Marta Maria Perilli

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy) 

Hidden libraries: theoretical and socio-cultural approaches to book collections in Ancient Rome 

2026–2027: Fall

Marta Perilli earned her BA and MA in Classics from the University of Florence and her PhD from the Scuola Normale Superiore. A revised version of her doctoral dissertation is forthcoming as a monograph titled Giovane, Satira 15: Introduzione, Testo, Traduzione e Commento. She has held Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at both the University of Florence and the Scuola Normale Superiore and has also served as a Lecturer at the University of Florence, where she taught courses in Beginner Latin and Classical Dramaturgy. She was also a Visiting Researcher (with Fellowship) at the Fondation Hardt in Vandoeuvres (Geneva, Switzerland).

Her research focuses primarily on Latin literature of the Imperial period. She has presented her work at national and international seminars, workshops, and conferences, and has published several peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, as well as book chapters in edited volumes.

Her current research builds on the work carried out within the DaliB project (https://dalib.it) at the University of Florence and explores what literary texts can reveal about private libraries in ancient Rome. While Roman authors provide valuable insights into reading, writing, and the circulation of texts, key aspects remain unclear—such as where books were kept within domestic spaces, who had access to them, the contents of private collections, and the role of the personnel responsible for managing them and supporting literary production.
The project seeks to develop a new methodological framework for reconstructing private libraries in antiquity from a diverse and often fragmentary body of evidence, while also examining the socio-cultural conditions that shaped the circulation, management, and preservation of private book collections. 

Focusing on Flavian and Trajanic Rome and on authors such as Martial, Statius, and Pliny the Younger, the project adopts an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of Latin literature, cultural history, and material culture. This evidence-based methodology aims to offer new insights into access to knowledge in antiquity and to provide fresh perspectives on book culture in ancient Rome.