CIOLFI Lorenzo Maria

Trained at Sapienza University of Rome, Lorenzo Maria Ciolfi earned his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales – Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux in Paris.

With a solid background in philology, paleography, and Byzantine studies, he focuses on the figure and role of Emperor John III Vatatzes in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine era, with particular attention to the emergence of his cult within the context of imperial sainthood. At the same time, his research examines Greek paremiographic and fable collections from the 15th and 16th centuries, and their relationship with Western anthologies.

Invited to numerous international conferences, Ciolfi is the author of over thirty articles and reviews in the fields of classical, Byzantine, and Renaissance studies; he has also received several research grants for short stays and summer schools, earning recognition for the quality of his scholarly work.

Recent selected bibliography:
- Un Rinascimento da favola. L’Esopo dei Medici, Athens: ETPbooks, 2025 (Quaderni di “Antico&Moderno”, 16)
- (with M.C. Chiriatti) Echoes of a seism: Earthquakes, Rhetoric, and Christian Memory in Late Antiquity and beyond, Studi sull’Oriente Cristiano, 29.2/2025, pp. 55-90
- Due santi “capitali”. Le aspirazioni politiche di Magnesia e Nicea nel corso del XIII secolo, in C. Trillo San José – M.C. Chiriatti (ed.), La ciudad y su territorio. De Bizancio a la península ibérica medieval, Rome: Viella, 2025 (IRCVM. Medieval Cultures, 17), pp. 43-61
- Irene Lascarina, imperatrice di Nicea: una figura letteraria tra luci e ombre, in M.C. Chiriatti – M. Vallejo Girvés (ed.), Riflessi di porpora. Declinazioni di potere femminile tra Roma, Bisanzio e l’Occidente Medievale, Spoleto: CISAM, 2023 (Quaderni della Rivista di Bizantinistica), pp. 361-378