Skip to main content

Nicola Gardini, MA, PhD

Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature

 

Research

The Renaissance; stylistics and poetics; poetry; autobiographical fiction; translation from Latin and Greek, and from English. 

Undergraduate Teaching

Renaissance and the classical legacy, XIX- and XX-century poetry; special authors: Petrarch, Leopardi, Zanzotto; poetic translation; history of the sonnet. I am interested in close textual work and in exploring the ways in which tradition is formed and literature interacts with national imagination and shapes up moral beliefs.

Postgraduate Teaching

Tradition, translation, Renaissance, modern poetry, history of criticism.

Selected Publications

Critical Monographs

Io sono salute, Aboca, 2023 [on health and literature]

Consigli a un giovane poeta, Garzanti, 2023 [on verse writing]

Viva il greco, Garzanti, 2021 [on ancient Greek]

Rinascere, Garzanti, 2019 [on 10 protagonists of the Italian Renaissance]

Le dieci parole latine che raccontano il nostro mondo, 2018 [on the etymological and cultural history of 10 Latin words]

Con Ovidio, Garzanti, 2017 [on Ovid's poetic imagination]

Viva il latino, Garzanti, 2016 [a defence of Latin as a crucial subject in contemporary education]

Lacuna, Einaudi, 2014 [monograph on omission; a comparative study of reticence as a narrative strategy - examples range from classical antiquity up to modern fiction]

Per una biblioteca indispensabile, Einaudi, 2011

Rinascimento, Einaudi, 2010

 

Fiction

Nicolas, Garzanti, 2022 [on the life and death of Nicolas]

Silvia e l'enigma della Sibilla, Salani, 2022 [the story of a girl and a boy who magically end up in ancient Rome; for young adults]

La vita non vissuta, Feltrinelli, 2015 [novel; a gay story, exploring love, language, and disease]

Fauci, Feltrinelli, 2013 [an "opera buffa" inspired by melodrama]

Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd, Feltrinelli, 2012 [American translation by Michael Moore: Lost Words, New Directions, 2016, the linguistic coming of age of a boy in early Seventies Milan; translated ]

I baroni, Feltrinelli, 2009 

Lo sconosciuto, Sironi, 2007

Così ti ricordi di me, Sironi, 2003

 

Poetry

Istruzioni per dipingere, Garzanti, 2018

Il tempo è mezza mela [for children, with illustrations by Nicola Gardini]

Tradurre è un bacio, Ladolfi, 2015

Stamattina, Ladolfi, 2014

Le parti dell’amore, sedizioni, 2010

Le nuvole, Crocetti, 2007

Sag Harbor, d’if, 2003

Nind, Edizioni Atelier, 2002

Atlas, Crocetti, 1998

La primavera, in Nuovi Poeti Italiani 4, Einaudi, 1995



For a complete list of my writings (both academic and creative) see my personal website http://www.nicolagardini.com

Academic Background

Undergraduate degree: Università Statale di Milano, Laurea in Classics, with a thesis on Ammianus Marcellinus (1988)

PhD in Comparative Literature: New York University, with a thesis on the imitation of classical lyric poetry in Renaissance Italy, France and England (1995).

I was a lecturer at State University of Palermo (1999-2006), visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York (2000 and 2002), at NYU in Florence (2000-2005), at IULM, Feltre (2003 and 2004) and at Università Cattolica, Milan (2005).

I obtained a Research Fellowship at the Italian Academy, Columbia University (Fall 2005)

Other Interests

I write poetry and fiction, and I paint. I published some collections of verse and three novels. My new novel is due to be published some time next year.

I co-edit the monthly magazine "Poesia", based in Milan.