I teach and write in the areas of Italian and Romance Studies, with a focus on the Medieval and Renaissance periods. I have always been fascinated by the ways in which the act of transcribing (both with words and in images) ends up preserving the memory of complex cultural processes, involving various disciplines, different cultural traditions and multiple epistemological transitions. And this, even while denying or betraying that memory: so it is up to us to listen deeply, question everything and meet the Other on their, more than our, own terms.

This open-ended interest for processes and meanings that lie hidden in the deep layers of what we call culture has led me over the years in many different directions, and if at times I wonder what these paths may well have in common, at other times the deep-seated connections between them reveal themselves as obvious, yet always also mysterious and uncharted.

As a result, I always end up feeling more grateful for what I was offered to discover, than proud of what I might have accomplished. As the journey keeps unfolding, more vistas open and the “accomplishments” become necessary tasks, simple signposts. Yet the widening of the horizon always manifests as circular: over time and space, traveling farther is the only way of really coming home.

I am the co-editor of the journal Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei and curator of its North-American website.

Interests

My research interests gather around two major ways of approaching the world and our human partaking of it, which are in fact two manifestations of the same worldview:

Gnosis: that is to say, knowledge as experience rather than axioms, or disembodied theories. Over time, I have explored this approach to life, and shared it with my students and readers, especially in dialogue with:

• Dante Alighieri and his visionary writings, most notably the Vita Nuova and the Commedia
• C. G. Jung and his analytical psychology, from the Collected Works to the Red Book
• Henry Corbin, his phenomenological hermeneutics and the imaginal world as the dimension of the sacred

Wildness: that is to say, the indomitable interconnectedness of all living things and therefore also the coming together of ecology, culture and spirituality. This has led me to recognize and retrace the deeply feminine aspects of a way of being in the world that our dominant culture has labeled and keeps labeling, alternatively, as “archaic”, “esoteric”, “heretic”, “unscientific” while at all times endeavouring to disparage or suppress it. I follow the rhizomatic manifestations of wildness in:

• myth, symbol, story as means of initiation and individuation
• the feminine and/as the Beloved: anima, the goddess, mind
• Hermeticism and gnostic traditions from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Servet, Montaigne)
• alchemy and falconry as arts of inner transmutation
• the indigenous roots of Europe, in dialogue with the work of today’s Indigenous Peoples
• ancestral/inner journeys and journeys to the beyond, the land of the Dead
• Sacred Spaces and Mandalas, East and West
• the persecution of spiritual dissent (from Gnostics to Cathars, Waldensians and antitrinitarians; poets, prophets and visionaries; the medieval legacies of shamanic traditions)

Current projects

• «Archetypal Dante, Visionary Jung»: through a series of papers presented at the Jung Society of Vancouver and in other academic venues, I have engaged in the exploration of the ways in which Dante and Jung partake of a worldview. Rather than solely investigate Dante’s influence on Jung (which is in itself both undeniable and significant) I explore their interconnectedness by focusing on a number of “archetypal motifs and events” in their respective works.
• «Sacred Weavings, Inner Journeys»: this project is in its inception stage. Weaving as a primary act of life, as feminine archetype, as symbol, as myth, as universal and most human form of art-making.

Books, authored and edited (since 2000)

Via nova: emergenze dell’Oltre da Lascaux a oggi / Emergences of the Beyond from Lascaux to Today. edited by D.B. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 14 (2022). Roma: WriteUp, 2023.

Il volo della mente. Falconeria e sofia nel mondo mediterraneo. Islam, Federico II, Dante. Second edition. Vancouver: Finisterrae, 2023.

Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy, edited by D.B. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018.

Transmutatio: la via ermetica alla felicità / The Hermetic Way to Happiness, edited by D.B. and Carlo Testa. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 5 (2012). Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2012.

Sogni e visioni nel mondo indo-mediterraneo. Dreams and Visions in the Indo-Mediterranean World, edited by D.B. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 2 (2009). Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2009.

Il volo della mente. Falconeria e sofia nel mondo mediterraneo. Islam, Federico II, Dante. Ravenna: Longo, 2003.

Recent articles and book chapters (since 2013)

«Listening for the Silent Voices.» Via nova: Emergences of the Beyond, from Lascaux to Today / Emergenze dell’Oltre da Lascaux a oggi, ed. D. Boccassini. Roma: Write Up 2023. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei» 14 (2022): 11-36.

«La luce interiore: Serveto e la libertà dello spirito.» Via nova: Emergences of the Beyond, from Lascaux to Today / Emergenze dell’Oltre da Lascaux a oggi, ed. D. Boccassini. Roma: Write Up, 2023. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei» 14 (2022): 305-320.

«The Invisible Teacher and His Disciples: C. G. Jung’s and Henry Corbin’s Approaches to “the Green One”». Transcultural Dialogues 12/1 (2023): 22-36.

«At the Roots of Jung’s Alchemy. Part II: From The Red Book to Ravenna». The Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche 16/3 (2022): 169-198. DOI: 10.1080/19342039.2022.2088996

«At the Roots of Jung’s Alchemy. Part I: The Red Book’s Alchemical Quaternion». The Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche 16/2 (2022): 19-46. DOI: 10.1080/19342039.2022.2053466

«Jung and Ravenna: The Red Book, Visioning, Rebirth». Psychological Perspectives 65/1 (2022): 43-81. DOI: 10.1080/00332925.2022.2082794

«Countravâl l’aigo / Against the Current». Reverence, Respect and Reciprocity: Cornerstones of Biocultural Diversity. Langscape Magazine 11 (2022): 56-61.

«Falconry as Cognitive Dynamics: Self-Training, Imagination, and the Recovery of the Feminine».  Falconry in the Mediterranean Context During the Pre-Modern Era, ed. by Charles Burnett and Baudouin Van den Abeele. Geneva: Droz, 2021. 61-78.

«Navigazioni iniziatiche: di Dante, e non solo.» Eleusi, cuore sapienziale d’Europa, a cura di D. Susanetti e M. Poli. Padova University Press, 2020. 187-214.

«On the Wings of the Night: Jung’s and Dante’s Encounters with Soul.» Harvest 2019: 1-21.

«Down to the Father’s Womb: Jung’s and Dante’s Encounters with the Dead.» Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche 13/2 (2019): 46-81.

«Beyond Narcissism: Mirroring, Mandalas and Feminine Self-Remembering», Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche 12/2 (2018): 1-26.

«Falconry as royal “delectatio”: understanding the art of taming and its philosophical foundations in 12th- and 13th-century Europe.» Raptor and Human: Falconry and Bird Symbolism Throughout the Millennia on a Global Scale, ed. K-H. Gersmann and O. Grimm. Kiel/Hambourg: Wachholtz, 2018. Vol 1/4. 367-87.

«Oikosophia: perché abbiamo bisogno di una casa in cui si torni a parlare il linguaggio dell’anima, e di un linguaggio dell’anima che ci riporti a casa.» Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 11-28. (with self-translation in English)

«Earthly Paradise: Dante’s Initiatory Rite of Passage.» Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 181-203.

René Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz, «La simbolica e il suo carattere ieratico.» Introduzione, traduzione e cura di D. Boccassini. Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 31-48.

G. R. S. Mead, «La gnosi della mente. Saggio di epistemologia ermetica.» Introduzione, traduzione e cura di D. Boccassini. Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 49-75.

Henry Corbin, «Eranodofia. I. In Memoriam C. G. Jung e Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn; II. Postfazione a Risposta a Giobbe du C. G. Jung.» Introduzione, traduzione e cura di D. Boccassini. Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 207-26.

«Il discorso di Capo Seathl e l’intelligenza della terra». Versione di William Arrowsmith, introduzione di D. Boccassini, traduzione e cura di Carlo Testa.  Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. «Quaderni di Studi Indo-mediterranei» 10 (2017). Milano: Mimesis Edizioni, 2018. 361-73.

«La voce del maestro interiore: i Valdesi medievali, Serveto, Castellion». In Tradurre lo spirito. Scritture eterodosse italiane nel Cinquecento francese ed europeo. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi 17-18 settembre 2014, Università degli Studi di Milano. Firenze: Olschki, 2016. pp. 25-48.

«“Non impedir lo suo fatale andare”. Volti e risvolti del viaggio nell’oltretomba, da Virgilio a Dante». Sindbad mediterraneo. Per una topografia della memoria, da Oriente a Occidente, ed.  Roberta Morosini. Lecce: Pensa Multimedia. 25-63.