Please tell us about your research project.
I am a third-year PhD student at « Sorbonne Université » (formerly Paris IV) and am conducting research aimed at editing, translating into French, and commenting on a Renaissance Latin poetry collection by the 15th-century Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano, entitled Parthenopeus siue Amores. I am here mainly to study various manuscripts of this collection now preserved either at the Bodleian Library in Oxford or at the British Library in London.
Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?
I am very grateful to "la Maison Française d’Oxford" for granting me one of its « monthly scholarships » !
First impressions of Oxford/the University?
Both the city and the university of Oxford, intertwined as they are, are extremely beautiful (especially in the light of October) and intimidating at the same time. Here in particular, one can feel time has deposited its successive layers, and one can easily fancy Oxford as haunted by the ghosts of these innumerable people who have trodden these streets — scholars, students, workers, whether they be famous or anonymous.