Joseph Luzzi

Joseph Luzzi received his PhD from Yale University is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College, where he also teaches courses on film and Italian Studies.

He is the author of six books, including his recent work, Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance (Norton, 2022), a New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 and Guardian Book of the Day selection.

His other books include Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy (Yale University Press, 2008), which received the MLA’s Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies; A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), a finalist for the international prize “The Bridge Book” Award; My Two Italies (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; and In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love (HarperCollins, 2015), which has been translated into multiple languages.

Books in order of publication:

Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy – 2008

A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film – 2014

My Two Italies – 2014

In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love  – 2015

Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance  – 2022

Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Biography – 2024