Staff profile

Dario Tessicini is Associate Professor at the University of Genoa and retains his connections with Durham University as an Honorary Fellow. He specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of the early modern period with special emphasis on Italy, and on the history of philosophy and science. His interests include the Italian heretic philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600); the history of Renaissance and early modern astronomy and cosmology, particularly the observation of ‘celestial novelties’ (such as comets, and supernovae) and their cultural and societal impact; and the history and theory of translation, broadly conceived.

He is the author of a monograph on Giordano Bruno’s cosmology, I dintorni dell’infinito. Giordano Bruno e l’astronomia del Cinquecento (2007). He has co-edited, with P. Boner, Celestial Novelties on the eve of the Scientific Revolution (2013); with F. Federici, Translators, Interpreters and Cultural Negotiators: Mediating and Communicating Power from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era (2014); with M.A. Granada and P. Boner, Unifying Heaven and Earth. Essays in the History of Early Modern Cosmology (2016); and with M.A. Granada, Il De immenso di Giordano Bruno. Letture critiche (forthcoming 2019). He is completing a monograph on celestial observations in Italy before the telescopic age entitled Before Galileo: Celestial Novelties in Early Modern Italy for which he was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

Besides the Leverhulme Trust, his research has received support from the following institutions: the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Filosofici, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, The Warburg Institute, Villa I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Additionally, he has been a co-Investigator in a collaborative research project, funded by the Spanish government (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) on Cosmology, theology and anthropology in the first phase of the Scientific Revolution (1543 – 1633), together with Prof. Miguel Angel Granada (PI, Barcelona), and Dr Patrick Boner (co-I, Johns Hopkins).

• Translation/Linguistics/Pedagogy

Authored book

• (Forthcoming). Before Galileo. Celestial Novelties in Early Modern Italy.
• Tessicini, D. (2007). I dintorni dell'infinito. Giordano Bruno e l'astronomia del Cinquecento. Pisa Rome: Fabrizio Serra.

Book review

• (2018). J.B. Shank, ed., After the Scientific Revolution: Thinking Globally about the Histories of the Modern Sciences, Special Issue, Journal of Early Modern History, 21 (2017), pp. 377–470. Nuncius 33: 654-656.
• (2017). Raphaële Garrod, “Cosmographical Novelties in French Renaissance Prose (1550-1630). Dialectic and Discovery (Brepols 2016). Journal of the Northern Renaissance
• (2017). War and Peace in Dante, ed. John C. Barnes and Daragh O’Connell (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015). Medium Aevum 86(2): 387-388.
• (2017). ‘Astronomia, cronologia e storia dal Medioevo all’eta’ moderna'. *Essay Review of “Le temps des astronomes. L’astronomie et le décompte du temps de Pierre d’Ailly à Newton. Édité par Édouard Mehl et Nicolas Roudet, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2017. Galilaeana. Journal of Galilean Studies 14: 271-285.
• (2017). Dante in Context, ed. Zygmunt G. Barański and Lino Pertile (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Medium Aevum 86(2): 387-388.
• (2016). C.M. Graney, Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015. American Historical Review 121(4): 1374-1375.
• (2016). The Making of Copernicus. Early Modern Transformations of a Scientist and His Science, edited by Wolfgang Neuber, Thomas Rahn, and Claus Zittel, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2015. Isis 107(1): 185-186.
• (2016). On Gianfrancesco Sagredo, Galilean Science and Venetian diplomacy. Review of Nick Wilding, Galileo’s Idol. Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2014. Metascience 25(2): 251-253.
• (2014). Le Opere di Galileo Galilei. Appendice: Vol 1. Iconografia galileiana, a cura di F. Tognoni. Isis 105(4): 850-851.

Chapter in book

• Tessicini, D (Accepted). Straight Paths and Evanescent Bodies: The Physics and the Dynamics of the Celestial Novelties in Kepler's De stella nova. In Kepler's Star: Conflict and Controversy in Early Modern Science. Boner, P J Dordrecht Brill.
• Tessicini, D (2018). Comets in Renaissance Science. In Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Sgarbi, M Springer.
• Tessicini, D. (2016). Giordano Bruno on Copernican Harmony: circular uniformity and spiral motions. In Unifying Heaven and Earth. Essays in the History of Early Modern Cosmology. Granada, M. A., Boner, P. & Tessicini, D. Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona. 117-156.
• Tessicini, D. (2013). Astronomia e cosmologia. In Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero. Ottava Appendice. Clericuzio, A. & Ricci, S. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. 70-80.
• Tessicini, Dario (2013). The comet of 1577 in Italy: Astrological prognostications and cometary theory at the end of the sixteenth century. In Celestial Novelties on the eve of the Scientific Revolution, 1540-1630. Tessicini, D. & Boner, P. Leo S. Olschki. 3: 57-84.
• Tessicini, D. (2012). I segni celesti: stelle e comete. In Il linguaggio dei cieli Astri e simboli nel Rinascimento. Ernst, G. & Giglioni, G. Carocci editore. 171-188.
• Tessicini, D. (2012). Il dibattito italiano sulla nuova stella del 1572 (con il testo del 'Discorso intorno a la stella' di Giuseppe Valdagno, ms Ambrosiana R 95 sup.). In Novas y cometas entre 1572 y 1618: revolución cosmológica y renovación política y religiosa. Granada, M.A. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. 43-94.
• Tessicini, Dario (2011). Definitions of cosmography and geography in the wake of Ptolemy's Geography. In Ptolemy's Geography in the Renaissance. Shalev, Z. & Burnett, C. London: Warburg Institute. 51-69.
• Tessicini, D. (2011). Cornelius Gemma and the new star of 1572. In Change and Continuity in Early Modern Cosmology. Boner, P. New York: Springer. 51-65.
• Tessicini, Dario & Granada, M A (2008). Cosmologia e nuova astronomia. In Il Rinascimento italiano e l'Europa, Vol. IV: Le scienze nel Rinascimento italiano. Ernst, G. & Clericuzio, A. Treviso: Fondazione Cassamarca. V: 21-46.
• Hirai, Hiro (2008). "Vere Gemmeum est?". Cornelio Gemma e la nova del 1572. In Cornelius Gemma. Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain. Pisa - Roma: Fabrizio Serra Editore. 51-64.
• Tessicini, Dario. (2004). Giordano Bruno e Wittenberg: ricezione e interpretazione della cultura astronomica tedesca alla fine del Cinquecento. In Giordano Bruno in Wittenberg, 1586-1588. Aristoteles, Raimundus Lullus, Astronomie. Leinkauf, T. Rome/Pisa: Instituti Editoriali. 119-129.
• Tessicini, Dario. (2002). L'abiura di Galilei; Le comete; Giordano Bruno; I microscopi di Eustachio Divini; Kepler: geometria e scienza del cosmo. In Storia della Scienza: Vol V Rivoluzione Scientifica. Petruccioli, Sandro Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. 5: 39; 52-53; 56-59; 253; 286-287.
• Tessicini, Dario. (2001). 'Pianeti consorti': la Terra e la Luna nel diagramma eliocentrico di Giordano Bruno. In Cosmología, teología y religión en la obra y en el proceso de Giordano Bruno. Granada, Miguel A. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. 159-188.

Edited book

• Granada, M. A., & Tessicini, D. (Accepted). Il De immenso di Giordano Bruno. Letture critiche. Supplementi di Bruniana & Campanelliana. Serra editore.
• Granada, M. A., Boner, P. & Tessicini, D. (2016). Unifying Heaven and Earth. Essays in the History of Early Modern Cosmology. Biblioteca universitària. Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona.
• Federici, F. M. & Tessicini, D. (2014). Translators, Interpreters and Cultural Negotiators: Mediating and Communicating Power from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Tessicini, D. & Boner, P. (2013). Celestial novelties on the eve of the Scientific Revolution. Olschki.

Journal Article

• Tessicini, Dario (2019). Fausto da Longiano's Meteorologia (1542) and the Vernacular Transformations of Aristotle's Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century. Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 2: 309-326.
• Tessicini, Dario (2018). On the origins of Copernicus's heliocentrism. Galilaeana. Journal of Galilean Studies 15(1): 287-299.
• Tessicini, D. (2016). Viewing the stars from the Rialto: astrological dialogues in sixteenth-century Venice. I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 19(1): 209-230.
• Tessicini, D. (2013). Astrology, heliocentrism and the Copernican Question. Galilaeana: Journal of Galilean Studies 10: 219-236.
• Tessicini, Dario. & Granada, Miguel. (2005). Copernicus and Fracastoro: The Dedicatory Letters to Pope Paul III, the History of Astronomy, and the Quest for Patronage. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A 36(3): 431-476.
• Tessicini, Dario. (2002). Giordano Bruno e la scienza del Rinascimento. Paradigmi 20(58): 133-145.
• Tessicini, Dario. (2000). Alcune fonti del De Immenso di Giordano Bruno e il problema dell'intertestualità. Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres 2000/1: 67-94.
• Tessicini, Dario. (1999). Attoniti. quia sic Stagyrita docebat. Bruno in polemica con Digges. Bruniana & Campanelliana 1999/2: 521-526.
• Tessicini, Dario. (1998). Bruno e Roeslin. Sulla presenza dellaTheoria nova Coelestium Meteoron nel De immenso. Bruniana & Campanelliana 1998/2: 475-487.