I studied classics and archaeology at University of Siena, where I graduated in 2001. In 2006 I earned my PhD-Doctor Europaeus in “Anthropology of the Ancient World” (Siena; EHESS and EPHE, Paris). Subsequently I was Junior Research Fellow at Siena (2007-2011), Marie Curie Experienced Research Fellow at Cambridge University and Research Associate at King’s College, Cambridge (2013-2015). Back to Italy, in 2016 I got a tenure-track Assistant Professorship and eventually, since Nov. 2019, I have worked as an Associate Professor at University of Siena, where I teach Roman history and Historical anthropology of the antiquity. In September 2023 I earned the Italian National Scientific Habilitation as Full Professor for the Ancient History area.
My principal areas of expertise are the economic and social history of archaic Rome (8th to 4th century BC), which I address in an interdisciplinary perspective drawing mainly on social and institutional history and on economic anthropology. I am also interested in theoretical and methodological approaches to ancient economy (especially social-scientific and anthropological) and in the history of scholarship on the ancient economy.
I am a member of the inter-university centre “Anthropology of the ancient world”, of the Scientific Committee of the journal “I Quaderni del Ramo d’Oro online” (Siena), and of the inter-university PhD school “Philology and Literary Criticism” (Siena, Pisa, and University for Foreigners-Siena). I am a peer-reviewer for some scientific journals on classical studies and social history, and in May-June 2023 I was Erasmus+ Visiting Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.