# Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja Roy G. Clouse Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures (Italian) Italian Undergraduate Advisor ![ambrogio](/sites/g/files/omnuum8296/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-04/Screenshot%202026-04-24%20at%201.06.29%E2%80%AFPM.png?itok=7CjWEyXO) location\_on Boylston 421 smartphone [617-496-3488](tel:617-496-3488) email Office Hours Thursdays 10-12 p.m. Students can schedule time with me via [calendly](https://calendly.com/acpistoja) I hold a BA in Medieval and Humanistic Philology from the University of Milan, an MPhil in European Literature & Culture, and a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Cambridge. My doctoral research was funded by the Gates Foundation. Before joining Harvard, I served as the Keith Sykes Fellow in Italian Studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge. I am a literary scholar and cultural historian specializing in pre-modern Italy (4th-15th century). A broadly unifying characteristic of my literary criticism is a curiosity for what verbal language can do beyond encoding meaning and transferring it. I am drawn to non-propositional discourses, including languages of injury (satire), pedagogies grounded in radical irony (parabolic epistemologies, sufism), the apophatic tradition, non-Aristotelian logic. As a philologist and a historian, I am also engaging with alchemy (Mythoalchemy) and with the tradition of iconic texts (carmina figurata, acrostics, etc.). I have published studies on Dante’s concept of pure matter, Byzantine dreambooks, the Mediterranean traditions of Alexander the Great, and Chrétien de Troyes’s Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. A forthcoming book on medieval non-linear exemplarities is being prepared for publication. I am also working on a criminal history of satire in medieval and early modern Italy. Part of my family is originally from Odessa. I grew up between Milan and Lake Como. --- **Books** - [*Vita di Alessandro Magno con figure*](https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503576138-1), Brepols, 2018 - [*La materia di Dante*](http://www.longo-editore.it/scheda_libro.php?id=1732), Longo, 2024 - [*Dante’s Nonlinear Exemplarity*](https://utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/9781049804941), University of Toronto Press, 2026 ## Courses Taught ### Fall, 2026 [### ITALIAN 077 - The Italian Constitution: Foundations of a Republic (art. 1-12) ](/class/italian-077-italian-constitution-foundations-republic-art-1-12) **Semester:** Fall | **Year offered:** 2026 | **Link:** [Course Website](https://locator.tlt.harvard.edu/course/colgsas-233150/2026/fall/18618) [### ITALIAN 138 - The Cosmos of the Divine Comedy ](/class/italian-138-cosmos-divine-comedy) **Semester:** Fall | **Year offered:** 2026 | **Link:** [Course Website](https://locator.tlt.harvard.edu/course/colgsas-207950/2026/fall/18616) ### Spring, 2026 [### ITALIAN 238 - Alchemy and Literature ](/class/italian-238-alchemy-and-literature) **Semester:** Spring | **Year offered:** 2026 [### ITALIAN 076 - The Sonnet ](/class/italian-076-sonnet) **Semester:** Spring | **Year offered:** 2026 ### Spring, 2027 [### ITALIAN 154 - Speech Crimes: Satire and the Limits of Expression in Italian History ](/class/italian-154-speech-crimes-satire-and-limits-expression-italian-history) **Semester:** Spring | **Year offered:** 2027 | **Link:** [Course Website](https://locator.tlt.harvard.edu/course/colgsas-233149/2026/spring/17006) - ## Department Role [Faculty](/people/role/faculty) [Italian Faculty](/people/role/italian-faculty) [Undergraduate Advisor](/people/role/undergraduate-advisor) - ## Language [Italian](/language/italian) - ## Research Interest [Literature](/research-interest/literature) [Italian](/research-interest/italian) [Philology](/research-interest/philology)