Please join us in congratulating Professor Diego Pirillo!
The Modern Language Association of America today announced it is awarding its tenth Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies to Diego Pirillo, of the University of California, Berkeley, for The Refugee-Diplomat: Venice, England, and the Reformation, published by Cornell University Press.
Please click here to download a PDF of the full press release.
The committee’s citation for Pirillo’s work reads:
Diego Pirillo’s innovative volume offers a significantly new approach to early modern European studies. Through an extraordinary process of archival research, Pirillo sheds light on a poorly known facet of sixteenth-century Italian history, as well as on European history in general. Pirillo meticulously investigates the fundamental role played by Italian religious refugees in early modern diplomacy, thus questioning the traditional view of diplomatic interactions during the early modern European religious conflicts. Pirillo shows a remarkable knowledge of key aspects of Italian heretical thought and the new cultural environments in which the Italian “heretics” came to play a central, albeit almost unknown, role. The Refugee-Diplomat: Venice, England, and the Reformation is a deeply engaging, often unique piece of academic writing.
Diego Pirillo is associate professor of Italian studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD from Scuola Normale Superiore. Pirillo specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern Europe and the Atlantic world, with an emphasis on Italy, England, and early America. His research interests include religious studies, the history of books and readers, the history of diplomacy and international relations, and the history of scholarship and historiography. He has been a fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Along with several articles and book chapters, he is the author of Filosofia ed eresia nell’Inghilterra del tardo Cinquecento: Bruno, Sidney e i dissidenti religiosi italiani and coauthor of Favole, metafore, storie. Seminario su Giordano Bruno. The Modern Language Association of America and its over 25,000 members in 100 countries work to strengthen the study and teaching of languages and literature. Founded in 1883, the MLA provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy. The MLA sustains one of the finest publication programs in the humanities, producing a variety of publications for language and literature professionals and for the general public. The association publishes the MLA International Bibliography, the only comprehensive bibliography in language and literature, available online. The MLA Annual Convention features meetings on a wide variety of subjects; the 2020 convention in Seattle is expected to draw over 5,000 attendees.