RESEARCH
Matter, Form, and Nature
My research focuses on the history of metaphysics and natural philosophy across the long Middle Ages, with particular attention to hylomorphism, the ontological constitution of natural beings, and the epistemological problems associated with their material principles. Over the years, my work has developed around a set of closely connected questions concerning the nature of matter, its role in the explanation of natural change, and the possibility of attaining knowledge of something that seems to resist direct intelligibility. These questions have led me to trace the formation, transformation, and fragmentation of hylomorphic theories across different historical periods, intellectual traditions, and cultural settings.
research Trajectory
The first stage of my research centred on the philosophical transformations of the twelfth century, particularly the reception of Arabic and Jewish philosophy in the Latin West. My studies on Dominicus Gundissalinus and the intellectual milieu of Toledo examined how the translation and appropriation of Avicenna, al-Fārābī, and Ibn Gabirol contributed to the emergence of new metaphysical frameworks. In particular, I focused on Gundissalinus’s attempt to articulate an original ontology through the combination of Avicennian modal metaphysics and Gabirolian universal hylomorphism, together with its implications for cosmology, causality, and the organisation of knowledge. This research resulted in two monographs, Domingo Gundisalvo: Una introducción (2017) and The Twelfth-Century Renewal of Latin Metaphysics (2020), alongside several studies on philosophical translation, appropriation, and conceptual change.
My subsequent research, developed especially during my fellowship at Durham University (2016–2018), extended this inquiry to the thirteenth century, focusing on Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon. Their philosophical projects offered particularly interesting cases for examining the interaction between the newly available Aristotelian and Arabic traditions and the changing theoretical demands of natural philosophy. My work explored their accounts of matter, form, corporeity, motion, and causality, paying particular attention to the tensions generated by the coexistence of different explanatory models. It also led me to consider the complex relations between metaphysical speculation and scientific practices, including mathematics, astronomy, optics, and alchemy. These studies gradually brought into focus the plurality of hylomorphic models developed within the scholastic tradition and the consequences of their different assumptions about the constitution of natural beings.
This line of inquiry provided the basis for my research fellowships at Humboldt University in Berlin (2018–2020) and KU Leuven (2020–2023), during which I concentrated on the ontology and epistemology of prime matter. The problem is particularly intriguing because of the peculiar status assigned to matter within Aristotelian hylomorphism: as the ultimate substrate of natural change, prime matter appears indispensable to the explanation of physical reality, yet its lack of formal determination raises fundamental difficulties concerning its existence and intelligibility. My research has examined how medieval and early modern philosophers addressed these difficulties through different ontological commitments and epistemological strategies. In particular, I have reconstructed the philosophical assumptions underlying accounts of matter as pure potentiality or positive being, the procedures developed to conceive it through perception, abstraction, and analogy, and the arguments advanced to demonstrate its existence. This line of inquiry has progressively expanded from the thirteenth century to later scholastic debates, tracing both the continuities and the transformations of these problems.
A further development of this research concerns the fragmentation of hylomorphism during the late medieval and early modern periods. My studies on Roger Bacon, Francisco de Toledo, and other scholastic authors have highlighted how apparently shared theoretical principles could sustain markedly different accounts of material composition, substantial change, and the constitution of elements and mixtures. In this context, I have become increasingly interested in the conceptual plurality of scholastic natural philosophy and in the transformations of its explanatory frameworks between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. This perspective also informs my work on the relations between hylomorphism and alternative theories of matter, including corpuscular and atomistic explanations, explored in the collective volume Hylomorphism into Pieces (2024), which I co-edited with Sylvain Roudaut.
More recently, my research has acquired a broader comparative and global dimension. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie project HYLOGLOB, developed at the University of Porto (2023–2024), examined the circulation and transformation of scholastic hylomorphism between Europe, China, and New Spain during the early modern period. Building on my earlier work on philosophical transmission and appropriation, this research considers the ways in which scholastic theories of nature were reconfigured through encounters with different intellectual traditions. My research on colonial scholasticism, particularly the philosophical production of Alonso de la Vera Cruz, has developed alongside a growing interest in the interaction between European scholasticism and Chinese thought. In particular, I am exploring the conceptual relations and tensions between hylomorphic accounts of natural reality and Neo-Confucian theories centred on qi (氣) and li (理), with attention to the interpretative transformations generated by early modern cross-cultural encounters.
These different lines of research also inform my collaborative and editorial activities. Alongside several collective volumes devoted to medieval metaphysics and natural philosophy, I co-edit the Routledge series Global Perspectives on the History of Natural Philosophy. My current projects include the two-volume A Philosophical History of Prime Matter (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) and the development of the Global Scholasticism Academic Network with Abel Aravena Zamora and Lu Jiang. Since joining the University of Messina in 2024, I have also sought to foster a collaborative research environment through seminars, workshops, and international exchanges devoted to medieval philosophy and its wider historical and theoretical implications.
Taken together, these different lines of research reflect a methodological approach that combines historical reconstruction, conceptual analysis, and comparative philosophical inquiry. I am particularly interested in how historically situated philosophical debates can illuminate more general problems concerning materiality, causality, natural change, and the intelligibility of the physical world. In this sense, the history of philosophy offers a rich and plural field of theoretical possibilities whose systematic examination may contribute to broader philosophical discussions about the nature and structure of reality.
Calendar of activities
If you want to know more about my academic activities over the years, from lectures and teaching to conferences, research stays, publications, and organised events, you can take a look at the calendar of activities down below. Taken together, these entries offer a record of the projects, collaborations, and intellectual exchanges that have shaped my work
Calendar of activities
June 2026
5 June 2026
Lecture at the conference Between Observatio and Scholastic Scientia: Indigenous Knowledge, Natural History, and Colonial Universities at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science: “Composing Nature: Elements and Mixtures in Second Scholasticism”.
12 June 2026
Sixth meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
17-19 June 2026
Doctoral seminar at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice: “Hylomorphism and Its Controversies in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy”.
25 June 2026
Sixth meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. José Luís Egio, “Las misiones y el comercio global, motores de innovación en la historia de la filosofía natural y la teología moral”.
MAY 2026
4 May 2026
Fifth meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. Daniel Heider, “The Notion of Attention in Second Scholastic Philosophy and Theology”.
8 May 2026
Seminar by Alessandro Mulieri: “Continuità e rottura: Machiavelli nell’orizzonte dell’aristotelismo politico”.
9 May 2026
Public discussion of Alessandro Mulieri’s Tecnomonarchi at the Ciofalo Bookstore in Messina, with Rita Fulco and Alessandro Mulieri.
15 May 2026
Fourth meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
19 May 2026
Lecture in Lecce: “L’equivocità della materia nella scolastica: modelli, funzioni e pluralità semantica”.
22 May 2026
Fifth meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
27 May 2026
Lecture at the RBRS Potentia activa Seminar: “Early Roger Bacon on Mixture”
April 2026
10 April 2026
Fourth meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. Lydia Deni Gamboa, “Lógica en el Colegio de San Juan de Puebla, México, en la primera mitad del siglo XVII”.
16 April 2026
Seminari di Filosofia Medievale 2026. Giovanni Catapano, “Scrivere un manuale di filosofia medievale: sfide metodologiche, scelte storiografiche e strategie comunicative”.
24 April 2026
Third meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
28-29 April 2026
Workshop UCLouvain-Messina: Transforming Matter.
March 2026
6 March 2026
Lecture with Shixiang Jin at 39th Meeting of the Medieval Philosophy Network in the UK. Title: “Recoding Matter: Neo-Confucian Ontology and Scholastic Reconfigurations”.
11 March 2026
Lecture at the University of Parma. Title: “Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Reconfiguration of Medieval Hylomorphism”.
19 March 2026
First class of my MA course “Just War: Thomas Aquinas and the Contemporary Debate”.
20 March 2026
First meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
20 March 2026
Third meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. Fabrizio Amerini, “Interpreting Aristotle: Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and Gregory of Rimini on Matter”.
25 March 2026
Seminari di Filosofia Medievale 2026. Jonathan Morton, “Philosophical Fictions and Platonist Metaphysics: The School of Chartres, ca. 1100–ca. 1150”.
27 March 2026
Second meeting of the Confucius-Aquinas reading group in Messina.
29 March 2026
Book launch event in Messina: Alessio Letterio De Leo, Filosofia, identità e marxismo.
February 2026
4 February 2026
Workshop at KU Leuven: Shaping Philosophical Research into Doctoral Projects.
13 February 2026
Second meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. Jenny Pelletier, “Unity in the Plural: Mind and Action in the Fourteenth Century”.
27 February 2026
Seminari di Filosofia Medievale 2026. Federico Dal Bo, “Figure del divino: Allegoria, ontologia e genere da Maimonide alla post-filosofia”.
January 2026
20 January 2026
First meeting of the Global Scholasticism 2026 Lecture Series. Chengsheng Sun, 《观念的交织：17-18世纪西方自然哲学在中国的传播》.
December 2025
3-5 December 2025
XI Congress of SOFIME in Cordoba.
11 December 2025
Last class of my MA Course “Philosophy and Nature in the Middle Ages”.
11 December 2025
Conference “The Dialogue Between Italian Missionaries and Chinese Civilization – Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the Birth of Prospero Intorcetta (1625–2025)” at Università Kore in Enna. My paper: “Longobard, Hylomorphism, and the Problematic Nature of Qi”.
18 December 2025
Last class of my MA Course “Philosophy of Light: Robert Grosseteste and Meister Eckhart”.
November 2025
3 November 2025
First class of my BA Course “Philosophy of Light: Robert Grosseteste and Meister Eckhart”.
10 November 2025
First class of my MA Course “Philosophy and Nature in the Middle Ages”.
October 2025
3 October 2025
Lecture at the Mita Philosophical Society, Keio University Tokyo. Title: “Hylomorphic Conundrums: Roger Bacon on Mixtures”
8 October 2025
Seminar at Keio University, Tokyo. Title: “Revisiting Thomas Aquinas’s Take on Prime Matter”
20 October 2025
Last class of my course “Scholastic Hylomorphism: Principles, Theories, and Problems” at Peking University.
September 2025
5 September 2025
My visiting professorship at Peking University (北京大学) begins.
8 September 2025
First class of my course “Scholastic Hylomorphism: Principles, Theories, and Problems” at Peking University.
August 2025
22 August 2025
Publication of the volume Colonial Scholasticism: Interpreting Nature, Society, and Philosophy in Spanish America edited by Abel Aravena Zamora and Nicola Polloni (Routledge).
June 2025
9 June 2025
Workshop by Anna Marmodoro (Visiting Professor in Messina): “La ricerca filosofica come professione: Orizzonti europei e globali”.
25-28 June 2025
Summer School at the University of Porto: “Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy Causality and Contingency”.
May 2025
8 May 2025
Lecture at the University of Naples titled “Aristotele in fiamme: Ruggero Bacone e la critica delle traduzioni latine medievali”.
15 May 2025
Incontri di Filosofia Medievale: Lecture by Nicola Milanesi (Università di Salerno), titled “Suárez e l’unità della materia. L’ilemorfismo suareziano in questione” (find out more).
19-22 May 2025
Philosophical Seminar by Anna Marmodoro (Visiting Professor in Messina): “L’essenzialismo nella filosofia antica, medievale e moderna” (find out more).
20 May 2025
Lecture at the University of Salento titled “Oggetti fisici e strutture metafisiche: tre modelli”.
29 May 2025
Fourth and last meeting of the 2025 Medieval Philosophy Seminars (titled Riflessione filosofica e pratica scientifica nel Medioevo) in Messina, hosting Francesca Galli (find out more).
April 2025
10 April 2025
Third meeting of the Medieval Philosophy Seminars (titled Riflessione filosofica e pratica scientifica nel Medioevo) in Messina, hosting Vincenzo Carlotta (find out more).
March 2025
6 February 2025
Second meeting of the Medieval Philosophy Seminars (titled Riflessione filosofica e pratica scientifica nel Medioevo) in Messina, hosting Grégory Clesse (find out more).
4-9 February 2025
Grégory Clesse in Messina for the MPS and to make plans for a series of strategic collaborations between Messina and Louvain-la-Neuve.
February 2025
4 February 2025
Lecture at ULB in Brussels: “Completing Matter: Roger Bacon’s Revision of the (Standard) Hylomorphic Model”.
6 February 2025
Skills development workshop at KU Leuven: Crafting Doctoral Projects in Philosophy.
11 February 2025
First meeting of the virtual seminar Termini logicales taught by Dominic Dold and hosted by Zita Toth and myself.
21 February 2025
Outreach event with high school students at the University of Messina. My class: “Scienza e filosofia nel Medioevo: un’epoca oscura?”
27 February 2025
First meeting of the Medieval Philosophy Seminars (titled Riflessione filosofica e pratica scientifica nel Medioevo) in Messina, hosting Marilena Panarelli (find out more).
January 2025
16 January 2025
The new book series Piccola Biblioteca di Filosofia Medievale (published by Il Melangolo) is officially launched (find out more).
November 2024
2-6 November 2024
Short research stay in Beijing working with Shixiang Jin on our current projects.
7-8 November 2024
World Congress of Classics in Beijing. My talk: “Reimagining European Medieval Philosophy in a Globalised Future”
11 November 2024
First class of the BA Course “La materia” in Messina. The course will last till the end of the year.
28-29 November 2024
The workshop Glimpses of the Invisible: Visualising the Principles of Nature Before the Rise of Modernity that I have co-organised with Serena Masolini takes place in Messina and Cordoba.
October 2024
7 October 2024
Incontri di Filosofia Medievale at the University of Messina. Our guest is Abel Aravena Zamora, who will give a lecture titled “Escolástica colonial: Circulación de saberes filosóficos entre Italia y Chile en los albores de la modernidad”.
16 October 2024
First class of the section of the Common Seminar that I teach this year at KU Leuven.
31 October 2024
Release of Hylomorphism Into Pieces: Elements, Atoms and Corpuscles in the Late Middle Ages (1400–1600) that Sylvain Roudaut and I have edited is expected on this date.
September 2024
10-12 September 2024
Conference The Forgotten Giants: Overlooked Scientific Revolutions in Natural Philosophy in Łódz. My talk: “Hylomorphism in the Late 12th Century: A Neglected Revolution?”
July 2024
1-4 July 2024
Research meeting with Grégory Clesse in Tuscany.
11-12 July 2024
Annual Colloquium of SOFIME in Salamanca: The Actuality of Medieval Philosophy.
June 2024
13-14 June 2024
Conference Medieval and Renaissance Sciences in Context: Challenges to Aristotelian Methods in Paris. My talk is titled “Epistemic Trust, Testimony, and Bogus Evidence: The Strange Case of Roger Bacon”
May 2024
7-8 May 2024
Workshop Matter through the Centuries at the University of Notre Dame Gateway in Rome. My talk: “Prime Matter’s ‘Peculiar’ Existence: Pedro da Fonseca against Scotus and Aquinas?”
February 2024
9 February 2024
Workshop Envisioning and Designing New Research in Philosophy at KU Leuven (find out more).
January 2024
7 January 2024
My Marie Curie project HYLOGLOB ends after slightly more than three months. The main tenets and outputs of HYLOGLOB, however, will survive and adapted to a different format.
8 January 2024
My new position as Associate Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Messina, Italy, starts today.
December 2023
1 December 2023
Third module of my research seminar at USTB Beijing (find out more).
2-3 December 2023
Research meeting with Shixiang Jin and Qinyong Fan in Yangzhou.
5 December 2023
Lecture at Sun Yat-sen University (中山大学) in Guangzhou: “Manuel de Góis, Pedro da Fonseca, and the Problem of Prime Matter’s Potency”.
8 December 2023
Fourth module of my research seminar at USTB Beijing (find out more).
20 December 2023
Lecture at UCLouvain: “Globalising Hylomorphism: Matter and Materiality Between Europe and China in the 16th Century”
November 2023
15 November – 10 December 2023
Research stay in Beijing, kindly invited by Shixiang Jin at the University of Science and Technology of Beijing.
17 November 2023
First module of my research seminar on scholastic metaphysics and natural philosophy at USTB Beijing (find out more).
24 November 2023
Second module of my research seminar at USTB Beijing (find out more).
25 November 2023
Lecture at Peking University (北京大学): “The Inevitable Substrate: Late Scholastic Arguments for the Existence of Prime Matter”
28 November 2023
Lecture at Tsinghua University (清华大学) in Beijing: “Theories of Matter in Later Scholasticism”.
October 2023
1 October 2023
My Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship starts at the University of Porto. You can find more info about my project (HYLOGLOB) here.
1 October 2023
My secondment at UCLouvain begins.
September 2023
27 September 2023
This year’s Common Seminar starts at KU Leuven.
30 September 2023
My FWO Senior Fellowship at KU Leuven ends. But I will still be linked to KU Leuven as external collaborator of the Institute of Philosophy.
July 2023
4 July 2023
Panel at 2023 IMC Leeds: Natural Entanglements: Confused Perceptions in the Middle Ages. My talk: “The Sound of Silence: Using Confused Perceptions to Conceive Metaphysical Principles”.
4 July 2023
Round table at 2023 IMC Leeds: What Did Medieval Philosophy Do for Us? Cross-Disciplinary Entanglements.
June 2023
5-7 June 2023
Workshop Quantity, Extension, and Infinity in the 13th and 14th Centuries at Tel Hai. My talk: “Expanding Quantity: Robert Grosseteste on the Bodily Form”.
May 2023
2 May 2023
Lecture at the University of Cluj: “Giacomo Zabarella on Conceiving Matter by Analogy”
25-28 May 2023
Conference in Stockholm: The Mechanization of the Natural World, 1300-1700. My talk: “Idle Substrates in a World of Forms? Franciscus Toletus on Prime Matter, Accidents, and Elements”.
29 May – 1 June 2023
2023 AAIWG Conference in Istanbul. My talk:”Reassessing Gundissalinus on Prime Matter”.
April 2023
3-4 April 2023
Research meeting in Leuven with the team of the “Roger Bacon and Maths” project from Tel Hai/Haifa. Two days of meetings and discussions on philosophy, science, and Bacon.
4 April 2023
Lecture by Elena Baltuta at KU Leuven: “Between Cogitative Power and Rational Soul: Intelligible Species in Roger Bacon.”
19 April 2023
Guest lecturer at Yael Kedar’s BA course in Tel Hai giving a seminar titled “Structuring Bodies: Matter, Form, and Elements in the Middle Ages.”
20 April 2023
Lecture by Abel Aravena Zamora at KU Leuven: “Doing Philosophy in Colonial Chile: Authors, Works, and Manuscripts from the 17th to the 19th Centuries.”
March 2023
24 March 2023
The Samuel Alexander Reading Group is back! Dominic Dold will guide us through some radical interpretations of Alexander’s ontology.
February 2023
4 February 2023
Workshop “Project Design for Philosophical Research” at KU Leuven for the Common Seminar students and focused on how to survive the challenging world of research proposals in academia.
16 February 2023
International workshop The Logic of Matter, University of Helsinki (FI). My talk: “Problematic Blends of Epistemic Procedures to Conceive Prime Matter”.
17 February 2023
Lecture at the University of Helsinki (FI): “Puzzling Entities: Francisco de Toledo on the Constitution of Hylomorphic Substances”.
January 2023
12-20 January 2023
Research trip to Israel
16 January 2023
Lecture at Bar Ilan University (IL), “Translations and Accommodations: Three Stories of Cross-Cultural Exchange”.
17 January 2023
Lecture at the University of Haifa (IL), “Francisco Suárez and Manuel Góis on Prime Matter and Its Conceivability”.
17 January 2023
Lecture at Tel Hai College (IL), “Francisco de Toledo on Matter”.
December 2022
2 December 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S6 (link)
November 2022
8-12 November 2022
Trip to Cordoba (ES) for research meetings and teaching.
10-11 November 2022
This year, my course at Cordoba (Matter, Elements, and Mixtures: Cross-Cultural Perspectives) has become a block seminar: wish me luck!
22 November 2022
Lecture at Zhongnan University in Wuhan: “Matter and Prime Matter in the Latin Middle Ages: Surveying an Elusive Substrate”.
24 November 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S5 (link)
October 2022
7 October 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S4 (link)
14-15 October 2022
Conference: “From Toledo to Gotha: New Perspectives on the Impact of Avicenna upon Science and Philosophy in Europe”, co-organised with Cécile Bonmariage, Sébastien Moureau, and Andrea Robiglio.
26 October 2022
Common Seminar Round Table on doing research as a career, organised by the students at KU Leuven.
September 2022
28 September 2022
The Common Seminar, which I am co-teaching with Russ Friedman, starts at KU Leuven.
August 2022
22-26 August 2022
15th SIEPM Congress in Paris (link). My talk: “Systematising Matter in Coimbra: Manuel de Góis on the Epistemology of Prime Matter”.
July 2022
21 July 2022
Roger Bacon Conference at St Bonaventure University (link). My talk (with Yael Kedar): “Roger Bacon’s ‘Mathematical Proofs’ Against the Infinity of Matter”.
15 July 2022
Our new book series with Routledge, Global Perspectives in the History of Natural Philosophy is officially launched!
June 2022
9-11 June 2022
Conference at KU Leuven: Late Medieval Hylomorphism: Matter and Form 1300–1600 (link), co-organised with Russ Friedman and Zita Toth.
16 June 2022
Publication of the volume Fragmented Nature: Medieval Latinate Reasoning on the Natural World and Its Order (Routledge), co-edited with Mattia Cipriani.
15-23 June 2022
Trip to Portugal, with many meetings ahead.
May 2022
9 May 2022
Seminar at UCLouvain: Untangling Medieval Natural Philosophy: An Excursion into Matters, Forms, and Other Peculiar Entities.
11 May 2022
57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (MI). My talk: “Formlessness and Metaphors of an Elusive Substrate: Facing the Epistemic Obscurity of Prime Matter”.
15 May 2022
The new magazine IPM Monthly: Medieval Philosophy Today is lauched (link).
19 May 2022
Graduate conference at KU Leuven: many interesting papers by students at KU Leuven, I have been asked to chair a session.
27 May 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S3 (link)
April 2022
7-8 April 2022
Conference: Hylomorphism into Pieces: Elements, Atoms and Corpuscles in the Late Middle Ages (1400–1600) (link).
21 April 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S2 (link)
March 2022
11 March 2022
Divergent Scholasticism S1 (link)
18 March 2022
The Elusive Substrate P9: Hylomorphism East and West.
February 2022
18 February 2022
The Elusive Substrate P8: Towards a New Notion of Matter.
January 2022
14 January 2022
The Elusive Substrate P7: Early Modern Matters.
December 2021
3 December 2021
The Elusive Substrate P6: Scholasticism and Matter.
10-11 December 2021
Beijing-Leuvein Workshop that Shixiang Jin and I have organised: Materia, 气/Qì, and Their Epistemes.
November 2021
5 November 2021
The Elusive Substrate P5: Hylomorphic Turns.
12 November 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Meagan Allen (link).
12 November 2021
Last class of my USK course in Cordoba.
25 November 2021
Lecture at the University of Gothenburg: “Suárez on the Epistemic Challenge of Conceiving Prime Matter”.
October 2021
1 October 2021
Conference: Ut bon(aventurian)i fiamus: International Conference on the 800th Anniversary of Bonaventure’s Birth, Ljubljana (SLO).
8 October 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by William Newman (link).
31 October 2021
Deadline CFP: Hylomorphism into Pieces: Elements, Atoms and Corpuscles in the Late Middle Ages (1400–1600)
September 2021
6-8 September 2021
VIII Congreso de SOFIME, University of Porto, PT.
10 September 2021
The Elusive Substrate P3: The High Middle Ages.
17 September 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Aurélien Robert (link).
24 September 2021
The Elusive Substrate P4: Islamicate Roots.
July 2021
16 July 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Yael Kedar (link).
19-21 July 2021
Conference Exchange of knowledge between literate cultures, University of Copenhagen, DK.
June 2021
11 June 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Yehuda Halper (link).
18 June 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Darrel Rutkin (link).
25 June 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Zita Toth (link)
May 2021
7 May 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Philipp Nothaft (link)
14 May 2021
The Elusive Substrate P1: Roman Preludes.
28 May 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Shahab Khademi (link).
April 2021
9 April 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Irene Binini (link).
9 April 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Nader El-Bizri (link)
23 April 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Elena Baltuta (link).
March 2021
9-10 March 2021
Conference Abraham ibn Daud: historia, filosofía y teología política en Sefarad, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid (ES). My talk: “Hylomorphic Crossroads: Ibn Daud, Gundissalinus, and the Font of Life“.
12 March 2021
MeLO Seminar, my talk (link).
19 March 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Alexander Fidora (link).
24 March 2021
Discussion of Space, Time, and Deity, book IV, chapters 1 and 2: Deity and God and Deity and the Religious Sentiment.
26 March 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Lorenz Demey (link).
27 March 2021
An entire day of discussion of Physics I-II organised by Elena Baltuta.
february 2021
12 February 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Jenny Pelletier (link).
15 February 2021
MHPS discussion group on Thomas Kuhn II (link).
19 February 2021
Tea-Time with Bacon (RBRS), talk by Nikolaus Egel (link).
24 February 2021
My talk at the IEM Seminar, Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, ES): “Fragmentaciones hilemórficas: Rogerio Bacon y el problema de la constitución ontológica del mundo natural”.
26 February 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Christophe Geudens (link).
January 2021
15 January 2021
MeLO Seminar, talk by Dominic Dold (link).
18 January 2021
MHPS discussion group on Thomas Kuhn I (link).
21 January 2021
Twelfth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
29 January 2021
MeLO Seminar: talk by Joshua Mendelsohn.
December 2020
2 December 2020
Second meeting of the Medieval History of Philosophy of Science discussion group.
5 December 2020
Seminar Dante Filosofo + Assemblea SISPM.
8 December 2020
Third meeting of the Medieval History of Philosophy of Science discussion group.
11 December 2020
MeLO Seminar informal meeting.
17 December 2020
Eleventh meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
18 December 2020
RBRS Executive committee meeting.
November 2020
11 November 2020
First meeting of the Medieval History of Philosophy of Science discussion group.
25 November 2020
Tenth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
27 November 2020
KU Leuven Question Lab – Metaphysics or Ontology? Thinking about Being in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (with Jenny Pelletier and Nicolas Zaks)
october 2020
28 October 2020
Ninth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
July 2020
9 July 2020
Discussion of one of my papers on Bacon at the MPIWG lunch colloquium.
10 July 2020
RBRS reading group of Roger Bacon’s Compendium studii philosophiae on Zoom (link). Final meeting.
15 July 2020
Eighth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
24 July 2020
Talk at virtual conference 13th Century English Franciscans (first session), organised by Lydia Schumacher (link). Title: “Roger Bacon on the Conceivability of Matter”.
June 2020
2 June 2020
RBRS Lecture by Irène Rosier Catach, “The Diversity and Coherence of Roger Bacon’s Interest in Language” (link).
3 June 2020
Fifth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
10 June 2020
Sixth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
12 June 2020
RBRS reading group of Roger Bacon’s Compendium studii philosophiae on Zoom (link).
24 June 2020
Seventh meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
25 June 2020
Roundtable discussion “Matter: First and Final” with Neil Lewis and Rega Wood at Robert Pasnau’s Virtual Colloquium (link).
May 2020
1 May 2020
RBRS reading group of Roger Bacon’s Compendium studii philosophiae starts on Zoom (link).
13 May 2020
Fourth meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
22 May 2020
RBRS reading group of Roger Bacon’s Compendium studii philosophiae on Zoom (link).
april 2020
1 April 2020
First meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
15 April 2020
Second meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
29 April 2020
Third meeting of the research reading group of Samuel Alexander’s Time, Space, and Deity (link).
March 2020
12 March 2020
The Twelfth-Century Renewal of Latin Metaphysics: Gundissalinus’s Ontology of Matter and Form (Toronto: PIMS) is released!!
February 2020
7 February 2020
Meeting of the Editorial Committee of Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval in Porto.
8 February 2020
Talk “Matter, Apprehension, and Metaphysics: Prejudices in Favour of the Actual?” at the conference De intellectu. Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew Texts and Their Influence on Medieval Philosophy. A Tribute to Rafael Ramón Guerrero in Porto.
12 February 2020
Research meeting of The Extensions Project in Oxford.
28 February 2020:
Prime Matter Workshop I at HU Berlin: The Ontological Stakes of Physical Endurance (link).
January 2020
January to April 2020
Visiting stay at the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford.
23 January 2020
Talk “Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Reception of Arabic Philosophy in the 13th Century” with Alexander Fidora at the conference The Intercultural Roots Early Scholasticism: Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin in London.
23 January 2020
Launch of the “Dominicus Gundissalinus Website” (link)
December 2019
3 December 2019
Conference Alchemy between Practices and Theories in Berlin.
6 December 2019
Sixth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Tommaso Alpina.
12 December 2019
Seventh Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Sebastian Bender.
13 December 2019
The course Ancient and Medieval Visions of Light and Colour starts at TU Berlin (Blockseminar).
19 December 2019
Eighth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Gerd Micheluzzi.
November 2019
1 November 2019
Third Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Dominic Dold.
8 November 2019
Fourth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Joshua Mendelsohn.
29 November 2019
Fifth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Han Thomas Adriaenssen.
October 2019
15 October 2019
My research visiting stay at MPIWG begins.
18 October 2019
First meeting of the matter reading group “Scattered Matter: Atoms and Reality According to Nicholas of Autrecourt”
18 October 2019
First Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Elena Baltuta.
25 October 2019
Second Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Stephen Ogden.
September 2019
20 September 2019
My lecture at Radboud University in Nijmegen: “A Matter to Be Grasped: Epistemic Strategies and Ontological Problems about Prime Matter”.
23-25 September 2019
Conference The Summa Halensis: Philosophy and Reception in Oxford. My talk: “Shadows of Gundissalinus in the Summa Halensis“.
July 2019
1-4 July 2019
International Medieval Congress 2019 in Leeds. My talk: “Robert Grosseteste: Patterns of Causality, Matter, Light, and the Divine”.
5 July 2019
Seventh Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Abel Aravena Zamora.
12 July 2019
Symposium Matters Entangled at HU Berlin.
23-27 July 2019
2019 Meeting of the History of Science Society in Utrecht. My talk: “Matter as Epistemic Object: Intellection, Manipulation, and Particularisation in the 13th Century”
28 July – 3 August 2019
Summer school Structuring Nature in Berlin.
June 2019
5-7 June 2019
Conference: The Multi-ethnic Borderlands of Medieval Toledo: New Directions in Toledo. My talk: “Movements, Clusters, and Teams: Modern Perspectives on Premodern Translations”.
14 June 2019
Fifth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Meagan Allen.
21 June 2019
Sixth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Mattia Cipriani.
27-28 June 2019
Conference: Premodern Experience of the Natural World in Translation at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. My talk: “Experiencing Matter: Translations and Transitions in Grosseteste’s Early Works”.
May 2019
3 May 2019
Second Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Yael Kedar.
10 May 2019
Third Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting David Cory.
14-16 May 2019
Ordered Universe Symposium in Lincoln.
17 May 2019
Fourth Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Thomas Harb.
22-25 May 2019
Conference Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions: Intellect, Experience and More at the University of Pisa. My talk: “Marginal Epistemologies of Matter: Premodern Strategies for Knowing the Prime Substrate”.
April 2019
3 April 2019
Conference La Fisica di Aristotele nel Medioevo. Parigi e Oxford (1210-1270). Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”. My talk: “Le questioni sulla Fisica di Ruggero Bacone: il problema della materia”
8 April 2019
The course Mobilizing Knowledge in Translation starts at TU Berlin.
12 April 2019
The reading group Structures of Materiality: Roger Bacon and the Conundrum of Prime Matter starts at HU Berlin.
26 April 2019
First Medieval Philosophical Gathering hosting Lydia Schumacher.
March 2019
4 March 2019
OxNet seminar in Sunderland: “Translations and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages”.
5 March 2019
My lecture at Durham University: “Looking into the Unknowable: Premodern Conundrums of Prime Matter”.
28-29 March 2019
Conference Mapping the Rhetoric of Science Writing in Antiquity and Beyond at the Ionian University of Corfu (GR). My talk: “Premodern Translations into Latin: Rhetorical Strategies and Historical Reconstructions”.
February 2019
15 February 2019
Last meeting of the matter reading group.
January 2019
11 January 2019
First meeting in the new year of the matter reading group “(Re)Shaping the Tradition: Narratives of Matter in Calcidius and Ibn Gabirol”.
19 January 2019
Research meeting of the Extension Project in Berlin.
24 January 2019
Conference Filosofia naturale, filosofia morale e teologia in Ruggero Bacone at the University of Pavia.
29 January 2019
Conference Trespassing Walls. Jews, Christians and Muslims around Their Texts and Traditions. Universidad de Córdoba, Cordoba (ES), 29 January 2019. My talk with Pedro Mantas is titled “Inside Marc of Toledo’s Approach to Ibn Tûmart and His Philosophical and Theological Doctrines”.
November 2018
1-4 November 2018
2018 Meeting of the History of Science Society in Seattle. My talk: “From Matter to Materiality: Premodern Quests for Knowing the Principle of Corporeality”.
9 November 2018
Conference Matter, Mind, and More at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. My talk: “Knowing the Shadow. Prime Matter and its Knowability in the 13th Century”.
14-16 November 2018
Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Meeting in Bonn.
October 2018
26 October 2018
First meeting of the reading group “(Re)Shaping the Tradition: Narratives of Matter in Calcidius and Ibn Gabirol”.
September 2018
18-20 September 2018
Ordered Universe Symposium at Trinity College Dublin.
27-29 September 2018
Conference Arabic and Latin Science of Vision and the Theory of Perspective in Early Renaissance Florence in Florence.
August 2018
23-25 August 2018
Aquinas and the Arabs Annual Fall Meeting in Mexico City. My talk: “Avicennian Cosmologies? Remarks on Grosseteste and the Arabs”.
June 2018
8 June 2018
Launch of the volume Vedere nell’ombra in Florence.
30 June 2018
My Junior Research Fellowship at Durham University ends. A new adventure begins in Berlin!
May 2018
2-5 May 2018
Ordered Universe Symposium at McGill University in Montreal.
9 May 2018
A very long trip by car from Montreal to Kalamazoo…
10-13 May 2018
53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo. My talk: “Expanding Matter: Cosmologies of Light in Artephius and Grosseteste”.
April 2018
3 April 2018
Conference East-Western Transmission of Knowledge in Cordoba. My talk: “Nicholas of Cusa and Gundissalinus: A Prelude on Matter”.
3-6 April 2018
Conference Science Imagination and Wonder – Robert Grosseteste and His Legacy at the University of Oxford. My talk: “Sources of Light: Remarks on the Grosseteste/Avicebron Connection”.
March 2018
5 March 2018
OxNet Seminar in Sunderland “Science and Translations in the Middle Ages”.
14 March 2018
Conference: Crossing Lands. Spreading knowledge in the Near East and the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to Middle Ages in Cordoba. My talk: “Arabic Philosophy in Latin Europe Before Michael Scot”.
February 2018
26-28 February 2018
Conference Scire naturam: filosofia e ciências, da antiguidade ao início da modernidade in Porto. My talk: “Chaos in Toledo: Gundissalinus, Daniel of Morley, and the Chartrean Tradition”.
January 2018
16 January 2018
Conference Explicatio y ratio naturae. Comprensiones medievales sobre el origen del universo at the University of Navarra in Pamplona. My talk: “Domingo Gundisalvo y Daniel de Morley acerca del establecimiento y conservación de la causalidad del universo”.
November 2017
6-7 November 2017
Conference Pre-Modern Sciences and Religions at Harvard University. My talk: “Matter of Change: Philosophical Claims and Religious Concerns on the Substrate”.
9-12 November 2017
2017 Meeting of the History of Science Society in Toronto, with a panel I have organised. My talk: “Sciences of Matter? Knowledge of the Material Substrate in the two Bacons”.
16-19 November 2017
ACPA Conference Philosophy, Faith and Modernity in Dallas. My talk: “Accordance and Strife: Encounters with Modernity at the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century”.
21 November 2017
Research Meeting at Texas State University in San Marcos.
30 November 2017
Conference Oriente próximo y la cuenca del Mediterráneo. Fe, creencia y transmisión textual entre lo canónico y lo apócrifo in Cordoba. My talk: “Traducción y circulación del conocimiento árabe a finales del siglo XII: unas notas de introducción”.
October 2017
25 October 2017
Lecture by Lucas Oro Hershtein in Durham.
September 2017
27 September 2017
Roger Bacon Workshop in Florence.
June 2017
1-2 June 2017
Conference Creation and Artifice at the Warburg Institute. My talk: “‘Indeed, the soul has not been made by the first Maker’: Creation, Imitation, and Matter”.
5-6 June 2017
Conference Translating Experience: Medieval Encounters with Nature, Self, and God in Durham (organised by Katja Krause and me).
May 2017
16-19 May 2017
Ordered Universe Symposium in Oxford.
24-27 May 2017
Conference Rappresentazioni della natura nel Medioevo in Padua. My talk: “I numeri della natura: testimonianze numerologiche della completezza del creato in Gundisalvi e Grossatesta”.
April 2017
7 April 2017
Fourth meeting of the AAIWG Research Seminar: “Attempting an Epistemological Revolution”.
21 April 2017
Fifth meeting of the AAIWG Research Seminar: “Theoretical Enthusiasm and Doctrinal Condemnation”.
March 2017
3 March 2017
Third meeting of the AAIWG Research Seminar: “Gundissalinus’s Psychological Reflection”.
30 March – 1 April 2017
Conference Aspectus and Affectus: Robert Grosseteste, Understanding and Feeling at Georgetown University. My talk: “Effectus, affectus, and defectus: Causality and Causation of the Substrate”.
February 2017
3 February 2017
Second meeting of the AAIWG Research Seminar: “Dominicus Gundissalinus: Metaphysics and Cosmology”.
21-22 February 2017
Ordered Universe Symposium in Durham.
January 2017
12-13 January 2017
Conferece Filosofia Medieval: em curso e em toda a extensão in Porto. My talk: “Contrasting Perspectives: The Latins, the Arabs, and the Rise of a New Approach to Philosophy”.
20 January 2017
First meeting of the AAIWG Research Seminar: “The Toledan Translation Movement”.
26 January 2017
My lecture at the University of Cordoba: “La ciencia de ‘los otros’. Peculiares asimilaciones de teorías árabes por la tradición filosófica latina (1150-1210)”.
November 2016
2 November 2016
My lecture at Marquette University: “Gundissalinus, Avicenna, and the Road to Paris”.
11 November 2016
Conference Translation and Philosophy: Gundissalinus and Ibn Daud in 12th Century Spain at the University of South Carolina. My talk: “Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Renovation of Medieval Philosophy”.
14-16 November 2016
VII Congreso Internacional Iberoamericano de la Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval: De relatione at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. My talk: “Gundisalvo, Guillermo de Auvernia, y el problema de atribución del De immortalitate animae“.
October 2016
31 October 2016
My lecture at the University of Notre Dame: “Translation and Appropriation: Necromancy, Astrology, Alchemy”.
September 2016
31 August – 3 September 2016
Ordered Universe Symposium in Durham.
July 2016
1 July 2016
My JRF at Durham University begins.
June 2016
30 June 2016
My postdoctoral fellowship in Pavia ends.
May 2016
30-31 May 2016
Conference Da Stagira a Parigi: prospettive aristoteliche tra Antichità e Medioevo in Pavia. My talk: “Aristotele a Toledo”.
April 2016
5-7 April 2016
Ordered Universe Workshop in Rome.
March 2016
9 March 2016
Conference Espacios de la filosofía medieval: Córdoba, Toledo y Paris at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. My talk: “Entre Toledo, Segovia y Chartres: convergencias doctrinales en la discusión metafísica de Domingo Gundisalvo”.
January 2016
1 January 2016
My postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pavia begins.
Latest update: October 2026
