Alessandro Barbero is Italy’s best known historian. His books are all bestsellers in Italy and abroad and his ‘History Lessons’ are widely followed live and on social. He teaches Medieval History at the University of Eastern Piedmont. His latest book, Dante (2020), has sold more than 250,000 copies and has been translated in more than 20 countries.

Franco Cardini is an emeritus professor at the Italian Institute of Human Sciences; Research Director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris; Fellow of Harvard University; and a member of the scientific board of the Scuola Superiore di Scienze Storiche of the Università degli Studi, San Marino.

Adriano Prosperi, scholar of the culture and religious life of the early modern age, is professor emeritus of modern history at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. Among his publications: Dare l'anima. Story of an infanticide (Turin 2005); Blindfolded Justice. Historical paths of an image (Turin 2008); Historical Dictionary of the Inquisition (4 volumes, edited by, with V. Lavenia and J. Tedeschi, Pisa 2010); Crime and forgiveness. The death penalty in the mental horizon of 14th-18th century Christian Europe (new edition, Turin 2016); The vocation. Stories of Jesuits between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Turin 2016). For Laterza he is the author, among other things, of The seed of intolerance. Jews, heretics, savages: Granada 1492 (2011) and Identity. The Other Side of History (2016).

Maurizio Viroli, one of Machiavelli’s leading scholars, is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Among his books: La libertà dei servi (2012); Scegliere il principe. I consigli di Machiavelli al cittadino elettore (2014); Tempi profetici (2021).

Paolo Rossi (b. Urbino, 1923) taught History of Philosophy at the University of Florence. His publications include: Francis Bacon. From magic to science (Bari, 1957); Clavis universalis. Arts of memory and combinational logic from Lullo to Leibniz (Bologna, 1983); Spiders and ants: an apologia of the history of science (Bologna, 1986); The Past, Memory, Oblivion (Bologna, 1991, winner of the 1992 Viareggio Prize); and, Another Present (Bologna, 2000). He is a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. In 1985 he received the Sarton Medallion for history of science from the American History of Science Society.

Giuseppe Ricuperati teaches Modern History at the University of Turin. He directs the Rivista storica italiana and is a member of the Science Academy of Turin and of the Deputazione di storia patria subalpina. His most recent published works include: Borders and Limits of Reason. From the European crisis of conscience to enlightenment (Turin 2006).

University of Rome “La Sapienza”

Emilio Gentile is an historian of international renown, he is emeritus professor at ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome. He received the Hans Sigrist Prize at the University of Berna for his studies on the religions of politics. Among his main works published by Laterza, often reprinted and translated all over the world: The Cult of the Lictor: the sacralisation of politics in fascist Italy; Politics as religion; Fascism: History and interpretation; Fascism in three chapters; God’s democracy: American religion after September 11 (Burzio Prize); Stone fascism; Two gunshots, ten million dead, the end of a world; The March on Rome and Fascism in Power; The leader and the Crowd; “In a democracy people are always sovreign” False!.

Alberto Melloni teaches History of Christianity at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia. He is Secretary of John XXIII foundation for Religious Sciences. Author of numerous essays, he recently edited: Voluntary Martyrs: the shared history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Bologna 2006) and a new edition of Auschwitz Protocols (Milan 2008). He also contributes articles to the Italian broadsheet “Corriere della Sera”.