By studying anonymous travel manuscript, Prof. Ceserani offers new insights into 18th-century Italy

Stanford Humanities Center fellow and associate professor of Classics Giovanna Ceserani studies what early modern Europe’s deep interest in ancient Greece and Rome can tell us about those early modern social and political contexts. Ceserani’s first book, Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the Making of Modern Archaeology (2012), examines the history of Greek archaeological remains in modern South Italy. Ceserani also directs The Grand Tour Project, which uses digital tools to better understand eighteenth-century British travel to Italy. While at the Center this year, Ceserani is working on a monograph called A Sicilian Journey: In Search of the Cosmopolitan Enlightenment. The seeds of this project were planted over twenty years ago with her chance discovery of an anonymous manuscript detailing a 1766 trip to Sicily. Read more on the website of Stanford Humanities Center.