Contact
Biography
I am currently a PhD student in History at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Dr Ross Balzaretti and Dr Richard Goddard. My research is funded by the AHRC Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).
Previously, I studied Conservation of Cultural Heritage (BA) at the University of Genoa (Italy) and Archeology (MA) at the University of Pisa (Italy).
Research Summary
My PhD project aims to explore women's lives in the Greek city of Chios (on the homonymous island) under Genoese rule (1346-1566). As Chios at that time was part of the overseas empire of Genoa a… read more
Current Research
My PhD project aims to explore women's lives in the Greek city of Chios (on the homonymous island) under Genoese rule (1346-1566). As Chios at that time was part of the overseas empire of Genoa a comparative study on women in Genoa (the capital of the Liguria region) would be interesting to establish similarities, differences and interdependence between centre and periphery and colonizer and colonized.
I will seek traces of women's activities in Chios within the many surviving notarial deeds (a type of document for which Genoa is famous) to understand more about their social and economic standing, rights and restrictions when their husbands were present and when they were not. Once a clearer picture is established, the situation of women in Chios will be compared with the one in Genoa to delineate whether the colony (Chios) followed the customs of the homeland (Genoa) or if there were significant differences and what may have caused them. Establishing if and how all of these aspects changed over time is also a major aim.
Past Research
My MA thesis at the University of Pisa investigated the distinctive composite society that resulted from the Genoese presence in the Greek island of Chios during their second occupation, from 1346 till the Turkish conquest in the 1566.
Starting from historical events and administrative, political and economic organization I obtained an outline of the period before focusing on the social aspects; notarial deeds showed the reality of a population composed by different races, religions, languages. The last part of the work studied the Latin inscriptions from the Genoese period found in the city of Chios, as they hadn't been studied in depth since the first decade of the XX century.
The thesis is available online at https://etd.adm.unipi.it/t/etd-08282014-123825/