Chiara Ombretta Tommasi - Biography#

After graduating from the University of Pisa and the Scuola Normale Superiore (1995), Chiara Tommasi obtained a PhD in Greek and Latin Philology at the University of Pisa (2000). Subsequently she secured a post-doctoral fellowship at the same university and was then appointed as assistant professor of Latin Literature in 2006.

She is currently associate professor of History of Religions at the University of Pisa and also obtained a qualification as full professor in France (2017) and in Italy (2018).

The core of Tommasi’s research is focused on Late Antiquity. The two main axes around which her inquiries have been developed stem from her thesis on Marius Victorinus and the tradition of Latin Neoplatonism, and from her doctoral dissertation on Corippus. Her studies have been further developed through an evaluation of the literary channels that served to disseminate religion.

This idea has given rise to studies on Christianity and the epic-encomiastic poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries AD (Corippus, Dracontius, the Latin Anthology and Sidonius Apollinaris). Her research is also concerned with aspects of Roman religion and “esoteric” trends in Latin culture (Gnostic, Chaldaean, Platonic elements in authors such as Tertullian, Apuleius, Marius Victorinus and Martianus Capella). She has also published some works dealing with the reception of ancient texts (e.g. antiquarian works by Giacomo Leopardi, Eriugena's De Imagine in the Corpus Christianorum Series; papers exploring operas set in antiquity).

Following a new direction suggested by interests in the reception of foreign religions, she has applied the historical-comparative method in an investigation into the way classical literary sources dealt with different traditions. She is currently working on two projects again hinging on the perception of ‘otherness’ in religion, namely the description of foreign religions in Lucan’s Civil War, and the reception of Christianity in Tang China.