Stefano Locatelli

University of Manchester (UK)

"Moneta Sonante": the Friulian Bell of Dante and the material culture of money in Renaissance Italy

2021-2022: Spring

Stefano Locatelli is an economic and social historian of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, specialising in the monetary history of the Italian peninsula. His research treats money and its most direct manifestation, coinage, as a product of human activity, and explores the complexities of its interlinked social, cultural, and political dimensions. His doctoral dissertation, The Other Side of the Coin: The Political Life of the Gold Florin of Florence and its Agents, 1258-1284 (monograph due with Manchester University Press), reassessed the historical trajectory of a well-known Italian currency, the Florentine gold florin, in the context of the interactions between the merchants of Florence, the Angevin Crown in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Papacy. At the Italian Academy, Locatelli will work on his next project concerning the material culture of money and its cultural meanings in Renaissance Italy.

Locatelli holds a PhD in Economic and Social History from the University of Manchester (2019), where he has recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (2019-21). This followed another postdoctoral fellowship at the Italian Institute for Historical Studies in Naples (2018-19). His work has recently appeared in outlets such as The Numismatic Chronicle and Revue Numismatique. He has also co-edited the volume The Italian Coins in the British Museum, Volume 1: South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia. He currently coordinates or collaborates on various projects with Princeton University (FLAME project), The British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum and the University of Milan.