Dr Ruggero Sciuto

Ruggero Sciuto is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and a fellow of St Edmund Hall. His research focuses on eighteenth-century French literature and culture, particularly the works of Denis Diderot, Paul Thiry d'Holbach, and Voltaire. He is the author of a monograph on the theory of determinism jointly advanced by Diderot and d'Holbach (Determinism and Enlightenment: The Collaboration of Diderot and d'Holbach) and is currently working on a second book to understand how d’Holbach’s authorial strategies affected the reception of his (political) ideas. He is a collaborator on both the Oxford edition of the Complete Works of Voltaire and the Edizione Nazionale del Carteggio di Lodovico Antonio Muratori, and the director of the Oxford critical edition of d’Holbach’s complete works (Digital d’Holbach). As part of Digital d’Holbach, which falls under the umbrella of a larger project (Digital Enlightenment) directed by Prof Nicholas Cronk and based at the Voltaire Foundation, he is currently working on editions of two key Enlightenment texts: the Lettres à Eugénie and Le Bon Sens.

Ruggero has a strong secondary interest in diplomatic history. His work on Franco-Italian diplomatic relations has appeared in premier journals, including the Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France and Archivio Storico Italiano, and his edition of the Représentation aux Etats de l’Empire, an unknown diplomatic manuscript by Voltaire, was published in 2020 in the Œuvres complètes de Voltaire. Since 2017, he has been directing with Dr Tracey Sowerby the TORCH Network on Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, a platform for the study of early modern diplomacy that brings together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds. He has also edited with Dr Florian Kühnel a special issue of the International History Review on 'Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period'.

Ruggero teaches undergraduate courses on Voltaire (paper X) and eighteenth-century French materialism (for students taking papers VII, VIII, and X) as well as a class on Diderot's Salons as part of Prof. Jennifer Yee's course on 'Literature and the Visual Arts'. He also offers tutorials on various early modern French topics (papers VIII and X) and teaches one of the seminars of the M.St. in the European Enlightenment.

Publications

Books:

R. Sciuto, Determinism and Enlightenment: The Collaboration of Diderot and d'Holbach (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023).

Volumes edited:

R. Sciuto (ed.), New Approaches to d'Holbach's Système de la nature (under contract with Brill - full manuscript to be submitted by the end of 2024);

R. Sciuto (ed.), Volume 17 dell’Edizione Nazionale del Carteggio di Lodovico Antonio Muratori (Carteggi con Fabiani...Filicaja), Firenze: Olschki (in progress);

R. Sciuto and F. Kühnel (eds), Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, special issue of the International History Review, 44:5 (2022), p.940-1076.

Book-length editions:

Paul Thiry d’Holbach, Le Bon Sens, ou Idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles, ed. by R. Sciuto (in progress, scheduled to be published on the Digital Enlightenment online platform);

Paul Thiry d’Holbach, Lettres à Eugénie, ou Préservatif contre les préjugés, ed. by R. Sciuto (in progress, scheduled to be published on the Digital Enlightenment online platform).

Articles and book chapters:

R. Sciuto, ‘Emilie Du Châtelet and the Three Leibnizian Versions of the Principle of Sufficient Reason’ (in progress);

R. Sciuto, 'Fighting or Reflecting the Light? Jacob Vernes's Confidence philosophique' (in progress);

R. Sciuto, ‘Diderot, d’Holbach, and American Freethought (ca. 1825-1850)’ (submitted to Diderot Studies in June 2024);

R. Sciuto, ‘Voltaire’s and François de Bussy’s Représentation aux Etats de l’Empire: The Emergence of Enlightenment Diplomacy’ (submitted to Etudes sur le Dix-Huitième Siècle in May 2023);

R. Sciuto, ‘Picturing women atheists in eighteenth-century Paris: d’Holbach’s Lettres à Eugénie and Diderot’s Entretien d’un philosophe avec la maréchale de ***’ (forthcoming in 2026 in French Studies – accepted in November 2024);

R. Sciuto, ‘D’Holbach’s Enchanted Materialism’, in Charles T. Wolfe and John Symons (eds), History and Philosophy of Materialism, Mitlon Park: Routledge (in production);

R. Sciuto, ‘Voltaire philosophe : un architecte de la pensée’, Revue Voltaire 23 (2024), p.159-172;

R. Sciuto, ‘More of the Same: D’Holbach and the Temptation of Self-Quotation’, in G. Pink and T. Wynn (eds), L'Ecriture est la Peinture de la Voix: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Cronk, Modern Languages Open, 2024:1, p.1-8, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.511;

R. Sciuto, ‘Cui prodest? Acteurs et bénéficiaires de la diplomatie culturelle au miroir de la correspondance du résident de France à Florence, Luigi Lorenzi', in V. Martin and G. Montègre (eds), Une diplomatie des mobilités. Négocier « l’étranger » dans l’Europe moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle), Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2024, p.197-216;

R. Sciuto, 'Ideas in Action: Franco Venturi's Settecento', in N. Cronk and E. Décultot (eds), Inventions of Enlightenment since 1800, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023, p.241-256;

R. Sciuto, '« Un tout lié, dont les parties ont une correspondance nécessaire » : l’édition numérique de d’Holbach', Dix-Huitième Siècle, 55 (2023), p.503-511;

R. Sciuto and F. Kühnel, 'Introduction', in R. Sciuto and F. Kühnel (eds), Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, special issue of the International History Review, 44:5 (2022), p.943-951;

R. Sciuto, 'The Correspondence(s) of Count and Countess Lorenzi: What was the Extent of an Early Modern Ambassadress' Autonomy?', in R. Sciuto and F. Kühnel (eds), Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, special issue of the International History Review, 44:5 (2022), p.1021-1034;

R. Sciuto, 'Bringing together the Essay and the Second Treatise: d'Holbach interpreter of Locke', in Studi Lockiani. Ricerche sull'età moderna, 3 (2022), p.61-86;

R. Sciuto, 'The Absent Guest: d'Holbach's Strategic Use of Voltaire's Texts', in L. Nicolì (ed.), The Great Protector of Wits. Baron d'Holbach and his Time, Leiden: Brill, 2022, p.116-134;

R. Sciuto, 'Voltaire, l'Arioste, et le genre littéraire de La Pucelle', Revue Voltaire, 21 (2022), p.147-162;

R. Sciuto, ‘A ‘Reversible Figure Annotation System’ for the Born-Digital Critical Edition of d’Holbach’s Complete Works’, in Julia Nantke and Frederik Schlupkothen (eds.), Annotation in Scholarly Editions and Research: Function, Differentiation, Systematization, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, p.371-387;

R. Sciuto, ‘Démarches secrètes de l'abbé Trublet pour devenir Immortel’, La Lettre clandestine, 28 (2020), p.241-253;

R. Sciuto, ‘Reti diplomatiche al servizio del progresso scientifico: Luigi Lorenzi e l’inoculazione antivaiolosa nella Toscana granducale’, Chroniques italiennes, 37 (2019), p.283-301;

R. Sciuto, ‘Voltaire et Johann Baptist Anton von Pergen : cinq lettres inédites’, Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France, 118 (2018), p.165-176;

R. Sciuto, ‘The duc de Richelieu, Voltaire, and Mme du Barry: an Unpublished Letter from the Cabinet noir (D18516a)’, Revue Voltaire, 17 (2017), p.309-314;

R. Sciuto, ‘The Correspondence of André Morellet: Seven Unpublished Letters to Luigi Lorenzi (1758-1765)’, Archivio Storico Italiano, 174 (2016), p.499-522;

R. Sciuto, ‘L’imbarazzo del Naturalista e del Metafisico: Voltaire e le implicazioni filosofiche di un esperimento condotto da Lazzaro Spallanzani sulla rigenerazione della testa delle lumache terrestri’, in Nel nome di Lazzaro. Saggi di storia della scienza e delle istituzioni scientifiche tra il XVII e il XVIII secolo, Bologna: Pendragon, 2014, p.245-258.

Texts edited (either digitally or in print):

Correspondence of Paul Thiry d’Holbach, ed. by R. Sciuto (in progress, scheduled to be published on the Digital Enlightenment online platform);

Voltaire, Continuation du même sujet; Que les philosophes ne peuvent jamais nuire, ed. by R. Sciuto, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 6B, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2020, p.391-421;

Voltaire, De Newton, ed. by R. Sciuto, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 6B, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2020, p.443-457;

Voltaire, Histoire de l’infini, ed. by R. Sciuto, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 6B, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2020, p.459-475;

Voltaire, Représentation aux Etats de l'Empire, ed. by R. Sciuto, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 29B, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2020, p.427-478;

Voltaire, Dialogue entre un brahmane et un jésuite sur la nécessité et l’enchaînement des choses, ed. by R. Sciuto, February 2019;

Voltaire, Réponse à Monsieur le Duc de Bouillon, ed. by R. Sciuto and C. Paillard, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 78B (Commentaire Historique sur les Œuvres de l’Auteur de La Henriade), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2018, p.181-186;

C. M. de La Condamine, Les Quand adressés au Sr Palissot, ed. by R. Sciuto, in Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 51A (Writings of 1760), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015, p.407-422.

Databases and Research Tools:

R. Sciuto (in collaboration with Clovis Gladstone), Tout d'Holbach (a database that brings together fully searchable transcriptions of the vast majority of Paul Thiry d'Holbach's works);

R. Sciuto, Paul Thiry d'Holbach: A Selected Bibliography, published on the Voltaire Foundation website in February 2021;

R. Sciuto, Metadata of the correspondence of Paul Thiry d’Holbach, Early Modern Letters Online, June 2019;

Contributed several entries to the EpistEur Database (Università di Padova).

Book reviews:

R. Sciuto, Review of ‘Charles Devellennes, Positive Atheism: Bayle, Meslier, d’Holbach, Diderot, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021, French Studies (published online on 16 August 2024);

R. Sciuto, Review of Claude Buffier, Traité des premières vérités, ed. by Louis Rouquayrol, Paris: Vrin, 2020, published online in French Studies in April 2022;

R. Sciuto, Review of Gerhardt Stenger et al. (eds.), Œuvres complètes d’Helvétius, t.III (Poésies, Recueil de notes, Correspondance), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2020, French Studies, 76, 1 (2022), p.118;

R. Sciuto, Review of Charles T. Wolfe, Lire le matérialisme, Lyon: ENS éditions, 2020, French Studies, 75, 3 (2021), p.393-394;

R. Sciuto, Review of Jeroom Vercruysse, Bibliographie descriptive des imprimés du baron d'Holbach, Paris: Garnier, 2017, French Studies, 73, 1 (2019), p.118-119;

R. Sciuto, Review of Antonio Gurrado, La religione dominante: Voltaire e le implicazioni politiche della teocrazia ebraica, Catanzaro: Rubbettino, 2018, Revue Voltaire, 19 (2019), p.222-224;

R. Sciuto, Review of Fougeret de Monbron, Margot la ravaudeuse, edited and translated by E. Langille, Cambridge: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 2015, French Studies, 70, 4 (2016), p.599-600.

Encyclopedia entries:

R. Sciuto, 'Baron d'Holbach', in The Literary Encyclopedia, 14 April 2021.

Other publications:

contributed four unpublished letters to the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, Milan: 2008-;

contributed one unpublished letter to the Edizione Nazionale del Carteggio di Lodovico Antonio Muratori;

translated the articles ‘Gibel’, ‘Palerme’, and ‘Suffisante Raison. Principe de la Raison Suffisante’, for The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project (University of Michigan);

contributed nine blog entries (‘Voltaire and the La Barre Affair’, ‘The Représentation aux Etats de l’Empire: a New Addition to the Œuvres complètes de Voltaire’, ‘A born-digital edition of Voltaire’s Dialogue entre un brahmane et un jésuite’, ‘Digital d’Holbach’, 'Introducing Tout d’Holbach’, ‘Lettres philosophiques 4D – coming soon to libraries near you!’, ‘Annotation in Scholarly Editions and Research’, ‘For action! A bibliography of d’Holbach studies’, and 'The princely progress of the human race: Guido Maria Brera's new Candido') to the Voltaire Foundation Blog.

Conference and seminar papers

Invited lectures:

Enlightenment Workshop, Magdalen College, Oxford, United Kingdom, 25 January 2023: '« Fi! l[a] vilain[e] hypocrite »: picturing women atheists in eighteenth-century Paris';

St Edmund Hall Lunchtime Lectures, St Edmund Hall, Oxford, United Kingdom, 11 March 2022: 'Digital d'Holbach: Understanding the Radical Enlightenment in an Age of Obscurantism';

All Souls Seminars on Early Modern Intellectual History, All Souls, Oxford, United Kingdom, 4 May 2021: ‘Hiding between the lines: God, causation, and laws of nature in the works of the baron d’Holbach’;

Besterman Enlightenment Workshop, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, United Kingdom, 4 May 2020: ‘D’Holbach: The Many Faces of an Invisible Author’ (postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak);

Séminaire du Labex OBVIL, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, 5 February 2020: ‘Reconstituer le réseau de correspondance du baron d’Holbach pour mieux comprendre les Lumières’;

USC Francophone Research & Resource Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, U.S.A., 16 January 2019: ‘The Christian Roots of d’Holbach’s Atheism’;

Forschungskolloquien “History of Women Philosophers and Scientists”, Paderborn, Germany, 27 June 2017: ‘Emilie Du Châtelet and the Three Leibnizian Versions of the Principle of Sufficient Reason’;

Besterman Enlightenment Workshop, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, United Kingdom, 16 January 2017: ‘Diderot and d’Holbach on Causal Necessitation’;

Invited presentations:

Legacies of Enlightenment – Postdoc Symposium, New College, Oxford, 21-22 June 2023: ‘From Utopia to Reality and Back: Le Tombeau du despotisme ministériel and d’Holbach’s Morale universelle’;

Inventions of Enlightenment: The Emergence and use of the concepts of Lumières, Enlightenment, and Aufklärung between 1800 and 1980, Online conference organised by Nicholas Cronk (University of Oxford) and Elisabeth Décultot (University of Halle-Wittenberg), 18 and 25 October and 15 November 2021: ‘Ideas in Action: Venturi’ Settecento’;

La diplomatie des mobilités culturelles : Normes, pratiques et protagonistes (XVe – XIXe siècle), Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 21-22 November 2019: ‘Diplomazia, mercato librario, e libera circolazione: Luigi Lorenzi e la creazione dell’identità europea’

Conferences and events organised

Conferences organised:

New Approaches to d’Holbach’s Système de la nature, Oxford, Maison Française d’Oxford, 14-15 March 2022;

Errors in Early Modern Diplomacy, Virtual conference organised with Dr Tracey Sowerby, 10-11 November 2021;

Diplomacy and Gender in the Early Modern World (1400-1800), Oxford, Radcliffe Humanities Building, 11-12 June 2018.

Seminars organised:

Leverhulme Seminars on the Enlightenment, November 2020-present;

TORCH Network on Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period (1400-1800), July 2017-present (convener, then co-convener with Dr Tracey Sowerby).

Panels organised:

Eighteenth-Century Radical Thinkers and Greco-Roman Religion and Mythology, 16th ISECS Congress, Rome, 3-7 July 2023;

Celebrating the completion of the Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire (1968-2021) and the beginning of new digital scholarly edition of Voltaire and d’Holbach, 50th BSECS Annual Conference, Online conference, 6-8 January 2021.