Massimo Firpo

Massimo Firpo (Turin, 1946) is an Italian historian.
Academic career.
Firpo teaches early modern history at the University of Turin and at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. He is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
He studied at the University of Turin (where he has been a pupil of Franco Venturi, and where he obtained his "laurea" in 1969 with a thesis about "Pietro Bizzarri esule Italiano del Cinquecento", published in 1971). Subsequently he has been Accademia dei Lincei fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He has taught early modern history at the Facolty of Political Sciences of the University of Cagliari. Ha has been fellow or visiting professor at the Newberry Library, Chicago, at the Cornell University, Ithaca and at the University of Oxford (where in 2006 he has been "Isaiah Berlin" visiting professor).
Research activity.
He started his researches studying the heretical movements of 16th century and focusing on the Italian heretical diaspora in Eastern Europe, radical movements such as the Antitrinitarianism and Socinianism and the relations between this cultural tradition, the deism and the origins of Enlightenment thought.
Subsequently his studies have dealt with the Italian religious crisis of the 16th century, focusing especially on Juan de Valdés, Reginald Pole, Giovanni Morone and the Spirituali mouvements and on the role played by the Roman Inquisition in these decades.
He has published the critical edition of the most important inquisitorial trials of Italian XVIth century (Giovanni Morone, Pietro Carnesecchi, Vittore Soranzo).
He has also published many studies of art history (especially about Pontormo, Lorenzo Lotto and Battista Franco and the relations between their works and the new religious ideas).
Family.
His father, Luigi Firpo (1915-1989), was a prominent Italian historian, professor of history of political thought at the Faculties of Law and Political Sciences at the University of Turin, and a member of the Italian Republican Party.