a canoni già particolarmente elevati. Un programma nato per rendere più accessibile l'istruzione universitaria rischia così di trasformarsi in un doppio svantaggio: alloggi costosi e, in alcuni casi, neppure facilmente raggiungibili dalle sedi universitarie cui dovrebbero servire.

Se quanto riportato dalla stampa fosse confermato, emergerebbe un paradosso difficilmente ignorabile. Risorse pubbliche destinate ad ampliare l'accesso all'istruzione universitaria finirebbero per sostenere alloggi economicamente fuori dalla portata di molti degli stessi studenti che il programma di finanziamento avrebbe dovuto favorire.

La vicenda, del resto, non può più essere considerata una semplice polemica locale. Ha ricevuto ampia copertura da parte della stampa del territorio, suscitando un crescente interesse dell'opinione pubblica, ed è approdata anche in Parlamento, dove sono state annunciate interrogazioni sulla sostenibilità economica di questi studentati e sull'impiego delle risorse pubbliche. Quando un'inchiesta giornalistica arriva fino all'attenzione del Parlamento, difficilmente può essere liquidata come una controversia marginale.

La domanda di fondo è semplice: qual è la reale finalità degli studentati finanziati con denaro pubblico? Massimizzare il rendimento economico di investimenti sostenuti da fondi pubblici oppure garantire agli studenti alloggi realmente accessibili? Sono due obiettivi che non sempre coincidono, e le politiche pubbliche dovrebbero chiarire senza ambiguità quale dei due abbia la priorità.

Il dibattito assume un rilievo ancora maggiore perché queste strutture sono state realizzate grazie a consistenti finanziamenti del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), alimentato da risorse pubbliche europee e giustificato in nome dell'interesse generale. È quindi legittimo domandarsi se tali fondi stiano realmente perseguendo la loro missione sociale.

Da qui discende inevitabilmente un'altra domanda. Qual è la posizione dei vertici dell'Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"? Gli studenti dell'Ateneo, in particolare quelli che studiano nell'area casertana, dovrebbero essere i principali beneficiari di un sistema di residenze universitarie sostenuto con risorse pubbliche. Se proprio questi studenti non possono realisticamente permettersi di viverci, significa che qualcosa, nel funzionamento del sistema, non ha raggiunto gli obiettivi dichiarati.

Il momento rende la questione ancora più significativa. Il 29 e 30 giugno l'Università sarà chiamata a eleggere il nuovo Rettore. Il diritto allo studio, l'accessibilità degli alloggi e il corretto impiego delle risorse pubbliche dovrebbero rappresentare temi centrali nel dibattito sul futuro dell'Ateneo. Sarebbe quindi auspicabile che i candidati e gli organi di governo dell'Università esprimessero una chiara posizione su una questione che riguarda direttamente gli studenti e l'immagine stessa dell'istituzione.

In definitiva, questo caso va ben oltre i confini della provincia di Caserta. Solleva interrogativi più ampi sulla trasparenza, sulla responsabilità nell'utilizzo delle risorse pubbliche e sull'effettiva capacità dei progetti finanziati con fondi europei di conseguire gli obiettivi per i quali sono stati concepiti. Un progetto pubblico non dovrebbe essere valutato soltanto per l'entità dei finanziamenti ricevuti, ma soprattutto per la sua capacità di produrre benefici concreti per i destinatari. Se gli studentati finanziati con denaro pubblico diventano inaccessibili agli studenti comuni, viene meno una delle finalità fondamentali del progetto.

L'opinione pubblica — e soprattutto gli studenti nel cui interesse questi investimenti sono stati giustificati — meritano risposte chiare.

PER APPROFONDIRE

Chora Media – Il lusso in una stanza. Dalle tende agli studentati (per ricchi) del PNRR (SEIETRENTA XL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoQLBsZh-gQ

CasertaNews – Il business degli studentati: oltre 32 milioni del PNRR a 12 società. Spesa da 722 euro al mese per una singola
https://www.casertanews.it/attualita/business-alloggi-studenti-societa-pnrr-milioni-euro-tariffe-caserta.html

Edizione Caserta – Affitti record negli studentati finanziati dal PNRR: il caso arriva in Parlamento
https://edizionecaserta.net/2026/06/25/affitti-record-negli-studentati-finanziati-dal-pnrr-il-caso-arriva-in-parlamento

CasertaFocus – Studentati a 5 stelle: 722 euro al mese per un posto letto a Caserta
https://www.casertafocus.net/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76855:universita-studentati-a-5-stelle-722-euro-al-mese-per-un-posto-letto-a-caserta

When Public Money Stops Serving the Public: The Controversy Surrounding PNRR-Funded Student Residences in the Caserta Area

The controversy surrounding PNRR-funded student residences in the Caserta area deserves (inter)national attention.

The figures emerging from local media reports are striking. More than €32 million in PNRR funding has reportedly been allocated to projects involving student residences in the province of Caserta. Yet the advertised prices appear remarkably high: €722.50 per month for a single room and €528 for a bed in a shared room in Caserta, home to one of the largest campuses of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", while in Aversa prices reportedly range from €410 to €595 per month. These amounts are said to exceed not only the average market rent for a single room in Campania (around €423 per month) but even the average prices charged by other PNRR-funded student residences across the region. For many students, accommodation alone would therefore cost well over €8,000 per year, before accounting for tuition fees, books, transport and everyday living expenses.

The geographical dimension is equally important. Several of these residences are not located immediately adjacent to the University's principal teaching facilities but are spread across different municipalities in the province. Students attending the various campuses of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"—particularly those in Caserta and Aversa—may therefore face additional commuting time and transport costs on top of already substantial rents. A programme originally conceived to make higher education more accessible thus risks creating a double burden: accommodation that is both expensive and, in some cases, not even within easy walking distance of the academic buildings it is intended to serve.

If these reports are accurate, a troubling paradox emerges. Public funds intended to widen access to higher education may instead be subsidising accommodation that is financially out of reach for many of the very students the programme was designed to support.

This is no longer merely a local controversy. The story has received extensive coverage in the local press, reflecting growing public concern, and it has now reached the Italian Parliament, where questions have reportedly been raised about the affordability of these residences and the use of public resources. When an issue progresses from newspaper investigations to parliamentary scrutiny, it can no longer be dismissed as an isolated complaint.

The central question is straightforward: what is the real purpose of publicly financed student housing? Is it to maximise private returns on publicly subsidised investments, or to guarantee genuinely affordable accommodation for students? Public policy should leave little doubt as to which objective takes precedence.

This debate is particularly important because these residences have benefited from substantial investment under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), financed through European public funds and justified in the name of the public interest. Citizens are therefore entitled to ask whether these resources are actually fulfilling their intended social mission.

Another question inevitably follows. What do the leadership of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" think about this situation? The University's own students—especially those studying in the Caserta area—should be among the principal beneficiaries of publicly supported student accommodation. If they cannot realistically afford to live in these residences, something has clearly gone wrong.

The timing makes the silence even more striking. On 29–30 June, the University will elect its next Rector. Student welfare, housing accessibility and the responsible use of public resources ought to be central themes in any discussion about the institution's future. One would therefore expect the candidates and the University's governing bodies to express a clear position on an issue that directly affects their own students and the University's public reputation.

Ultimately, this case goes well beyond Caserta. It raises broader questions about transparency, accountability and the effective use of public money. Public programmes should ultimately be judged not only by the amount of funding they receive, but by whether they actually achieve the public objectives for which they were created. If publicly funded student residences become inaccessible to ordinary students, then one of the programme's fundamental purposes has been undermined.

The public—and above all the students whose interests these investments were supposed to protect—deserve clear answers.

FURTHER READING AND MEDIA COVERAGE:

• Chora Media – Il lusso in una stanza. Dalle tende agli studentati (per ricchi) del PNRR (SEIETRENTA XL): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoQLBsZh-gQ
• CasertaNews – Il business degli studentati: oltre 32 milioni del Pnrr a 12 società. Spesa da 722 euro al mese per una singola: https://www.casertanews.it/attualita/business-alloggi-studenti-societa-pnrr-milioni-euro-tariffe-caserta.html
• Edizione Caserta – Affitti record negli studentati finanziati dal PNRR: il caso arriva in Parlamento: https://edizionecaserta.net/2026/06/25/affitti-record-negli-studentati-finanziati-dal-pnrr-il-caso-arriva-in-parlamento
• CasertaFocus – Studentati a 5 stelle: 722 euro al mese per un posto letto a Caserta: https://www.casertafocus.net/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76855:universita-studentati-a-5-stelle-722-euro-al-mese-per-un-posto-letto-a-caserta

Carlo Ginzburg (1939–2026): Between Innovation and Controversy

The death of Carlo Ginzburg on 17 June 2026 marks the disappearance of one of the most influential and widely discussed historians of the last half-century. Few scholars of early modern Europe have enjoyed comparable international visibility, and even fewer have generated such extensive debate across the fields of history, anthropology, literary studies, and cultural studies.

Born in Turin on 15 April 1939, Ginzburg was the son of the anti-fascist intellectual Leone Ginzburg and the writer Natalia Ginzburg. He studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he came under the influence of Delio Cantimori, one of the most important Italian historians of heresy and religious dissent. After teaching at the University of Bologna, he moved to the United States, holding the Chair of Italian Renaissance History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1988 to 2006. He later returned to Pisa, where he taught History of European Cultures at the Scuola Normale Superiore and was subsequently appointed Professor Emeritus.

Ginzburg’s research focused primarily on the cultural and religious history of early modern Europe, particularly the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His work explored the beliefs, mentalities, and intellectual horizons of ordinary people, often through the close examination of inquisitorial records and judicial archives. In doing so, he helped establish an approach that sought to recover the voices of individuals who had traditionally remained on the margins of historical narratives.

His name became closely associated with Microhistory, one of the most innovative historiographical currents to emerge in post-war Italy. Although the label never fully captured the complexity of his scholarship, works such as Il formaggio e i vermi (The Cheese and the Worms, 1976) became emblematic of a method that used a single individual or small community to illuminate broader cultural processes. The book, centred on the Friulian miller Menocchio and his trial before the Roman Inquisition, achieved extraordinary international success and remains one of the most widely read works of historical scholarship ever written by an Italian historian.

Yet Ginzburg’s career was also marked by controversy. His interpretative boldness, admired by many readers, attracted criticism from numerous specialists. Several historians argued that some of his reconstructions relied excessively on conjecture and analogical reasoning, occasionally stretching the available evidence beyond what the sources could securely sustain. Discussing Ginzburg’s influential studies on the Friulian Benandanti, Giovanni Romeo observed that a certain degree of “forcing” of the documentation was evident. Likewise, Dominick LaCapra famously remarked that The Cheese and the Worms appeared to reveal less the worldview of a sixteenth-century miller than that of a twentieth-century historian.

Similar criticisms resurfaced in later scholarly debates. During the controversy surrounding Ariel Toaff’s Pasque di Sangue (Bloody Passovers, 2007), Ginzburg emerged as one of the book’s strongest critics. In response, medieval historian Franco Cardini questioned whether some of the methodological shortcomings identified by Ginzburg in Toaff’s work might also be found in aspects of Ginzburg’s own scholarship, particularly in his use of the so-called “evidential paradigm” (paradigma indiziario).

Beyond his publications, Ginzburg played an important role in promoting access to archival sources. In 1979 he addressed a public appeal to Pope John Paul II advocating the opening of the archives of the former Holy Office to scholars. Although the request initially went unanswered, the eventual opening of the archives in 1998 was widely regarded as part of a broader process to which Ginzburg had contributed.

His public interventions occasionally extended beyond academic history. Particularly notable was his defence of his longtime friend Adriano Sofri. In Il giudice e lo storico (The Judge and the Historian, 1991), Ginzburg examined the judicial proceedings against Sofri and drew provocative parallels between modern legal practices and the procedures employed during early modern witchcraft trials. The book generated considerable debate and demonstrated how closely Ginzburg linked historical inquiry to contemporary public concerns.

Whether one views his work as a model of historical imagination or as an example of interpretative overreach, there can be little doubt about its impact. Carlo Ginzburg transformed the study of popular culture, religious dissent, witchcraft, and inquisitorial repression. He inspired generations of historians to look beyond official narratives and to search for meaning in fragmentary traces, marginal voices, and seemingly insignificant details. His books will continue to be read, discussed, admired, and criticized—perhaps the clearest sign of a lasting scholarly legacy.

For further reading in our Ereticopedia: readers may consult the entry specifically devoted to Carlo Ginzburg, as well as on Menocchio, Benandanti, Nicodemism, Roman Inquisition, Delio Cantimori, Adriano Prosperi, Ariel Toaff, and related topics concerning heresy, religious dissent, and inquisitorial practices in early modern Europe.

Between Prestige and Service: Promised Categories, Missed Analyses

On Vittoria Fiorelli, Prestigio e servizio. Linguaggi e modelli di distinzione sociale nella successione delle generazioni aristocratiche. Mediterraneo e Atlantico, XVIII-XX secolo, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica, 2024, 192 pp.

The title of this book promises much: “prestige” and “service” seem to evoke two categories in tension, two poles of a social discourse that should oppose and at the same time complement each other. In reality, throughout the volume, the dichotomy remains largely rhetorical: “service” ultimately becomes always and only the instrument necessary for the consolidation of “prestige,” a circular formula that explains everything and, precisely for this reason, explains nothing.
The book’s major problem lies here: the category of “service” is naturalized, treated as a given and never truly questioned. Instead of showing the fractures, conflicts, and ambiguities that could have made the contradiction between prestige and service fruitful, the author limits herself to describing their coexistence as if it were a self-evident historical truth. The result is a discourse that does not dismantle aristocratic myths, but ends up reinforcing them, celebrating them in a substantially uncritical manner.
Added to this is the excessive breadth of the geographical and chronological scope: from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Such a wide scale would have required adequate depth and a conceptual architecture capable of sustaining the weight of the analysis. Instead, the narrative proceeds by suggestion, with scattered and insufficiently problematized examples, leaving the reader with the impression of an unfinished mosaic.
This impression is already anticipated by the reading of the table of contents, surprisingly brief and fragmentary. The three sections (“La Croce Azzurra tra prestigio e servizio”, “Una famiglia tra due mari”, “Tracce di storia globale tra Mediterraneo e Atlantico”) bring together heterogeneous topics, ranging from nursing care to nineteenth-century music, from female languages of the Restoration to aristocratic flights to Mexico. Making the composite nature of the volume even more evident, one of the chapters (“A sue spese. Prime impressioni su un’impresa per le donne”) is curiously attributed to a scholar of whom there is no other trace in the volume, which otherwise appears to be the work of the sole author named on the cover.

Tra prestigio e servizio: categorie promesse, analisi mancate

A proposito di Vittoria Fiorelli, Prestigio e servizio. Linguaggi e modelli di distinzione sociale nella successione delle generazioni aristocratiche. Mediterraneo e Atlantico, XVIII-XX secolo, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica, 2024, 192 pp.

Il titolo di questo libro promette molto: “prestigio” e “servizio” sembrano evocare due categorie in tensione, due poli di un discorso sociale che dovrebbero contrapporsi e al tempo stesso completarsi. In realtà, nel corso del volume, la dicotomia resta più che altro retorica: il “servizio” finisce per essere sempre e solo lo strumento necessario al consolidamento del “prestigio”, una formula circolare che spiega tutto e, proprio per questo, non spiega nulla.
Il problema maggiore del lavoro risiede qui: la categoria di “servizio” è naturalizzata, trattata come presupposto e mai davvero interrogata. Invece di mostrare le fratture, i conflitti, le ambiguità che avrebbero potuto rendere fertile la contraddizione tra prestigio e servizio, l’autrice si limita a descriverne la coesistenza come se fosse una verità storica autoevidente. Il risultato è un discorso che non smonta i miti aristocratici, ma finisce per rafforzarli, celebrandoli in maniera sostanzialmente acritica.
A ciò si aggiunge l’eccessiva vastità dell’ambito geografico e cronologico: dal Mediterraneo all’Atlantico, dal Settecento al Novecento. Una scala tanto ampia avrebbe richiesto approfondimenti adeguati e un’architettura concettuale capace di reggere il peso dell’analisi. Invece, la narrazione procede per suggestioni, con esempi sparsi e poco problematizzati, che lasciano al lettore l’impressione di un mosaico incompiuto.
Questa sensazione è anticipata anche dalla lettura dell’indice, sorprendentemente breve e frammentario. Le tre sezioni (“La Croce Azzurra tra prestigio e servizio”, “Una famiglia tra due mari”, “Tracce di storia globale tra Mediterraneo e Atlantico”) raccolgono argomenti eterogenei, che spaziano dall’assistenza infermieristica alla musica ottocentesca, dai linguaggi femminili della Restaurazione alle fughe aristocratiche in Messico. A rendere ancora più evidente la natura composita del volume, uno dei capitoli (“A sue spese. Prime impressioni su un’impresa per le donne”) è attribuito curiosamente a una studiosa di cui non c’è altra traccia nel volume, che per il resto appare frutto del lavoro della sola autrice indicata nella copertina.

Against Over-Interpretation: When a Single Source Becomes a System

One of the most persistent—and intellectually corrosive—risks in contemporary historiography is not factual error, but over-interpretation: the tendency to inflate a single source, or a narrowly circumscribed documentary cluster, into a comprehensive explanatory framework. What is lost in this process is not nuance, but proportion; not interpretation, but method.

A particularly emblematic case is that of Elena Bonora. Aspettando l’imperatore. Principi italiani tra il papa e Carlo V (Einaudi, 2012)—recently translated into English by a publisher that has developed the habit of repackaging older Italian historiography for the Anglophone market, sometimes canonical, sometimes less so (Waiting for the Emperor, Viella, 2022)—constructs an ambitious reconstruction of Italian political dynamics between 1534 and 1549 almost entirely on the correspondence of Cardinal Benedetto Accolti. The source is undoubtedly significant, but it remains one voice, embedded in personal agendas, factional anxieties, and rhetorical self-fashioning. To elevate such material into a quasi-total vision of Italian politics is to mistake perspective for structure, discourse for process, and contingency for system. And precisely because the source is so important, a more basic methodological question cannot be avoided: why was it not edited and contextualized as a source, for the benefit of the scholarly community and the advancement of the field, instead of being mobilized to sustain a small yet ambitious grand synthesis almost entirely dependent upon it? An edition—critical, annotated, and properly situated—would have allowed the correspondence to be interrogated, compared, and tested, rather than pressed into service as an all-purpose explanatory device.

The choice to pursue synthesis rather than source publication is not neutral. It shifts the burden of interpretation entirely onto the historian, foreclosing collective scrutiny and insulating the argument from the kind of philological and contextual control that only an edition can provide. In such cases, interpretation does not emerge from the source; it replaces it.The problem, however, is not confined to Bonora. It reflects a broader historiographical habit: the temptation to privilege coherence over complexity, to impose retrospective intelligibility where the sources instead testify to uncertainty, hesitation, and contradiction. Over-interpretation flourishes precisely where methodological caution is abandoned in favor of narrative elegance and interpretive audacity.

Anyone working in political, social, or religious history should be acutely aware that many types of sources are especially vulnerable to this distortion. They are not transparent windows onto political reality, but rhetorical artifacts, shaped by mediation, positioning, and institutional function. Treating them as repositories of implicit political theory, or worse, as evidence of fully formed ideological programs, is a fundamental category error. It turns historically situated texts into timeless explanatory keys.

These risks are not merely theoretical. They have tangible consequences for how we reconstruct early modern political cultures, confessional conflicts, and processes of state formation. They encourage speculative architectures built on insufficient foundations and reward interpretive bravura at the expense of empirical restraint.

I have addressed these issues en passant in my article Religious Policies and Civil Conflict: ‘Italian’ Perspectives on the French Wars of Religion, published in "Religions", 16 (8), 2025, where the danger of over-interpretation is explicitly identified as a methodological pitfall, particularly when modern analytical frameworks are retrojected onto sources that resist such coherence. There, the tone was restrained. Here, restraint is less warranted.

Methodological caution is not the enemy of interpretation; it is its minimum ethical requirement. When it is suspended, interpretation ceases to be analysis and becomes projection. At that point, historiography no longer interrogates the past, it colonizes it. Coherence is imposed where none exists; systems are extracted from fragments; voices are inflated into structures simply because the historian needs them to carry explanatory weight.

This is not innovation. It is methodological overreach dressed up as originality. And it should be called what it is. Sources do not generate systems. Historians do, by force, by selection, and by silence. The only real question is whether they are willing to admit it.

Daniele Santarelli

The Weight of Prejudice: Rereading Antonino De Francesco's "La palla al piede" (2012) and What Remains of It

We have chosen to translate into English our review of Antonino De Francesco’s La palla al piede. Una storia del pregiudizio antimeridionale (Feltrinelli, Milan 2012), originally published in italian in "Quaderni eretici | Cahiers hérétiques", 3 (2015). The review is now more than ten years old, and the book itself, published thirteen years ago, has already been largely forgotten, a fact that is in itself significant when considering this type of historiographical production, which often bursts onto the scene with great fanfare only to fade rapidly from scholarly memory. This English version includes minor modifications and adaptations, as well as a brief final reflection on the book’s impact more than a decade after its release.
This translation therefore serves a double purpose. On the one hand, the theme itself—anti-Southern prejudice, its reiteration across centuries, its ideological and political uses—remains of undoubted relevance for understanding Italian history and identity. On the other hand, it offers an occasion to reflect more broadly on certain historiographical tendencies that reach far beyond the Italian case.
De Francesco’s work, while meritorious in its erudition and narrative construction, epitomizes a style of scholarship inclined toward intellectualized and often self-indulgent frameworks, not always firmly anchored in archival sources. Its reliance on literary and cultural representations, newspapers, theatre, and cinema, with limited attention to institutional documentation, mirrors a broader trend in contemporary historiography: the preference for striking titles, conceptual generalizations, and promotional impact, sometimes at the expense of empirical depth and long-term durability. It is precisely this aspect, the initial prominence followed by a rapid descent into semi-oblivion, that makes the book, and our review of it, worthy of revisiting.
De Francesco himself, former Professor of Modern History at the University of Milan and a scholar with an established career, has contributed significantly to debates on the Risorgimento and national identity. Yet his trajectory, emblematic of certain “intellectualist” currents in Italian historiography, offers a useful case for international readers, who may wish to assess both the strengths and the limits of this approach. By making this review accessible in English, we hope to broaden the conversation and invite a more critical engagement with the ways historians build narratives of prejudice, identity, and national divisions, and to reflect on why some works, despite initial acclaim, so quickly fade from the collective scholarly horizon.

Anti-Southern Prejudice from the 18th Century to the Present

Review of Antonino De Francesco, La palla al piede. Una storia del pregiudizio antimeridionale, Feltrinelli, Milan 2012, 254 pp.

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De Francesco’s La palla al piede pairs a flashy, promotional title (a very fashionable move these days, even among professional historians) with a rather traditional approach and a rigorous, detailed (if not exhaustive) analysis, which is certainly meritorious in contemporary times. The author mostly avoids gross oversimplifications, though some banalities do recur, and offers the reader a complex, shifting historical panorama from the late 1700s to today. The phenomenon under scrutiny, the anti-Southern prejudice and the depiction of Southerners as unreliable, undisciplined, violent, passionate and impulsive, faithless and corrupt, reappears persistently with similar traits over centuries.

The theme is not new, and the sources are limited: primarily the most influential newspapers, literature, theater, and cinema. Still, the structure is well built and the nine chapters integrate with one another. The various (though not many) phases of anti-Southern prejudice from the late 18th century to today are well contextualized in political events that serve as background. De Francesco moves between cultural history and political history, avoiding the paths of anthropology, sociology, or historical psychology. A more extensive comparative treatment with other historical or geographical contexts would certainly have made the work more interesting and stimulating.

The (Self-)Destruction of a Scholar?

How a “trash” memoir can undermine the reputation of a renowned scholar

We have recently chosen to provide an English translation of our review of Alessandro and Massimo Firpo’s Lo ‘zio Verde’, la Utet e altre storie di famiglia (Aragno, Turin 2022), originally published in Italian in August 2024. And we wish, in the following lines, to explain in greater detail why this text—decidedly more than a harmless family album—deserved to cross linguistic borders. What presents itself as a memoir is in fact a sequence of ruthless indictments, a settling of accounts so ferocious that it frequently slips from history into caricature, from family chronicle into literary trash.

Luigi Firpo, the twins’ father, is not simply sketched as an opportunist incapable of writing an authentic book, afflicted by what they call a “schizofrenia morale” (“moral schizophrenia”). The portrait is darker: an absent father, a husband not only verbally but also physically cruel, a man capable of humiliating his first wife without hesitation. His bond with his mother, Angiola Ramella, is depicted in tones of morbid dependence, recalled by the sons with unconcealed contempt. Opportunism, egocentrism, and rancor permeate every aspect of this representation, contaminating not only the private sphere but also the intellectual one.

Nor does the maternal branch fare better. The grandfather Raffaele Merlini is dismissed with Uncle Verde’s label of "coglione" (“idiot”); their mother Lucia is depicted as distant and self-destructive, consumed by addictions and repeated hospitalizations; Cesare Merlini is portrayed as pompous but irrelevant; Francesco Merlini reduced to a caricature, his homosexuality stigmatized with an anachronistic cruelty; and Gianni Merlini subjected to full-blown demonization, accused of being ambitious yet talentless, authoritarian, cynical—his rise coinciding, unsurprisingly, with the decline and eventual collapse of UTET.

Even “zio Verde” (Carlo Verde) does not emerge unscathed: behind the twins’ proclaimed gratitude lies an enduring resentment. He is blamed for the cold, bureaucratic way he communicated Massimo’s dismissal from the company, as well as for the opacity of UTET’s financial practices, which allowed him to secure ample compensation “without having to account to anyone.” And his kindly wife is mocked in a tone that oscillates between cruel humor and pure gossip: “buona e generosa, ma poco intelligente e priva di ogni cultura, capace di infilare ogni tanto nei suoi discorsi parole molto volgari… compiendo così memorabili gaffes” (“good and generous, but not very intelligent and lacking any culture, prone to inserting vulgar words into her conversations… thereby producing memorable gaffes”). The unforgettable climax is the dinner at which, in front of Cardinal Michele Pellegrino, she burst out with: “Mah! viva la foca, che Dio la benedoca!” (“Hurrah for the pussy, may God bless it!”), freezing the prelate into “a marble statue” (“si trasformava in una statua marmorea”) while sending a servant into fits of uncontrolled laughter.

The effect is not that of a memoir but of a catalogue of demolitions, a parade of grotesques staged with a relish that is less historical reflection than theatrical spectacle. No wonder the authors themselves confess, almost with pride: “ci rendiamo conto di quanta prepotenza di classe, di quanta razza padrona ci sia in questi ricordi e ne facciamo ammenda” (“we are aware of how much class arrogance, how much ‘ruling-class’ mentality is in these recollections, and we acknowledge it”).

And here lies the rub: at the center of this operation is Massimo Firpo, long celebrated as a rigorous and balanced historian. With this book, he ceases to appear the detached scholar and instead emerges as the complicit protagonist of a trash melodrama of family rancor. In Italy, the scandal remained circumscribed. But in the Anglo-Saxon world, where the adage “don’t air your dirty laundry in public” still carries weight, such a performance would be regarded as nothing short of a scandal—utterly at odds with the image of seriousness that Massimo Firpo has for decades projected as his scholarly brand.

If the book’s main intent was to demolish once and for all the memory of Luigi Firpo, the outcome is a poisonous boomerang. The fury of demolition not only sweeps away the father, but corrodes from within the image of his offspring as well—especially Massimo, who, from being a prestigious historian, now exposes himself as a complacent protagonist in a theatre of rancor, closer to trash than to historiography. In this carousel of accusations and recriminations, the true victim is not so much Luigi Firpo, but rather the academic credibility of his most illustrious heir.

Destruction, then, or self-distruction? The answer seems already inscribed between the lines of the book. And it is precisely for this reason that we chose to translate our review into English: a story so saturated with contradictions, involving a scholar of international renown, cannot remain confined to Italy, but deserves to be subjected to the scrutiny of a wider scholarly community.

N. B. This text is the English translation of the article "(Auto)Distruzione di uno studioso. Come un memoir “trash” può travolgere la reputazione di uno studioso di fama", originally published in Italian on August 30, 2025 (https://www.cantierestoricofilologico.it/2025/08/autodistruzione-di-uno-studioso.html)

(Auto)Distruzione di uno studioso?

Come un memoir “trash” può travolgere la reputazione di uno studioso di fama

Abbiamo recentemente scelto di proporre una traduzione in inglese della recensione del memoir di Alessandro e Massimo Firpo, Lo ‘zio Verde’, la Utet e altre storie di famiglia (Aragno, Torino 2022), originalmente pubblicata in italiano nell'agosto 2024, e desideriamo, nelle righe che seguono, spiegare più nel dettaglio le ragioni di questa scelta.

Non si tratta di un innocuo album dei ricordi, ma di un atto d’accusa, o meglio di una serie di atti d'accusa spietati. Luigi Firpo, il padre dei gemelli, non è semplicemente ritratto come un opportunista incapace di scrivere un libro autentico, prigioniero di una “schizofrenia morale” (p. 128) che gli impediva sistematicamente di distinguere tra il giusto e l’utile. Nelle pagine del memoir emerge un profilo ben più cupo e inquietante: un padre assente e disinteressato ai figli, un marito crudele non solo sul piano verbale ma anche su quello fisico, un uomo capace di infliggere umiliazioni e sofferenze alla prima moglie senza alcuna remora. La sua relazione con la madre, Angiola Ramella, appare intrisa di morbosità, con una dipendenza affettiva che i gemelli rievocano con toni di disprezzo. È il ritratto di una figura dominata dall’opportunismo, dall’egocentrismo e da un rancore costante, che non risparmia né la vita privata né l’attività pubblica e intellettuale. Anche l'immagine del ramo materno, la famiglia Merlini, è distrutta: riguardo il nonno materno Raffaele Merlini, si sembra assecondare la definizione di "coglione" (p. 191) che gli sarebbe stata data dallo zio Verde; la madre dei gemelli Lucia Merlini appare distante e anaffettiva e non si manca di porre l'accento sulle sue dipendenze e sui suoi ricoveri in case di cura specializzate; Cesare Merlini viene tratteggiato come figura pomposa marginale; Francesco Merlini è ridotto a comparsa caricaturale (e se ne stigmatizza addirittura l'omossessualità); la figura di Gianni Merlini è oggetto di una vera e propria demonizzazione: dipinto come ambizioso ma senza talento, cinico e autoritario, la sua guida coincide con il rapido declino della UTET, fino al tracollo finale, specchio del disfacimento della stessa famiglia. Neppure lo “zio Verde” (Carlo Verde) esce del tutto illeso: dietro la riconoscenza proclamata dai gemelli, affiora infatti un risentimento mai sopito. Non gli viene perdonata la freddezza con cui comunicò a Massimo l’estromissione dall’azienda, né l’opacità di certi aspetti gestionali. La sua posizione gli consentiva infatti di garantirsi compensi consistenti senza dover rendere conto a nessuno, anche grazie a un sistema contabile rodato che lasciava ampi margini di discrezionalità e che il Consiglio di amministrazione non era in grado di controllare davvero. E ridicolizzata è la di lui bonaria e premurosa moglie (Anna Raseri, detta Carla), "buona e generosa, ma poco intelligente e priva di ogni cultura, capace  di infilare ogni tanto nei suoi discorsi parole molto volgari, udite chissà dove, del cui significato non aveva la più pallida idea, compiendo così memorabili gaffes" (p. 203). Tra queste, gli Autori ricordano un episodio durante una cena a casa Verde, alla presenza del cardinale Michele Pellegrino, arcivescovo di Torino: mentre attorno alla tavola calava un momento di silenzio imbarazzato, con i presenti incapaci di trovare uno spunto di conversazione, la donna pensò bene di rompere l’attesa esclamando con aria festosa: “Mah! viva la foca, che Dio la benedoca [sic]!” (p. 204), lasciando attoniti tutti i commensali, a partire dal porporato che "si trasformava in una statua marmorea", e scatenando l'ilarità di un domestico "che si mise a ridere sgangheratamente, del tutto a ragione, ma certo complicando ancor più la tragicomica situazione, poi risolta poco dopo dal precoce commiato di Sua Eminenza" (ancora p. 204). 

Il dottorato e il candidato condannato per pedofilia, ovvero quando l'eccellenza accademica diventa farsa

Nel settembre 2024 avevamo pubblicato un pezzo, dal titolo Il dottorato e il condannato, che raccontava una vicenda tanto assurda quanto inquietante, relativa a un concorso per l’ammissione a un dottorato di ricerca di interesse nazionale. I cosiddetti “dottorati nazionali” avrebbero dovuto rappresentare, nelle intenzioni del legislatore, iniziative di eccellenza: progetti pilota capaci di convogliare risorse, attrarre i migliori aspiranti ricercatori e creare poli di alta formazione competitivi a livello internazionale. La retorica ministeriale li ha a lungo descritti come il fiore all’occhiello del sistema universitario italiano.

Abbiamo ora deciso di proporne una versione in inglese, arricchita da aggiornamenti e riflessioni finali, per una semplice ragione: si tratta di una storia che, per gravità e significato, merita di essere conosciuta anche fuori dai confini italiani. In altri contesti, infatti, episodi del genere — tanto più se legati a un dottorato che, nonostante il rilevante investimento organizzativo e finanziario (a spese dei contribuenti italiani e europei), stenta a decollare, attira poche candidature, lascia numerose borse scoperte e accumula evidenti criticità nella gestione — avrebbero prodotto reazioni radicali, innescando dimissioni, inchieste interne e prese di distanza nette.

Qui invece si è assistito a un insabbiamento tanto rapido quanto ipocrita, con il risultato che l’intera vicenda è stata rubricata con disinvoltura alla voce “quisquilie amministrative”. Il dottorato ha proseguito la sua rotta come se nulla fosse, senza il minimo esame di coscienza, senza alcuna riflessione critica sull’accaduto e sulle pesanti falle organizzative emerse. Nessuna assunzione di responsabilità, nessuna discussione pubblica, nessun tentativo di affrontare problemi strutturali: opacità procedurali, gestione caotica delle borse, incapacità di attrarre candidati. Un silenzio tombale che, più che tutela dell’eccellenza, somiglia a un disperato tentativo di auto-conservazione. 

The Convict, the Doctorate and the Theology of Bad Decisions

NOTA BENE: This article tells the story of a former religion teacher and Catholic Action leader, already convicted of pedophilia and on trial for further abuse, who attempted to secure a PhD in religious studies—coming close to admission before being excluded—and who, on the same day, received a second conviction. It is the English version, with a few minor later additions, of the piece originally published in Italian on this same blog on 14 September 2025, faithfully reproducing the content, structure, and references of the original, with all links preserved. For comparison with the original version, see: https://www.cantierestoricofilologico.it/2024/09/il-dottorato-e-il-condannato.html

Background (up to 2021): Mirko Campoli was a religion teacher, vice-principal of a technical institute, educator, and leader of Catholic Action in Tivoli. On social media, there is still a video message of encouragement to the students of his school from the first COVID lockdown in March 2020.

Spring 2021: After the first serious accusations of sexual abuse against minors, Campoli resigned “for family and personal reasons” from the school and religious positions, in particular from that of president of the diocesan Catholic Action. However, as reported by several news outlets covering his case, he was also the (indeed!) national secretary of Azione Cattolica Ragazzi (ACR).

From 2021 to 2023: Campoli worked in a foster home, where he allegedly committed further abuse against minors and from which he was dismissed following the worsening of his legal situation.

May 2023: Campoli was arrested and Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, responded to criticism by the Tivoli Prosecutor regarding the alleged lack of cooperation by ecclesiastical circles, particularly by the curia of Tivoli led by Bishop Mauro Parmeggiani, originally from Reggio Emilia (born 1961): “We do not accept accusations of a code of silence”.

March 2024: The Tivoli court sentenced Campoli to 9 years in prison for various abuses against minors committed between 2016 and 2021. During the trial, he pleaded guilty but claimed he acted due to depression. The prosecutor replied: “Depression is not cured with pedophilia”. The Campoli case was also covered by the well-known RAI program "Chi l’ha visto?" (later, in June, also by Mediaset’s "Fuori dal Coro": journalists questioned Bishop Parmeggiani, who even seemed to downplay the 9-year sentence). Meanwhile, a second trial for another series of abuses against minors was being prepared against him.

July 2024: Campoli earned a master’s degree at the Department of Humanities of Roma Tre University, defending on 3 July 2024 a thesis titled "Caro cardo salutis" (“The flesh is the hinge of salvation,” a quote from Tertullian) reflecting on the relationship between the body and the sacraments in Christianity. Meanwhile, the Tivoli Prosecutor’s Office prepared an appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the 9-year sentence, considering it too lenient and requesting a harsher penalty: the appeal was filed on 15 July 2024.

August 2024: The newly-graduated and freshly-convicted Campoli applied to the DREST, the national PhD in religious studies founded and coordinated by Alberto Melloni (born in Reggio Emilia in 1959). This PhD has its administrative headquarters in Reggio Emilia at the Department of Education and Human Sciences of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia – a department of which Melloni was director (2020–2021) and is currently vice-director – and includes many other Italian universities and departments. Active since 2022, DREST offered 97 scholarships over its 38th and 39th national cycles (56 in 2022 and 41 in 2023), many funded through Italy’s PNRR funds, part of the EU’s post-pandemic recovery programme, but awarded only 66 due to a mix of few candidates, few eligible applicants, and many withdrawals, leaving 31 unassigned. For the 2024 call (40th national cycle), which closed on 26 July 2024, 30 scholarships worth €16,243/year each were offered. Thirteen of these required internships of up to 18 months at FSCIRE, where Melloni has been general secretary since 2007. Campoli passed the qualification stage with flying colors, being admitted to interviews (held online on 29–30 August 2024) in two of the six PhD areas. In one of them, he was even ranked first. However, he failed to achieve the minimum score in either interview and was thus excluded from the final ranking. In one area, had he reached the minimum score, he would have been awarded the scholarship because the number of eligible candidates was lower than the scholarships available.

September 2024: Coincidentally, on the same day the final DREST rankings were published, 11 September 2024, Campoli was sentenced to another 6 years and 10 months in the second trial for pedophilia, bringing his first-instance total to almost 16 years.

The very concrete danger avoided is reassuring. Yet it is astonishing how a former teacher, educator, and Catholic Action leader—convicted just in March for pedophilia, with another pending trial (later ending in another conviction), facing a prosecutorial appeal for a harsher sentence, presumably under house arrest in Tivoli and barred from places frequented by minors—could even imagine applying for a PhD in religious studies based in Reggio Emilia. And despite the gravity of the episode,  this so-called national PhD programme in Religion Studies—touted as a flagship of academic excellence yet already plagued by an embarrassing number of unassigned scholarships—marched on as if nothing had happened. had happened. In certain lofty politico-theological circles, where Catholic and Waldensian perspectives meet in rare ecumenical harmony, the whole affair was neatly filed under “administrative trivia,” with serene confidence that the doctorate would sail on undisturbed—save, of course, for the minor inconvenience of reallocating one scholarship, i.e., of handing the money to someone else. It was, in every sense, a living lesson —or better, a capstone doctoral seminar— in The Theology of Bad Decisions.

IN THE PHOTOS (from top to bottom): Mirko Campoli (Tivoli, 1976), former religion teacher, educator, and Catholic Action leader convicted of pedophilia; Mauro Parmeggiani (Reggio Emilia, 1961), Bishop of Tivoli; Alberto Melloni (Reggio Emilia, 1959), Professor of History of Christianity at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, General Secretary of FSCIRE, and DREST coordinator.

Oh, What a Charming Little Family!

The Firpo Twins’ Family Squabbles within UTET’s Grand History

Nota bene: This article is the English translation of the review originally published in Italian on this same blog in August 2024. All quotations in Italian from the book have been translated into English. For comparison with the original version, see: https://www.cantierestoricofilologico.it/2024/08/ma-che-bella-famigliola.html

In its own way a “revelatory” book—at the very least disconcerting—yet thus far decidedly little considered or reflected upon, despite now being three years old, Lo “zio Verde”, la Utet e altre storie di famiglia by twin brothers Alessandro and Massimo Firpo—the first a former business executive (particularly, though not exclusively, in the publishing sector: he worked for UTET itself, as well as for Garzanti, Pedrini, and Vallardi), the second a well-known historian of the early modern period, both sons of the celebrated historian Luigi Firpo, an authoritative contributor to La Stampa, member of the Board of Directors of RAI (Italy’s national public broadcasting company) from 1980 to 1987, deputy for the Italian Republican Party from 1987 until his death in 1989 at the age of seventy-four, champion bridge player, and much else besides—is anything but a banal and tender family memoir, as its title might suggest. In truth, there is nothing tender in this ferociously unforgiving reckoning by the Authors with their own family history—and in particular, though not exclusively, with their father Luigi Firpo—beside which other interesting aspects of the book recede into the background, such as the pages devoted to that genuine—and forgotten—publishing genius Carlo Verde, hired by UTET in 1922 and a leading figure there for over half a century from 1930 onwards (the year he was appointed administrator and co-managing director, later becoming general manager in 1934, chief executive officer in 1935, and also assuming the presidency in 1945; cf. p. 49), the maternal great-uncle of the Firpo twins and called “zio Verde” by them to distinguish him from another uncle with the same given name.