Nadia Cannata

Nadia Cannata is a Full Professor of Italian Linguistics and Philology at Sapienza University of Rome, where she is affiliated with the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies within the Faculty of Humanities. She has held this position since 2008 and maintains regular office hours for students. Her academic career spans multiple prestigious institutions including Oxford University, University of Reading, and Harvard University's Villa I Tatti.

Her educational background includes a D.Phil from Oxford University (1991) and a summa cum laude Degree in Literature from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (1985).

Professor Cannata specializes in Renaissance studies with research interests spanning Italian linguistics, philology, book history, vernacular and Neo-Latin literature, and the interrelations between linguistic theory and fine art in the early Renaissance. Her work particularly focuses on orality and written records in Early Modern Europe, with a significant emphasis on medieval epigraphy in the vernacular. She has pioneered the EDV (Italian Medieval Epigraphy in the Vernacular) project, creating a comprehensive database of vernacular inscriptions from 9th-15th century Italy. Her recent work has expanded into language museum studies, where she directs the EUROTALES project - a Museum of the Voices of Europe that explores linguistic heritage across the continent.

Professor Cannata's publications show a clear trajectory from traditional philological scholarship toward interdisciplinary approaches that bridge historical linguistics with digital humanities and museum studies. Her recent work increasingly focuses on the relationship between language, cultural identity, and public engagement, with particular attention to how linguistic heritage can be presented to diverse audiences through innovative museum practices.

• Villa I Tatti Fellowship, Harvard University (1997-98)
• Leverhulme Trust Fund Scholar (2001-2002)
• British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow (1991)
• Premio Sapienza Ricerca (2011)
• British Academy Grant (2014)
• Istituto Lorenzo de' Medici Award (2016)

Professor Cannata has secured significant research funding, including €16,000 for the "Letture e riscritture dell'antico" project (2014-15) and €10,000 for the "Museum and Languages" international conference. She was one of the curators for the exhibition "I libri che hanno fatto l'Europa" (The Books That Made Europe) at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome (2016). As director of the EUROTALES project, she leads a collaborative initiative involving multiple international partners to create a museum of European linguistic heritage that combines scholarly research with public engagement. Her work bridges traditional philological scholarship with contemporary digital humanities approaches, making significant contributions to our understanding of linguistic history and cultural identity formation in Europe.

Currently, Professor Cannata directs the EUROTALES project, which has established her as a leading expert in language museum studies, culminating in her co-authorship of "Language Museums and the Display of Intangible Cultural Heritage" (Routledge, 2020), the first comprehensive study of language museums worldwide. She serves on the advisory boards of several international peer-reviewed journals including The Italianist, Critica del Testo, and Studj Romanzi, and is a member of the peer review college of MIUR, the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities, and Research.