Biography

I obtained my Ph.D. in Art History in 2011 from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. My post-doctoral career was based first in Pisa, then in London (Warburg Institute) and Berlin (TOPOI Excellence Cluster). My research interests focus on the cultural and intellectual history of the Roman empire and late antiquity, especially in the fields of the history of art, history of religion, history of science

Project Abstract

The focus of this research project is a fragmentary bronze plate decorated with images of constellations, preserved in the Archaeological Museum in Salzburg. Given its consistency with Vitruvius’ description of the so-called ‘anaphoric clock’, the object can be identified as part of a Roman water clock. Since its publication in 1903, neither the astronomical images nor the clock itself found very much attention among scholars, being merely cited as comparison or mentioned in general studies about ancient time reckoning. In the context of the project, a 3D Scan and a new set of high-resolution images will be taken: these will be the basis for a detailed exam of the fragment, whose significance for the history of ancient science and technology cannot be overestimated. The outcome of the project will be a better understanding of both this object and the clock described by Vitruvius, as well as the contextualisation of this type of clock in the history of the development of time reckoning.

Curriculum vitae

2018                   

Visiting Fellow, Einstein Center Chronoi, Berlin

2016 – 2017

Post-doctoral Fellow TOPOI Excellence Cluster, Berlin (Area A1)

2014

"Frances A. Yates", Fellow Warburg Institute, London

2013 – 2014

Research Assistant, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

2012 – 2013

Fellow "Giorgio Pasquali" Foundation, Pisa

2011

Ph.D. in Art History, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

Selected Publications

F. Guidetti, «Not in accordance with Ptolemy in some details». A late antique revision of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables (with a critical edition of Ptolemy's Table of the Distances of the Fixed Stars). In: A. Hadravová, P. Hadrava (eds.), Stars in Ancient and Medieval Tradition. Prague: Scriptorium, forthcoming.

 

Leonzio Meccanico, Trattato della sfera celeste (Sulla costruzione di una sfera aratea). Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento di F. Guidetti (Il mito. Testi e saggi, 8). Pisa: Edizioni ETS, forthcoming.

 

F. Guidetti, A sky without myths? Pagan imagery in Early Medieval astronomy. In: U. Rehm (ed.), Mittelalterliche Mythenrezeption. Paradigmen und Paradigmenwechsel (Sensus. Studien zur mittelalterlichen Kunst, 10). Wien-Köln-Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2018, pp. 57-80.

 

F. Guidetti, Texts and Illustrations in Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, ms. Lat. VIII 22 (2760). In: F. Pontani (ed.), Certissima signa. A Venice Conference on Greek and Latin Astronomical Texts (Filologia e letteratura, 2). Venice: Edizioni Ca' Foscari, 2017, pp. 97-125. Online publication: DOI 10.14277/6969-165-2/ANT-13-6