Main team
Principal Investigators
Frédéric BAUDEN
Frédéric Bauden studied Oriental History and Philology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He holds a PhD in Oriental Philology and History from the Université de Liège. Since 2001, he holds the Chair of Arabic Language, Islamic Studies, and Islamic Art at the Université de Liège.
His research interests focus on the history of the Mamluk sultanate, with a particular emphasis on diplomatics, diplomacy, and historiography.
Affiliation :
Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité
Université de Liège
7, Place du 20 Août, 4000 Liège — Belgium
Tel. +32 4 366 53 32
f.bauden@uliege.be
Malika DEKKICHE
Malika Dekkiche is historian of premodern Islamicate world. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Liège (Belgium) in 2011 and is now associate professor at the University of Antwerp (Department of History). Her research has been focusing on intra-Muslim diplomatic contacts in the late middle period, especially between the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo and post-Mongol dynasties. Beyond the study of the stakes and outcomes, she has focused her research on the semiotics involved in those contacts, and on meaning for political state formation and recognition. Her side projects also include broader issues related to chancery practices, religious patronage, and diplomatic space. She has now broadened the scope of her study to Mediterranean history.
She is the co-editor of the volume Mamluk Cairo. A Crossroad for Embassies (Brill, 2019) and she currently finishing her book Keeping the Peace in Premodern Islam (to be published by EUP) and preparing a volume A World of Realms: A Long view of Diplomacy and Spatiality in the Premodern Islamicate World.
Affiliation :
Departement Geschiedenis
Universiteit Antwerpen
13, Sint-Jacobsmarkt, 2000 Antwerpen — Belgium
Tel. +32 3 265 49 30
malika.dekkiche@uantwerpen.be
Isabella LAZZARINI
Isabella Lazzarini (Mantova, 1964) studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (degree and PhD), and qualified as Professor of Medieval History in 2013; she teaches at the University of Molise.
Her research interests focus on the political, social, and cultural history of late medieval Italy, with an emphasis on Renaissance diplomacy and the growth of different political languages in documentary sources.
Affiliation :
Dipartimento di Scienze umanistiche, sociali e della formazione
Università degli studi del Molise
Via F. de Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso – Italy
Tel. +39 0874 478971
isabella.lazzarini@unimol.it
Roser SALICRÚ I LLUCH
Roser Salicrú i Lluch studied Medieval History at the Universitat de Barcelona (degree and PhD). She is a Senior Researcher of Medieval Studies at the Milà i Fontanals Institution of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona.
Her research interests focus on the relations between Christianity and Islam in the Western Mediterranean in the Late Middle Ages, with emphasis on diplomacy and intercultural entanglements and specific attention to Iberian Peninsula and the former Crown of Aragon. She also focuses on captivity and slavery, travel and travellers, and trade, navigation and shipbuilding in the medieval Mediterranean.
Affiliation :
Departament de Ciències Històriques – Estudis Medievals
Institució Milà i Fontanals de Recerca en Humanitats (IMF) – CSIC
15, Carrer de les Egipcíaques, 08001 Barcelona – Spain
Tel. +34 93 442 65 76 (central) – +34 93 829 77 29 (direct)
rsalicru@imf.csic.es
Co-Supervisor
Iason JONGEPIER
Iason Jongepier is tenure track lecturer/work leader within the FED-tWIN DIGHIMAPS project, elaborated at the University of Antwerp (History Department) and the State Archives of Belgium.
DIGHIMAPS - Digital Maps and Archives - Activating Cartographic Collections in a Digital World seeks to explore the potential of digital cartographic collections as key to unlock this new digital universe in which space enables an entirely novel way to organize, search, analyse and visualize archival data and collections. At the same time, Iason Jongepier is closely involved as Spatial Humanities expert in research projects like the Antwerp Time Machine and CLARIAH-VL.
Affiliation :
Departement Geschiedenis
Universiteit Antwerpen
iason.jongepier@uantwerpen.be
Curator of the project's exhibition
Élise FRANSSEN
Élise Franssen is Research Associate of the F.R.S.-FNRS and Associated Professor at ULiège. She studied at Liège University (degrees in History of Art and Archaeology, and in Oriental languages and literature, 2008; PhD in Oriental Philology, 2012). Among other post-docs, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the Università Ca’ Foscari Venice (2018-2022) with the project RASCIO - “Reader, Author, Scholar in a Context of Information Overflow”, about the major Mamluk author and chancery clerk Ḫalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363). She is the curator of the project’s final exhibition (Barcelona Maritime Museum, November 2027).
Her research interests focus on Arabic manuscripts, codicology, paleography, intellectual history, authors’ libraries, digital humanities, history of arts and archaeology of the Mamluk period.
Affiliation :
Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité
Université de Liège
7, Place du 20 Août, 4000 Liège — Belgium
Tel. +32 4 366 55 41
elise.franssen@uliege.be
Post-doctoral Researchers
Bogdan SMARANDACHE
Bogdan Smarandache completed his doctoral studies at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto in 2019. He recently completed a research stay at the équipe “Islam medieval” of the Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 8167 Orient et Méditerranée, where he was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). He will support ongoing work on the DiplomatiCon team’s database while developing his current research on juridical frameworks underpinning Frankish-Mamlūk diplomatic agreements and the transmission of legal and diplomatic knowledge at the Mamlūk court.
Affiliation :
Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité
Université de Liège
7, Place du 20 Août, 4000 Liège — Belgium
bogdan.smarandache@uliege.be
Davor SALIHOVIC
Davor Salihović (PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, 2021) is a medievalist with a passion for quantitative history, statistics, and physics, and an interest in investigating the emergence and maintenance of institutions and ideas. His previous work has focused on the demographic history, the political and spatial history of the late-medieval Hungarian-Ottoman frontier, the history of medieval inquisitions, and source editing. He will continue this interdisciplinary work as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp for the DiplomatiCon project, combining the methods of Social Network Analysis and Historical GIS to investigate the cross-Mediterranean diplomatic networks.
Affiliation :
Departement Geschiedenis
Universiteit Antwerpen
13, Sint-Jacobsmarkt, 2000 Antwerpen — Belgium
davor.salihovic@uantwerpen.be
Taylor ZANERI
Taylor is a medieval archaeologist by training and has worked at sites in Italy, particularly in the regions of Tuscany and Sicily, and in Southern France. She was awarded her PhD in Archaeological Anthropology from New York University in 2018. Her dissertation title is “Rural Production, Peasant Participation, and State Power: The Reshaping of Medieval Italy”. Following her PhD, she worked on several projects, including Healthscapes - Urban Europe 1200-1500 and The Lives and Afterlives of Material Infrastructures.
Affiliation :
Departement Geschiedenis
Universiteit Antwerpen
13, Sint-Jacobsmarkt, 2000 Antwerpen — Belgium
taylor.zaneri@uantwerpen.be
PhD Students
Evelina DEL MERCATO
Evelina del Mercato graduated in History and Philosophy at the Università degli Studi di Palermo, and received a Master’s degree in Medieval History at the Università di Bologna (2023). Her research interests include Medieval monasticism in Italy for women. As a PhD student in History at the University of Antwerp, she will study the actors and agents of the broader Italian network’s diplomacy in the Mediterranean in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Giacomo MASTROGREGORI
Giacomo Mastrogregori completed his BA in History in Rome, where he also obtained an archivist diploma at the School of Archival Studies, Palaeography and Diplomatic at the State Archives of Rome. Later, he moved to the Netherlands to study Colonial and Global History at Leiden University. Studying global history and applying this framework to understand the history of European colonialism truly showed him the importance of stepping out of Eurocentric perspectives to question mainstream narratives of Western supremacy and develop more inclusive historical narrations. In Leiden, he developed a keen interest in slavery studies and the history of European colonial empires, with a focus on their connections with early modern Italian states and society. His MA thesis investigated how the missionary activities conducted by a group of Italian Capuchins in seventeenth-century Congo and Angola contributed to the maintenance of Portuguese colonial rule in the region. As a PhD student within the DiplomatiCon Project, he will work on mapping diplomatic contacts between the Crown of Aragon and the Mamluk Sultanate.
Gianluca RATTI
Gianluca Ratti obtained his degree in Humanities from the Universita' Cattolica del S. Cuore, then worked as a teacher and later obtained his Master’s degree in Historical Sciences from Universita' degli Studi di Padova in 2023. His focus of research was the relationship between the Ministry of Justice and the judges of the Supreme Courts of Italy at the end of the 19th century. As a PhD candidate at the Universiteit Antwerpen, he will focus on mapping diplomatic relations among non-state actors of the Italian polities and the Mamluk Sultanate.
Marta MANSO RUBIO
Marta Manso studied Humanities (History) in Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2011). She holds a Master’s degree in Chinese Studies (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2014), a Master’s degree in Medieval Cultures (Universitat de Barcelona, 2015), and a Master’s degree in Teacher Training (Universidad Internacional de Valencia, 2021). Her research interests focus on the relations between the Crown of Aragon and the Muslim sultanates of the Late Middle Ages, especially in terms of diplomacy and cultural mediation. As a PhD student in History at the University of Liège, her research will focus on translators, brokers, and their practice in the service of the diplomatic activities of the Crown of Aragon in the Mediterranean in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Michele ARGENTINI
Michele Argentini studied at the University of Padua (BA in History) and at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (MA in Historical Sciences). He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Liège, where he is working on a thesis on the actors and agents of Venetian diplomacy in the Mediterranean in the 14th and 15th centuries. His scholarly interests range from the institutional history and public finance issues of the Republic of Venice to the diplomatic history of the Renaissance.
Queralt PENEDÈS FRADERA
Queralt Penedès Fradera studied at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (degree in Humanities) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (MA in Tourist Management in Cultural Heritage). She worked for the Catalan Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, as a researcher, focusing on the impact of the railway development in Catalonia. Her research interests now focus on intercultural relationships in the Mediterranean. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree in History at the University of Liège, where she is studying the actors and agents of the Crown of Aragon’s diplomacy in the Mediterranean during the 14th and 15th centuries.
Research Assistants
Adrián ARJONA
Adrián Arjona studied Classical Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and is currently studying Medieval Cultures at the Universitat de Barcelona. He is especially interested in medieval Latin philology and the philosophical and cultural tradition between the Islamic and the Christian worlds.
Eudald BLANCHÉ COLLET
Eudald Blanché graduated in History (2013) and Archival Studies (2018) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is now studying Medieval Cultures at the Universitat de Barcelona.
Marta MANSO RUBIO
Marta Manso studied Humanities (History) in Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2011). She holds a Master’s degree in Chinese Studies (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2014), a Master’s degree in Medieval Cultures (Universitat de Barcelona, 2015), and a Master’s degree in Teacher Training (Universidad Internacional de Valencia, 2021). Her research interests focus on the relations between the Crown of Aragon and the Muslim sultanates of the Late Middle Ages, especially in terms of diplomacy and cultural mediation.
Alvit MARTÍNEZ I CIVIT
Alvit Martínez i Civit studied History at the University of Barcelona, and is now concluding his Master’s degree in Medieval Cultures at the same university. His research interests focus on paleography, daily life, mentalities and the social and cultural history of urban areas in the late medieval Catalonia.
Queralt PENEDÈS FRADERA
Queralt Penedès Fradera studied at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (degree in Humanities) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (MA in Tourist Management in Cultural Heritage). She worked for the Catalan Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, as a researcher, focusing on the impact of the railway development in Catalonia. Her research interests now focus on intercultural relationships in the Mediterranean.
Evelina DEL MERCATO
Evelina del Mercato graduated in History and Philosophy at the Università degli Studi di Palermo, and received a Master’s degree in Medieval History at the Università di Bologna (2023). Her research interests include Medieval monasticism in Italy for women.
Riccardo FACCHINI
Riccardo Facchini studied Medieval History at Sapienza-Università di Roma. He holds a PhD in History of European Civilization from the Università Europea di Roma. His research interests focus on the history of captivity in late medieval Italy, with an eye on the ransom strategies adopted by Italian communes.
Marco FASOLIO
Marco Fasolio graduated in History and Archival Studies at the Università di Torino (2013) and holds a PhD in Byzantine and medieval history from the Università del Piemonte Orientale (2017), where he is currently lecturer in Latin palaeography. His research interests include the relationships between the Byzantine Empire and Italy, and the Byzantine provincial aristocracies.
Main publication
Ai margini dell’Impero: potere e aristocrazia a Trebisonda e in Epiro da Basilio II alla quarta crociata, Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2022.
Federica FIORINI
Federica Fiorini studied modern history at the Università di Milano. She holds a PhD in History (Università di Firenze, 2019) and works now as tutor for students at eCampus University. Her research interests focus on Renaissance diplomacy, with an emphasis on intra-Muslim contacts, intellectual history and authors libraries.
Carolina MANFREDINI
Carolina Manfredini studied at the Università degli Studi di Milano (Cultural Heritage Studies, 2016; Historical Sciences, 2019). She is completing her PhD at the Università di Bologna (early summer 2023). Her research interests include cultural and material history of late medieval Milano and Italy, with emphasis on diplomacy, cross-cultural entanglements, exchange of gifts, and performances.
Project Coordinator
Ambre LEMAIRE
Ambre Lemaire is a secondary school instructor and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages (English/Arabic). She has also completed a Masters in Didactique du français langue étrangère (Teaching French as a Foreign Language) with a Master’s Thesis entitled "Les mots arabes pour parler français".
