Caterina Nicodemo

Caterina Nicodemo is a scholar of medieval Italian literature. In her research she explores the intersections of literature, political and philosophical thought, with particular interest in the ways literary texts imagine and interrogate the dynamics of communal and political life.

Caterina received her PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Chicago in 2026. In her dissertation, Le origini della comunità civile nell’opera di Giovanni Boccaccio. Dinamiche di violenza, ordine pattizio e dissenso (The Origins of Civil Community in the Works of Giovanni Boccaccio: Dynamics of Violence, Contractual Order, and Dissent), she examines the Ninfale fiesolano, the Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia, and the Decameron as interconnected reflections on the formation and dynamics of civil community. Situating Boccaccio’s works in relation to classical and medieval political thought, medieval legal and rhetorical culture, and the historical context of fourteenth-century Florence, she investigates how civil community emerges from—and is continually reshaped by—tensions between violence and consent, negotiation and coercion, and order and dissent. She is currently preparing portions of this research for publication and is developing the dissertation into a book manuscript.

Before coming to the University of Chicago, Caterina studied at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she received her Laurea Triennale in Italian Literature and her Laurea Magistrale in Italian Philology. For her undergraduate thesis, she prepared a diplomatic-critical edition of Paolo del Rosso’s commentary on Guido Cavalcanti’s Donna me prega. Her master’s thesis examined debates about the epistemological status and value of literature from Albertino Mussato to Giovanni Boccaccio, with particular attention to the reception of classical thought and the emergence of humanist conceptions of literature.

During her doctoral studies, Caterina’s research received the American Boccaccio Association’s Giuseppe Velli Graduate Prize (2024) and the Dante Society of America’s Charles Hall Grandgent Award (2021). She further developed her interests in manuscript culture and paleography through programs supported by the Newberry Library, the American Boccaccio Association, and the International Society for the Study of Medieval Latin Culture, as well as through a research internship at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence.

As an instructor of Italian language, literature, and culture, Caterina aims to make learning an experience of curiosity and discovery. In her language classes, learning Italian becomes a way to explore Italian culture and everyday life. When teaching literature, she encourages students to approach texts with the same spirit of exploration—asking questions, making connections, and discovering the ideas, tensions, and cultural contexts that shaped them.