Biography

Elsa Filosa is Assistant Professor of Italian at Vanderbilt University. She holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Laurea in Modern Philology from the Università degli Studi di Milano. Her research focuses on Fourteenth century Italian Literature. She published Tre Studi sul De mulieribus claris (Milano, LED Edizioni Universitarie, 2012), several articles on American and Italian journals on Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante, and co-edited, with Michael Papio, Boccaccio in America (Ravenna: Longo, 2012). She has been the Secretary of the American Boccaccio Association for two terms.

Project Summary

On December 1360 in Florence, a group of conspirators attempted an unsuccessful coup. The Florentine Republic blamed twelve people, including close friends and neighbors of Giovanni Boccaccio. The project investigates the political dynamics of the conspiracy, the motives behind it, and its consequences on Boccaccio’s life and writing.