Roberto Pesce received his Ph.D. in Italian from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in Classical and Medieval Philology from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy. Before joining the Modern Languages faculty in 2017, he taught Italian language, literature, and culture as a lecturer at Baylor University (2013-2017) and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Tulane University (2010-2013).
Dr. Pesce’s research focuses on medieval literature in Latin, Italian vernacular, and Franco-Italian produced in Venice and Northern Italy, and he specializes in Medieval historiographical writings. Through a philological approach and textual criticism, he studies manuscript traditions to establish critical editions and scholarly translations of unpublished texts from the 13th and 14th centuries. His current research projects include critical editions of Paulinus of Venice’s Tractatus de Diis Gentium et Fabulis Poetarum (Treatise on the Gods of the Gentiles and the Fables of Poets) and Marino Sanudo Torsello’s Secreta Fidelium Crucis (Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross). He is also preparing a new edition and translation of the Paulinus’s Liber de Regimine Rectoris (Book on the Government of the Ruler), in the Italian vernacular.
Dr. Pesce serves as Italian Section Head and Italian Advisor. He teaches a wide range of advanced Italian courses, from introductory cultural classes to courses on Italian literature taught both in Italian and English. His teaching also includes specialized courses on the medieval Italian tradition, such as The World of Dante, which examines one of the foundational works of Western civilization, Dante’s Divine Comedy.
