Marcello Simonetta

Wesleyan University

Images of power in Renaissance Italy from Federico da Montefeltro to Clement VII

2006-2007

Simonetta, currently an Assistant Professor of Italian at Wesleyan University, took a first degree in history of ideas at the University of Rome La Sapienza (1993) and a Ph.D. in Italian literature at Yale University (2001). His thesis, on the figure of the humanist secretary in the Renaissance, was published as "Rinascimento segreto. Il mondo del Segretario da Petrarca a Machiavelli" by Franco Angeli (2004). Co-editor of Pope Pius II's "Memoirs" in the I Tatti Renaissance Library (Harvard University Press), he is the author of numerous articles on various aspects of the "Machiavelli Age" and most notably of "Federico da Montefeltro contro Firenze. Retroscena inediti della congiura dei Pazzi," in the Archivio storico italiano (2003), featuring his discovery of a deciphered letter which led to widespread media coverage (La Repubblica, The Independent, El Pais, The New York Times) and to a documentary aired by the History Channel. He has just completed a book on the Pazzi Conspiracy and its intricate background, entitled "Montefeltro. A Coded Conspiracy, the Medici, and the Sistine Chapel." He is now curating an exhibition on Duke of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro's Library at the Pierpont Morgan Library, in New York City, slated to open in Spring 2007.