Academic background and career

Education
1995-2000: PhD - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) Dissertation: Du patriciat urbain à la Chaire de Saint Pierre: les Pamphiljs du XV au XVIII siècle
Date: 26th June 2000; Mark: Très honorable avec félicitations Supervisor: M. Maurice Aymard
1996-2000: PhD - Istituto Universitario Orientale (Naples) Dissertation: La socialità aristocratica a Roma: reti di relazioni femminili fuori e dentro la famiglia
Date: 21st June 2000
Supervisors: Prof. Renata Ago, Prof. Cesarina Casanova
1987-1992: «Laurea in Scienze Politiche» (M.A. in Political Science) at «La Sapienza» University of Rome Dissertation: Un feudo secentesco dei Principi Pamphilj nella Valle della Teverina
Date: 24th November 1992; Mark 110/110 cum laude

Current position
2013 – Lecturer of Early Modern and Modern History. Department of Humanities. University of L’Aquila (Italy)

Previous positions
2010-2012: Lecturer in the History of Europe – Faculty of Political Science – University of Rome 3 (Italy).
2009-11: Lecturer in History of Modern Italy (Special Cultural Courses) – Università per Stranieri of Siena (Italy).
2004-2007: Lecturer in Early Modern History – Department of History – University of Siena (Italy).

Fellowship
2017: Post doctoral Researcher, Aix-Marseille Université /CNRS Research Unit Telemme UMR 7303 «Temps, espaces, langages, Europe Méridionale Méditerranée –Recherche» with a project on «Courts, spaces and mobility in Old Regime Mediterranean cities»
2016-2017: Post doctoral research Fellow, Italian Academy for Advanced Studies – Columbia University with a project on «Portraits, behaviors and inclusion: the construction of cultural and biological heritage through images during the 17th and 18th centuries»
2013-2016: Researcher, Department of History (Dipartimento di Storia, Culture e Religioni) «La Sapienza» University of Rome, with a project about genius, talent and genius of nations in Italy, France and England (16th – 19th Century)
2010-2012: Research Fellow, ENBacH – European Network for Baroque Cultural Heritage. Project promoted and economically supported by the European Commission through the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The project concerned and involved a network of eight Universities located in 6 different European countries (Universitat de Barcelona, Technische Universität, Dresden, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-Paris, Università di Roma «La Sapienza», Università di Teramo, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Universität Wien).
-2006:Jean Monnet Fellow European University Institute (EUI) Florence.
-2005-2007: Research Fellow and Member of the research project: Storia della famiglia. Costanti e variabili in una prospettiva europea (secc. XV-XX), financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (COFIN 2005).
-2003-2005: Member of the research project: Famiglie, ceti dirigenti e attività pubblica tra Siena e gli antichi stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (XVI-XVIII secolo), financed by the Department of History – University of Siena (PAR 2002).
-2003-2005: Member of the research project: I linguaggi del potere: politica e religione nell'età barocca, financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (COFIN 2002).
-2002- 2006: Research Fellow , Department of History – University of Siena, project about early modern Italian families (sociability, power and politics).

Commissions of the trust
Since 2006, member of the scientific board of Quaderni Storici
Since 2014, member of the scientific board of Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica

Publications

Books
2003 Benedetta Borello, Trame sovrapposte. La socialità aristocratica e le reti di relazioni femminili a Roma (XVII-XVIII secolo), Naples.
2008 Renata Ago, Benedetta Borello (eds.), Famiglie. Circolazione di beni, circuiti di affetti in età moderna, Rome 2009 Benedetta Borello (ed.), Pubblico e pubblici di Antico Regime, Pisa
2016 Benedetta Borello, Il posto di ciascuno. Fratelli, sorelle e fratellanze (XVI-XIX secolo), Rome, Viella.

Book chapters
«Strategie di insediamento in città: i Pamphilj a Roma nel primo Cinquecento», M.A. Visceglia (ed.), La nobiltà romana in età moderna. Profili istituzionali e pratiche sociali, Rome, Carocci pp. 31-61.
2008 «Prossimi e lontani: fratelli aristocratici a Roma e Siena (secoli XVII-XIX)» R. Ago, B. Borello (eds.), Famiglie. Circolazione di beni, circuiti di affetti in età moderna, Rome Viella pp. 117-140
2008 -«Protezioni di donne. Mogli aristocratiche e patriziato cittadino (Gubbio, Roma, Siena XV-XVI secolo)», L. Arcangeli, S. Peyronel (eds.), Donne di potere nel Rinascimernto, Rome Viella, pp. 223-246
-«Parlare e tacere di potere. La conversazione epistolare tra fratelli aristocratici (secc. XVII- XVIII)», F. Cantù (ed.), Linguaggi del potere nell’età barocca, vol.2, Donne e sfera pubblica, Rome, Viella pp. 143- 170.
-«Spazi, reti e discorsi: verso una definizione di pubblici aristocratici a partire dalle Satire di Ludovico Sergardi (Roma XVII-XVIII secolo)» B. Borello (ed.), Pubblico e pubblici di Antico Regime, Pisa Pacini Editore, Testi e culture in Europa, pp. 49-70.
2013 «Lieux et expériences de fraternité et de virilité (Rome-Sienne XVIIe–XVIIIesiècles)», A.-M. Sohn (dir.), Une histoire sans les hommes est-elle possible ?, Lyon ENS Éditions, 2013, pp. 265-279.
2016 «Moving Queens. Female Courts, Foreign Affairs and “National” Identity in Early Modern Europe», C. de La Guardia Herrero, E. Postigo (eds.), Moving Women and the United States: Crossing the Atlantic, Alcalà (Madrid), Instituto Franklin-UAH, 2016, pp. 17-30
2016 «Raconter, taire et défendre les ressemblances entre frères et soeurs dans les familles italiennes au XVIIe siècle», F. Boudjaaba, Ch. Dousset, S. Mouysset (éd.), Frères et soeurs du Moyen Age à nos jours. Brothers and sisters from the Middle Ages to Present, Bern-Berlin-Bruxelles-Frankfurt am Main-New York-Oxford-Wien 2016, pp. 503-518
2018 (in press) «Ignavia, negligencia y corrupción. El caso de las vocaciones monacales forzadas (Milán siglos XVII-XVIII)» in Francisco Andújar y Pilar Ponce (ed.), Debates sobre la corrupcion en el Mundo Iberico, siglos XVI-XVII

Articles
1999 «Storie di storia delle donne» Clio. Rivista trimestrale di studi storici, XXXV.2, pp. 343-352.
2002 «Annodare e sciogliere. Reti di relazioni femminili e separazioni a Roma (sec. XVII-XVIII)», Quaderni Storici, 111.3, pp. 617-648.
2003 «Ehe neu verhandeln. Trennungen von Tisch und Bett im Rom des 17. Jahrhunderts», L’Homme. Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft, 14. Jg. Helft 1 pp.11-34.
2003 «Alleanze matrimoniali e mobilità sociale e geografica. Il caso dei Pamphilj (XV-XVII secolo)», Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome. Italie et Mèditerranée, 115.1, pp.345-366.
2005 «Salotti, genere ed esperienze di socialità in Italia», Quaderni Storici, 120, pp. 822-834.
2006 «Lo spazio di un matrimonio: voci, cose e contese nei processi di separazione nel Seicento e nel Settecento», Quaderni Storici, 121, special issue, «Voci, notizie istituzioni», eds. B. Borello, D. Rizzo
2008 «La «tirannia di quelle canaglie dei francesi» e i sacrifici «alla conservazione della casa». La generazione rivoluzionaria a Siena (secc. XVIII-XIX)» Cheiron, 49.1, pp. 179-210.
2010 «Fraternité, sororité et les espaces pour les cultiver à Rome et a Sienne (XVIIe-XIXe siècles)», European Review of History 17:5, pp. 791-804
2011 «En Italie, frères et soeur au vents de la Révolution», Clio. Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés 34, pp. 61-84 2011 «I trattatisti, le zie fate e le rivalità tra fratelli e sorelle. Adulti e bambini si raccontano storie sul loro posto in famiglia», Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, 123.2.
2012 «Generosità ricompensate. La cura e l’assistenza di zii e nipoti nelle famiglie aristocratiche in età moderna (Siena e Roma XVII-XIX secolo)», Popolazione e storia, pp. 29-44.
2013 with S. Feci e M. Lanzinger, «A proposito di quattro libri recenti sulla storia della famiglia», «Quaderni Storici», 143, 2/2013, pp. 597-9 e 640-7.
2013 Review of «L. Davidoff, Thicker than Water: Siblings and their Relations, 1780–1920, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012», Gender&History 25, 2/2013, pp. 381-2.
2014 «I segni del corpo. Fratelli, sorelle e somiglianze nelle famiglie italiane (XVII-XVIII secolo)», Quaderni Storici, 145.1, pp. 9-45.
2015 «A Passion for Porcelain, Silverware and Furniture in Male Aristocratic Homes (in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Central Italy)», Gender&History 27.3, pp. 721-735.
2017 «I circuiti degli uomini di casa. Lo spazio urbano le corti e i loro abitanti a Roma tra Seicento e Settecento», Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 1 (2017), p. 15-40.
2018 (in press), «Being brothers or pretending to be: Merchants, artisans, inn-keepers, painters &bro. in 17th C. Rome» in European History Quarterly

Research under the MIAS

Sloth and indolence in corrupted contexts: discourses and images from catholic countries (Italy and Spain 17th and 18th C.)

The aim of the project is to investigate corruption in 17th and 18th C. institutions from the point of view of indolence (in Latin ignavia which etymologically means “not” “dutiful”) which is one of the forms the sin of sloth can assume; my investigation will show how the absence of initiatives aimed at preserving or creating the common good were penalized within society and how this impacted the efficient functioning of institutions, an issue largely investigated over the past few years by sociologists, anthropologists and historians. The research path focuses more on perceptions of corruption and on the idea of institutions malfunctioning than on anticorruption policies.

Focusing on sin in Old Regime court proceedings does not mean examining just one aspect of the question: legal language was closely bound up with religion, especially in the catholic world where guilt took its shape from the intricate relationship between positive rules and personal conscience. Just how strategic was this deployment of the concept of indolence and sloth may be seen a contrario by the use of term of “indignation” In a decree of 1677 Charles II of Spain declared that he wished to placate the “la yndignación divina”. None of this however rules out the possibility that accusations of political indolence, cowardice, lack of courage, laziness and even sloth, just like those of corruption and fraud were also the expression of political conflict within the institutions. Also accusations of political indolence could be helpful in ousting individuals from their positions.

Looking at a lack of diligence in the pursuit of the common good can provide a particularly effective interpretative key, also in the light of how the word corruption was commonly understood by people in the 17thand 18thcenturies. The word was used to refer to the physical and moral degradation of a body, this bodily/institutional decay could come on more swiftly by an absence of diligence or courage on the part of those who were responsible for caring or administering it.

I’ll cross-reference Roman sources of trials with Spanish sources of courts of appeal and moral theology treatises. This will make it possible to expand the frame of reference and especially to uncover other communication strategies used by “liars”. I am particularly interested in how they expressed resignation, silence, inactivity, absence of initiative or interest in the common good.

All this information from legal sources will been cross-referenced with the definitions of the terms ignavia, indolence and sloth 17th and 18th C Italian and Spanish dictionaries and with observations about sloth and corruption found in handbooks for confessors. Combining the study of a social relationship or the proceedings of trials for criminal activities with a look at the ideas people had about that social relationship or about that particular crime has proven to be a very fertile research approach for viewing the constant exchange between practices and discourses. Then I will compare the outcomes of this research on words with allegorical images (pictures, prints and engravings depicting the sin of sloth) disseminated in the Catholic world.