Matteo Pace

Matteo Pace is an Assistant Professor of Italian at Connecticut College, where he has taught since 2019. His work bridges Medieval Italian Literature and the History of Medicine, examining how vernacular poetry engaged with ancient medical thought in 13th-14th century Italy.

His academic background includes:

• Laurea triennale, Sapienza-University of Rome
• M.A., Columbia University
• M.Phil., Columbia University
• Ph.D., Columbia University

Pace specializes in the interplay between medieval poetry and medical philosophy, particularly how Dante and Boccaccio incorporated Aristotelian and Galenic theories into literary representations of the body, sense-perception, memory, and free will. His research traces intellectual networks across 13th-century Italian urban centers like Bologna and Florence, revealing how vernacular culture absorbed scientific knowledge from Arabic and Latin commentators.

His publications consistently explore literature-medicine intersections, with recent works analyzing gendered science in Boccaccio's Decameron, blood piety in Catherine of Siena's writings, and Avicennian philosophy in Guinizzelli's poetry. The forthcoming edited volume on Dante demonstrates his focus on medieval conceptions of the human body spanning medicine, physics, and the soul.

Pace actively contributes to faculty development as co-organizer of Connecticut College's Visiting Faculty Teaching Seminar series (2022-2023) and Class of '57 Teaching Seminar for Incoming Faculty (2023-2024). He teaches courses including Italian language, Medieval Herstories, Pandemic Narratives: Decameron, and Dante at 700+.