Matteo Soranzo

Associate Professor, Dott. Lett. (Padua), PhD (Wisconsin)

I am an Italianist with a strong interest in Cultural History. At the heart of my research there is a strong curiosity on the role literature plays in the process of identity formation and how literary texts converse with other disciplines including philosophy, astrology, and alchemy. The chronological focus of my work is the Quattrocento, but I regularly follow contemporary debates on religious pluralism, western esoteric currents, and history of science. My first book, Poetry and Identity in Quattrocento Naples, investigates how a selected group of poets used their texts as landmarks of social trajectories. Building on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the book addresses issues such as the cultural capital attached to literary works, language, and stylistic choices. In doing so, I have interpreted the composition and dissemination of texts as acts of cultural identity, which took place in a field of options and possibilities.
My second book, Giovanni Aurelio Augurello (1441-1524) and Renaissance Alchemy, is an in-depth analysis of a Neo-Latin poem on the Philosophers’ Stone. Bringing together textual criticism and history of science, the book investigates how different discourses such as astrology, alchemy, and mythology could be woven together in an Early Renaissance poem, whose sources also included paintings and sculptures of the time. I also authored a number of articles and book chapters focusing on Quattrocento astrology, alchemy, and alternative spiritualities, which you can read on my academia.edu profile.

At the moment, I am the principal investigator of a SSHRC funded project entitled “Searching the Philosophers' Stone in Quattrocento Italy. The Texts and Culture of a Forgotten Alchemist.” Building on my previous book, the project combines textual criticism and history of science/alchemy to investigate the manuscript tradition of a corpus of short treatises on the Philosophers’ Stone attributed to a certain Cristoforo da Parigi. The project will result in the microhistory of this forgotten alchemist and an in-depth investigation of the manuscript circulation of his oeuvre.