Elisa Brilli

Elisa Brilli is Professor of Italian Studies at the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto since 2015. She is a specialist in Dante studies, with an interest in the interactions between history and literature, medieval exemplary literature, and historiography.

Her monograph Firenze e il Profeta (Rome: Carocci, 2012) provides the first comprehensive analysis of the depiction of Florence in Dante’s works from three perspectives: its dialogue with civic memory, its reshaping of theological paradigms, and its autobiographical implications. She is also the chief editor of the critical edition of the Alphabetum Narrationum by Arnold of Liège, a 14th-century collection of 800 exemplary tales (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015). She is the co-editor of a number of collective volumes (Faire l'Anthropologie Historique du Moyen Age, Atelier du CHR, 2010; Images and Words in Exile, Florence: SISMEL, 2015; Agostino, Agostiniani e Agostinismi nel Trecento Italiano, Ravenna: Longo, 2018; The Dominicans and the Making of Florentine Cultural Identity (13th-14th centuries), Florence: FUP, 2020), and the author of various articles and essays relevant to Dante, Boccaccio, the reception of Dante's works and the reception of Augustine's De civitate Dei in medieval and early modern culture.