Translation 2025

Marco Di Branco

Italy

Marco di Branco is an Italian historian and professor of Islamic history at Sapienza University of Rome, specialising in Byzantine epigraphy. After completing his studies in Arabic language and culture at the Italian Institute of Human Sciences, he worked as a researcher at the same institute in Florence and as a visiting professor at Princeton University. Additionally, di Branco joined the German Institute in Rome and the American University of Beirut after receiving the Marie Curie Research Fellowship. He has taught Byzantine civilisation and archaeology at the Universities of Milan and Basilicata, as well as at the Postgraduate School of Archaeology in Matera. His research focuses on ancient Athens, the Islamic presence in medieval Italy, and the Islamic perception of Greco-Roman history. His most notable publications in the field include the annotated edition of the ‘Kitāb Hurūšiyūš’, an Arabic translation of Paulus Orosius’ ‘Historiae Adversus Paganos’ (2024), in addition to authoring other books, including ‘La Battaglia del Garigliano (The Battle of Garigliano) (2019), ‘Il Califfo di Dio’ (The Caliph: God’s Successor) (2017), and a study on Alexander the Great in Islamic heritage, ‘Alessandro Magno, Eroe Arabo del Medioevo’.