University

ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5756-7628

Sara Ferrilli is a tenure track researcher (RTT) in Italian Literature (L-FIL-LET/10) at Link Campus University.

She studied at the University “La Sapienza”, where she attained a PhD in “European Literature and Culture” at the Italian Institute of Human Sciences (now Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), with a dissertation on the vernacular sources of Acerba by Cecco d’Ascoli. Her dissertation was awarded by the Higher Institute of Medieval Studies in Ascoli Piceno. She carried out study periods and research activities at prestigious Italian and European institutions: she was a Scholar at the Library of the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Italian Institute of Historical Studies “Benedetto Croce” in Naples, a Visiting Scholar at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel and a DAAD Fellow at the Georg August Universität in Göttingen. From 2018 to 2023, she was Assistant Professor of Italian Literature at the Romanisches Seminar of the University of Zurich, where she also attained a Postdoctoral Grant for the project “Astronomy and Astrology in Medieval Italian Poetry of the 13th and 14th Century”. She then worked as a research fellow in Italian Philology at the University for Foreigners of Siena in the “Vocabolario Dantesco” project of the Accademia della Crusca (2023-2025), while simultaneously teaching as an adjunct professor. From 2022 to 2024 she taught Italian Literature at the University of Bologna.

Her research interests are mainly related to medieval and humanistic literature, focusing on philological aspects, the contexts of use and transmission of texts and the intellectual vocabulary of medieval authors. She is especially interested in encyclopaedic poetry, the relationship between science and literature, exegesis and the early reception of Dante's works and has devoted studies to, among others, Cecco d'Ascoli, Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, Francesco da Barberino and Benedetto da Cesena. Her book "Per raggi di stella. Cecco d'Ascoli e la cultura volgare tra Due e Trecento" (Longo, 2022) received the prize for Italian innovation in Switzerland awarded by the Zurich Comites (MAECI).

She combines her research activity with a strong teaching commitment, having held courses on Italian literature from the origins to the 20th century at various universities in Italy and abroad. She actively participates in the Third Mission through orientation projects, activities with secondary schools and cultural dissemination initiatives. She was vice-president of the Dante Alighieri Society in Zurich and coordinated the Swiss national celebrations of Dante's centenary in 2021.

Curriculum Vitae