Piero Boitani is Professor of Comparative Literature at the “Sapienza” of Rome.
He studied at the “Tasso” High School and then at the “Sapienza”, where he graduated in Literature in 1971. In 1970 he obtained the B.A. at the Wittenberg University (Ohio, USA); in 1975 his Ph.D. in English and Italian Literature at the University of Cambridge.
He has taught Italian Language and Literature at the University of Cambridge (1971-74), then American and English Language and Literature in the University of Pescara and Perugia (1974-85) as a Lecturer; Ordinary professor of Language and Literature from 1981, in 1985 was named to the “Sapienza” of Rome on that chair before moving in 1998 in Comparative Literature; he was Director of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures 2002-2010 and coordinator of the Ph.D. in Literature and Culture at Sapienza-SUM, until 2010.
Anglicist, medievalist, Dante scholar, comparatist, myth and scholar of classical culture, the biblical narrative and its rewriting, of modern literature, in 2002 won the Feltrinelli Prize of the cademy of the Lynx-Eyed for Literary Criticism.
He was President of the Italian Association of English Studies and the European Society of English Studies (of which he is Honorary Chairman); is a Fellow of the British Academy, the English Association, the Medieval Academy of America, of the Dante Society of America; member of Il Mulino, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the Academy of Sciences of Turin, the Arcadia, the cademy of the Lynx-Eyed; Literary Director of Valla Foundation.

Source: USI – University of Italian Switzerland