CRISTINA DONDI

HISTORY OF THE BOOK - PROGRAMME 2025-2026
 
Dear All, the course will start on the 1st week of March 2026.

HOW: in person (unless stated otherwise)
 
WHEN: t.b.c. 
WHERE: Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, room t.b.c.
WHAT: 2024-25 Programme attached
 
The code of the course, for La Sapienza registered students who access it via Classroom is: t.b.c.
 
 

Dondi, Cristina
ORCID: 0000-0001-9478-216X
EDUCATION
2000: PhD History King's College, London, funded by the British Academy
1992: BA Hons. History, 110 lode = 1st, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan
1990/91: Cambridge University, EC ‘Erasmus’ Scholarship
1987: Liceo Classico L. A. Muratori, Modena
CURRENT POSITIONS
2024–Full Professor of Modern History, Sapienza University of Rome
2024–PI Fondo Italiano per la Scienza (FIS) Advanced Grant, Sapienza University of Rome: ‘Printing Revolution and American Collections: The Migration of Cultural Heritage at Times of Political Change’
2009– Secretary of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)

PREVIOUS POSITIONS / FELLOWSHIPS
2018–2023 Professor of Early European Book Heritage, University of Oxford
2014–2024 Oakeshott Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities, Lincoln College, Oxford
2014–2019: ERC Consolidator Grant for the research project 15cBOOKTRADE: An Evidence-based Assessment and Visualization of the Distribution, Sale, and Reception of Books in the Renaissance – University of Oxford
2009–2011: British Academy Research Development Award (BARDA) for the project The Venetian Book-trade in the 15th Century: material evidence for the economic and social history of the Renaissance. With Nigel Palmer, University of Oxford
2002–2005: Lyell Research Fellowship in the History of the Early Modern Printed Book, University of Oxford. JRF, Lincoln College, Oxford
2002–2005: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Consultant, Incunable Project
1996–2002: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Assistant Librarian, Incunable Project
AWARDS
2026-2028 University of Oxford, Associate Member of the History Faculty.
2025-2028 University of Oxford, Honorary Research Fellowship, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
Apr. 2025 Zeidberg Lecture in the History of the Book, The Huntington Library, San Marino California.
May 2024 Elected member of the Grolier Club, New York City.
22–24 Nov. 2022, Sandars Lectures, Cambridge University.
2022-2025 Visiting Research Associate in the Department of CUSP (Centre of Urban Science and Progress), Department of Informatics, within the Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences at King’s College London.
2021 Member of Associazione Amici della Marciana, Venice.
2017 “Cavaliere” of the Order of “Stella d’Italia” (OSI) for my work on the European printing revolution and in support of European and American libraries.
SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS / TEACHING

2022– Sapienza University of Rome, History of the Book course, part of the BA in Global Humanities (63 hours)

2025 Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Master di II livello in “Metodi, strumenti, tecnologie per l’analisi, la descrizione e la documentazione del patrimonio manoscritto e stampato antico” a.a. 2024/2025 (6 hours on MEI database).

2024; 2023 (31 Jan.) MSc in Digital Scholarship, Univ. of Oxford: annual lecture on Analyzing Data & Data Visualization.

2023–26 Co-supervision (with Paola Molino and Flavia de Rubeis) of a PhD student, Università degli studi di Padova, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Studi Storici, Geografici, Antropologici, Doctorate programme funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, “The afterlife of cultural artifacts: fragilità, durabilità, mobilità, dai codici agli oggetti digitali”: Antonia Delle Fratte, Gustav Friedrich Waagen’s contribution to the origin and development of studies on the history of illumination, through the analysis of his works Works of Art and Artists in Great Britain (1837) and Treasures of Art in Great Britain (1854).

2022 (17 Oct.) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Research Institute for the Humanities, Digital Humanities Initiative (coord. Stuart Mcmanus), one lecture on Digital Resources for the Study of the Book.

2022– Co-supervision of a PhD student, University of Warsaw, Martyna Osuch, funded by a ‘Preludium’ Grant of the Polish National Research Centre, for a research initiated with a CERL internship: "The circulation of incunabula in early modern Warsaw. A case study of the Metropolitan Seminary Library’s collection".
2001– I have regularly taught and supervised Oxford graduate students in Humanist and Renaissance Palaeography, Textual Criticism, Bibliography, History of the Early Printed Book. These include 3 ERC postdocs (2014-19), 1 Marie-Curie postdoc (2016-18), 6 PhDs (2007-2024), 1 Master (2010-12). I have also been invited to lecture at the universities of Milan, Udine, Cassino, Florence, Scuola Vaticana di Biblioteconomia, Turin, Katowice, UCL London (2020 and 2021 remotely), London V&A, Harvard, Warburg Institute, Edinburgh, and Columbia. I have acted as external assessor of doctoral theses at the universities of Catania (2023); Reading (2019); Lyon 2 (2019), and Cagliari (2016). Coordinator of CERL internship and Erasmus+ grants since 2014.
RESEARCH FUNDING RECEIVED
2024–2028 FIS Advanced Grant
2021 Polonsky Foundation – Dante 1481 Project
2018–2020 Polonsky Foundation – Subiaco Project (with National Central Library of Rome) 2018 Gladys Krieble Delmas, The Helen Hamlyn Trust, Venice in Peril, The Aikatarini Laskaridis Foundation, Intesa Sanpaolo (for Venice exhibition)
2017–2021 Rothschild Hanadiv Europe for MEI Hebraica
2017 John Fell Fund, Oxford, ‘British Authors Published Abroad 1470-1700’ (with Prof. Jane Stevenson)
2017 Helen Hamlyn Trust, for cataloguing incunabula in Venice
2016 J P R Lyell, Gladys Krieble Delmas, Lincoln College Zilkha Fund, for monograph publ. 2015 NWO for European Dimensions of Popular Print Cultures Network (with others)
2014–2018 ERC Consolidator Grant
2012 British Academy, the Gladys Krieble Delmas, Fell Fund, Thyssen Stiftung, for the Secularizations Conference org. with R. Sharpe and D. Raines (with Sharpe and Raines) 2009 K F Pantzer Scholarship, London Bibliographical Society
2003, Visiting Fellowship, Huntington Library, San Marino Ca. 2001; 2002 Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Fellowship
ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS
2024– European Printing in Non-Latin Scripts, Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Cerl Seminar 23 Oct. 2024 (with Andrea Cappa and Alessandro Bianchi; 2023– Connecting Books & Audiences through Public Displays, Brussels, Royal Library, CERL Seminar 7 Nov. 2023 (with Marian Lefferts); 2018– Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years That Changed Europe, Venice, Doge’s Palace, https://youtu.be/hDDkjuN0vKo; 2017– New Sources for Book History: Combined Methodological Approaches for Manuscripts and Printed Books, London, The British Library (with Laura Carnelos, CERL Marie Curie Fellow, and Stephen Parkin, Curator, Printed Heritage Collections 1450-1600); 2017– Retracing the Steps from the Old to the New World (CERL Seminar), Yale, Beinecke Library (with E.C. Schroeder, Director Beinecke Library and M. Lefferts, CERL); 2017– Opening up Private and Religious Collections to Scholarship, Athens, The Laskaridis Foundation and the Gennadius Library - American School of Classical Studies at Athens (with Geri Della Rocca de Candal, the Gennadius Library and the Laskaridis Foundation); 2016– A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forwards. Part 2 / Investigación coordinada sobre Procedencias. Hacia el futuro. Parte 2, Salamanca University (jointly with Red Española de Bibliotecas Universitarias (REBIUN) = Network of Spanish University Libraries); 2014– A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forwards, London, The Warburg Institute (jointly with Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of IFLA); 2012– How the Secularization of Religious Houses Transformed the Libraries of Europe, 16th–19th Centuries, Oxford 22–24 Mar. 2012 (with Richard Sharpe, Oxford, and Dorit Raines, Venice)

CERL ANNUAL CONFERENCE ORGANISATION: Rome (2024), Brussels (2023), Venice (2018), University of Antwerp (2015), Oslo, National Library of Norway (2014), Warsaw University Library (2013), London, The British Library (2012), Rome, Vatican Library (2011)

CERL SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS: I have organised and spoken at CERL seminars and workshops in Mexico City (2024); Erlangen/Nuremberg (2023); Florence, Settimana Didattica Internazionale (2020); Lyon, Baltimore, Antwerp (2019); Zurich (2018); Athens (2017); New York and Salamanca (2016); New York and Antwerp (2015); Oslo (2014); London Warburg (2014); Edinburgh (2014); Rome Conferenza episcopale italiana (2014); Warsaw (2013); Milan (2013); Padua (2013); London British Library (2012; 2011); Florence (2012); Vienna (2012);
Rome (2011); Glasgow (2011); Oxford Merton College (2011).
SUMMER SCHOOL ORGANISATION: Oxford, Lincoln College 2016; 2017; 2019

EXHIBITIONS ORGANISATION:
Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed the World.
Buenos Aires, Museo de la Inmigración, 7 Dec. 2022 – Apr. 2023

Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe. Venezia, Museo Correr Sept. 2018 – Apr. 2019. 200,000 visitors

After Gutenberg: History and Culture in Fifteenth-century Printed Books at the Bodleian Library. Oxford, Bodleian Library, November 2004 – April 2005. With Alan Coates and Elizabeth Mathew
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
2025– Member of the scientific committee of the Journal DigItalia (Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and for Bibliographic Information, Rome)
2025– Member of the scientific committee of the Journal Nuovi Annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari (Sapienza Univ. of Rome)
2025 Vice-President of the Evaluation Committee Humanities and Social Sciences, ESR/EquipEx+ Structural funding for National Research – (France)
2024; 2022 Member of the Evaluation Panel for ERC Starting Grant (SH6)
2021 Coordinator of the Select committee area SH for ‘FARE’ 2020 grants, issued by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR)
2021 Evaluator for Global@Venice grant, MSCA co-funded Venice Ca Foscari University 2021 Evaluator for PRIN 2020 (Italian national research grants), area SH5
2020 Select Committee (Humanities and Social Sciences) ESR/EquipEx+ (Equipements structurants pour la recherche / Equipements d’excellence) (France).
2019– Advisory Committee BRAIN-be 2.0 - Pillar 2 'Heritage science' (Belgium) 2019– Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, Warwick University 2018–2023 Lyell Elector, University of Oxford
2017–2022 Convenor, Seminar in the History of the Book, Weston Library, Oxford

REVIEWING ACTIVITIES
2025 Peer Reviewer Archivio Storico Italiano
2024 Evaluator for the Czech Science Foundation (Czech Rep.); Evaluator for Leverhulme Trust
2023 Evaluator for the Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation (Greece); Evaluator for PRIN 2022 (Italian national research grants), area SH6 (Italy)
2021 Evaluator for Global@Venice grant, MSCA co-funded Venice Ca Foscari University; Evaluator for PRIN 2020 (Italian national research grants), area SH5
2019 National Science Center, Poland; Rothschild Hanadiv Europe; FED-tWIN (Belgium); 2018 Institut des sciences du calcul et des données – ISCD, Sorbonne (France); ERC Consolidator Grant SH5;
2016 ERC Starting Grant, SH6; ERC Advanced Grant, SH6; Brain-be; FWO (Flanders); Marie Curie; 2013 MIUR (Italy); 2012 VQR ANVUR (Italy);
2014– CERL Internship and Placement Grant; Oxford Bibliographical Society grants; 2008–2014 Association Paléographique Internationale ( = APICES) J. M. M. Hermans Grant.
MAJOR COLLABORATIONS:
Andrew Zisserman, Head of Visual Geometry Group, Dept. Engineering Oxford; Min Chen Prof. of Scientific Visualisation, E-Research Centre Oxford; Alexander Jahnke, Head of Data Conversion Group, Univ. of Göttingen; IT Unit, The Bodleian Library Oxford; The British Library London; Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venice; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Rome; Neil Harris Prof. Bibliography and Library Studies Univ. of Udine; Consortium of European Research Libraries; Italian Embassy in London; Fedrigoni Paper Group; hundreds of European and American libraries (all for 15cBOOKTRADE, 15cHEBRAICA, and PrintRevUS).