About Us
Our Team
The project is lead by Valentina Bella Lanza, with the collaboration of Simone Petrillo and the scientific support of Arianna D’Ottone Rambach (Sapienza University of Rome).
Valentina Bella Lanza
Holds the PhD in Islamic Civilisation, History and Philology from Sapienza University of Rome...
Valentina Bella Lanza
Holds the PhD in Islamic Civilisation, History and Philology from Sapienza University of Rome, Italian Institute of Oriental Studies (ISO) in 2020 with a thesis on a digital edition and analysis of a medieval Judeo-Arabic manuscript. Her main field of research is Arabic language and linguistics, with a specific interest on the material tradition of the text. In addition to a theoretical approach, she draws on DH&CL methods mainly devoted to the production of digital editions. She is a member of several research projects such as “The Oriental School of Rome: History, Figures, Cultural Scene, Manuscript and Book Collections” and “JADI: Judeo-Arabic goes Digital. An Open-Access Digital Edition of a 15th-century Song of Songs”, for which she is the PI. Among her contributions: “Judeo-Arabic Orthographies: Insights from a Fifteenth-Century Šarḥ” (Eurasian Studies, 2020).
Simone Petrillo
Obtained the PhD in 2023 at Sapienza University of Rome in joint agreement with the University of Córdoba...
Simone Petrillo
Obtained the PhD in 2023 at Sapienza University of Rome in joint agreement with the University of Córdoba. The title of his thesis is “Creating al-Andalus: study on Arabization and Islamization (I-III/VII-IX centuries)” and it aims to deepen the hermeneutical effectiveness of some wide-used concepts applied to the context of early Andalusi period, namely the category of religions and Islamization. He trained as and dealt with the history of religions. His fields of interest are from one hand the relations between Christianity and Islam in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, and on the other the theory of the “other” and the identity construction processes. Among his publications: “Not So-Happy Endings: Atonements, Punishments, and Martyrdoms from Imperial Times to Medieval Ages” (Rhemata Editorial, 2023).
Arianna D’Ottone Rambach
Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Sapienza University of Rome, Junior Fellow at the Sapienza...
Arianna D’Ottone Rambach
Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Sapienza University of Rome, Junior Fellow at the Sapienza School for Advanced Studies (SSAS), Corresponding member of the Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer (Bruxelles), and member of the research team Islam medieval – UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée” (CNRS-Paris). Her main fields of research are: Arabic manuscripts (palaeography, codicology, edition of texts), Papyrology and Islamic Numismatics. She is the author and the editor of several publications on manuscripts and coins such as “La Storia di Bayad e Riyad (ms. Vat.ar.368). Una nuova edizione e traduzione” (Vatican 2013), and Celestino Schiaparelli (1841-1919): His legacy & the Oriental School of Sapienza (Rivista degli Studi Orientali 2021). In 2018 she was awarded with the Samir Shamma Prize of the Royal Numismatic Society (London).