Diego Pirillo

Department Chair at the Italian Studies department at UC Berkeley; Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies; Affiliated Faculty in the Department of History

I am a specialist of early modern Italy (1500-1800), and I have a strong interest in Gramsci, Marxism, and historical method. My research spans different fields, spaces, and periods, reconfiguring Italy’s place in the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds. Currently, I am working on 3 main areas:

– Refugees and forced displacement before nation states

– Indigeneity, Colonialism, and the Enlightenment

– Gramsci’s ideas about time, history, and multiple temporalities

I have written four monographs, and co-edited four volumes. One of my main areas of research is the history of refugees, exiles, and religious minorities. This has led me to publish The Refugee-Diplomat: Venice, England and the Reformation (Cornell University Press, 2018), awarded the 2019 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies(link is external), and more recently Renaissance Refugees. Negotiating Displacement in Early Modern Italy(link is external) (Cambridge University Press, 2026) in which I study four displaced communities (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) and show that refugees were not only victims of state violence but actively contributed to the creation of asylum and resettlement policies.

I held visiting Professorships at Dartmouth College and UCLA, where I was the 2024/25 Speroni Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.