MALTA Caterina

Graduated in Classics with top marks and honours, in the academic year 1980-81; in 1983 she qualified to teach Literature and Latin in high schools and teacher training colleges. In 1991 she obtained a PhD in Italian Studies (Humanistic Literature) at the University of Messina.
In 1994 she was appointed university researcher for the L15 academic sector at the Department of Late Antique, Medieval and Humanistic Studies of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Messina, reporting to the chair of Medieval and Humanistic Philology. Since 2001 she has been teaching Medieval and Humanistic Literature, in the L-Fil-Let/08 academic sector and since 2006 also Italian Philology.
In 2010 she successfully applied to become an associate professor in the L-Fil-Let/13 academic sector (Philology of Italian Literature), at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Messina.
In 2011 she became Full Professor in the same sector (L-Fil-Let/13) at the Department of Late-Antique, Medieval and Humanistic Studies, where she teaches Medieval and Humanistic Latin Literature (for the three-year Bachelor’s Degree in Literature) and Italian Philological Research Methods (for the Master’s Degree in Medieval and Modern Italian Literature).
Since 2016, she has been a Full Professor in academic sector L-Fil-Let/10. She also teaches Italian Literature for the three-year Bachelor's Degree in Literature and for the Master's Degree Course in Literary Civilization of Medieval and Modern Italy.
She has been a member of the administrative board of the Department of Ancient and Modern Civilizations.
She is coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Literary Civilization of Medieval and Modern Italy (2016-). Coordinates the Doctoral programme in “Humanistic Studies” (formerly “Historical, Archaeological and Philological Studies” of the University of Messina (2019-).
She is a member of the executive committee and of the academic council of the Centro Internazionale di Studi Umanistici (CISU) and a member of the academic committee for the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Francesco Petrarca (ministerial decree MIBACT-UDCM 27/01/2017 no. 43). She is a member of the “Planning and Research” group of the CISU magazine “Umanesimo dei moderne” and of the academic committee of the homonymous book series. In the context of CISU publications, she is joint chief editor of the Petrarchan series “Peculiares” and of the magazine "“Studi medievali e umanistici” (formerly “Studi umanistici”) of which she has been on the editorial board since 1991. She is Editor of “Peloro. Rivista del Dottorato in Scienze umanistiche dell'Università di Messina” (2016; peer reviewed journal). She has also worked on the editorial board of “Quaderni petrarcheschi”. She has contributed to “Quaderni medievali” and “Bollettino di studi latini”. She is is in the list of possible nominees for the National Academic Qualification Commission (ASN 2018-2020- ASN 21-23), sector 10/F1.
Her main research interests regard philological humanism, publishing works on Guarino, Raffaele Regio, Merula and Poliziano, regarding whom she is involved in the publication of his Miscellanea and Praelectiones in a project promoted by the Centro internazionale di studi umanistici in Messina. A particular field of interest is the study of Petrarch’s work, to which she has dedicated various papers, also editing for the Petrarca del Centenario (promoted by the commission for the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere del Petrarca) the universal edition of the De viris; the editio maior of the work (2008), with an extensive introduction and commentary, which was the subject of international academic discussion (see reviews by P. Ertl Univ. Eötvös Loránd, Budapest, and M. Cavagna in “Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes”). On the side of the vulgate Petrarch she has focused on the editorial and interpretative problem of the Triumphus Fame, reconsidering the relations between drafts and vulgate on new foundations. Her most recent research has focused on the work of Giovanni Pascoli, on which she has written various papers, and whose interweaving of the Italian poetry of “Myricae” and first attempts at Latin versification she has dealt with in a monograph.
She has participated in numerous national and international conferences and has been a member of the academic and organizational committees for various conferences dealing with Petracrh..
He has taken part in projects of significant national interest financed by the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research - MIUR (PRIN 1997-2003, 2005, 2007, 2010) and heads the Messina unit in the PRIN funded for 2017 entitled “Petrarch on-line: biography, works, library” (national coordinator M. Petoletti, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan).
She is a member of the “Società dei filologi della letteratura italiana”, of the “Associazione degli Italianisti” and a full member of the Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti.