A graduate in Humanities, with a thesis in Modern History entitled Paul IV and Catholic Reform, he has focused his research interests on the cultural and social history of the early modern period, with particular attention to the relationship between institutions, the production of knowledge, and social change. His university studies progressively centred on the role of the Church in the early modern era in the processes through which knowledge was produced and transmitted, forms of authority were defined, and cultural frameworks were reshaped. These lines of enquiry led to a particular interest in periods of reform and in the internal dynamics of ecclesiastical institutions, examined in their organisational, cultural, and symbolic dimensions.
Alongside these historical interests, his work has engaged with other fields within the humanities, particularly cultural anthropology and linguistics. Dialogue with both disciplines has helped to bring into sharper focus the symbolic systems and forms of language through which ancien régime societies constructed and expressed identities, values, and senses of belonging.
The convergence of institutional history and intellectual history subsequently directed his studies towards the contexts, practices, and instruments through which knowledge is preserved, organised, and transmitted.
His postgraduate studies therefore continued with the completion of university master’s programmes within an advanced course of study devoted to library and archival studies, with particular emphasis on the history of books, libraries, and archives. Libraries and archives are complex historical realities whose character has taken shape over time through processes of accumulation, selection, arrangement, dispersal, and subsequent reconstitution. The formation of fonds and collections, the principles adopted for their organisation and description, and the tools devised to make them accessible reflect differing conceptions of knowledge and of the ways in which it is transmitted.
Particular importance has been given to the study of early printed books and archival documents in their material form. Books and documents preserve histories that extend beyond the texts they transmit: their physical structure, provenance, annotations, evidence of use, later interventions, and traces left by preservation all contribute to reconstructing their identity, ownership histories, and patterns of circulation, providing essential evidence for research.
Within this framework, description and cataloguing are understood as forms of historical reconstruction, intended to restore intelligibility to the contexts in which books and documents were produced, transmitted, and preserved. Libraries, archives, fonds, and collections thus become privileged vantage points from which to observe the processes through which a society selects, organises, and transmits its documentary heritage to future generations.