About
David Lummus is an independent scholar based in Rome, Italy. He previously served on the faculty at Yale University, Stanford University, and the University of Notre Dame, where he taught courses primarily on medieval and early modern literature and culture. His publications on Boccaccio, Petrarch, and the Italian fourteenth century have appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and books.
His monograph,
The City of Poetry: Imagining the Civic Role of the Poet in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2020) was awarded the 2019
Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies by the Modern Language Association.
He has co-edited a book with Martin Eisner entitled
A Boccaccian Renaissance: Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019) and he is the editor of
The Decameron Sixth Day in Perspective (University of Toronto Press, 2021).
Other Publications
Monograph
The City of Poetry: Imagining the Civic Role of the Poet in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Edited volume
The Decameron Sixth Day in Perspective (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021).
Co-edited volume
A Boccaccian Renaissance: Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works, co-edited with Martin Eisner (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019).
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
“Placing Petrarch’s Legacy: The Politics of Petrarch’s Tomb and Boccaccio’s Last Letter.” Renaissance Quarterly 71.2 (2017): 435-73.
“Boccaccio’s Hellenism and the Foundations of Modernity.” Mediaevalia 33 (2012): 101-67.
“Boccaccio’s Poetic Anthropology: Allegories of History in the Genealogie Deorum Gentilium Libri.” Speculum 87.3 (July 2012): 724-65.
“Boccaccio’s Three Venuses: On the Convergence of Celestial and Transgressive Love in the Genealogie Deorum Gentilium Libri.” Medievalia et Humanistica 37 (2011): 65-88.
Peer Reviewed Book Chapters
“Egloge.”
Dante’s “Other Works”: Assessments and Interpretations. Ed. Zygmunt G. Barański and Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022). 306-32.
“Love and Death in Pistoia:
Decameron IX.1 between Poetry and History.”
The Decameron Ninth Day in Perspective. Ed. Susanna Barsella and Simone Marchesi (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022). 30-53.
“Mythography as Ethnography. Euhemerism in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Explications of Mercury in the
Genealogie Deorum Gentilium Libri.” Euhemerism and Its Uses: The Mortal Gods. Ed. Syrithe Pugh. (London: Routledge, 2021), 127-47.
“The Decameron and Boccaccio’s Poetics.” Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Boccaccio. Ed. Guyda Armstrong, Rhiannon Daniels, and Stephen J. Milner. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015). 65-82.
“The Changing Landscape of the Self (Buccolicum Carmen).” Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Ed. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Smarr. (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2013). 155-69 and 406-13.
“Edoardo Sanguineti’s New Dante.” Edoardo Sanguineti: Literature, Ideology and the Avant-Garde. Ed. Paolo Chirumbolo and John Picchione. (London: Legenda, 2013). 40-55.
Dictionary Entries and Instructional Article
“Dante’s Inferno / Critical Reception and Influence.” Critical Insights: Dante’s ‘Inferno’. Ed. Patrick Hunt. (Pasadena: Salem Press, 2011). 63-81.
“Giuseppe Billanovich” and “Bruno Nardi.”
The Handbook of Medieval Studies. Ed. Albrecht Classen. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010). 2190-2192 and 2553-2556.
Review Essay
Giovanni Boccaccio. Decameron. Ed. Amedeo Quondam, Maurizio Fiorilla, and Giancarlo Alfano. Milan: BUR, 2013. Francisco Rico. Ritratti allo specchio (Boccaccio, Petrarca). Rome-Padua: Antenore, 2012. The Medieval Review. 14.02.01 (February 2014).
Book Reviews
The Enemy in Italian Renaissance Epic: Images of Hostility from Dante to Tasso. By Andrea Moudarres. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2019.
Religion and Literature (forthcoming).
Petrarch’s War: Florence and the Black Death in Context. By William Caferro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Renaissance Quarterly 75.1 (2022): 278-79.
Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue in the Italian Renaissance. By L.B.T. Houghton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019. In Renaissance Quarterly 74.3 (2021): 1048-49.
Scripto sopra Theseu Re: Il commento salentino al “Teseida” di Boccaccio (Ugento/Nardò, ante 1487), vol 1: Studi, vol. 2: Testo. Ed. Marco Maggiore. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 399. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Speculum 95.3 (2020): 863-64.
Reconsidering Boccaccio: Medieval Contexts and Global Intertexts. Ed. Olivia Holmes and Dana E. Stewart. Toronto UP, 2018. Speculum 95.1 (2020): 257-58.
Courtesy Lost: Dante, Boccaccio, and the Literature of History. By Kristina M. Olson. Toronto: Toronto UP, 2014. Heliotropia 12-13 (2015-2016): 373-77.
Dante and the Greeks. Ed. Jan M. Ziolkowski. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2014. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2015.09.47.
Vincenzo Cartari’s Images of the Gods of the Ancients: The First Italian Mythography. Translated and annotated by John Mulryan. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), 2012. Renaissance Quarterly 67.1 (Spring 2014): 324-35.
Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Ciceronian Renaissance. By Michaela Paasche Grudin and Robert Grudin. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. Renaissance Quarterly 66.1 (Spring 2013): 326-27.
Boccaccio’s Expositions on Dante’s Comedy. Trans., intro., and notes by Michael Papio. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. The Medieval Review 10.06.27 (June 2010).
Disturbi del sistema binario. By Valerio Magrelli. Torino: Einaudi, 2006. Mantis 6 (2007): 198-201.
Tom Thomson in Purgatory. By Troy Jollimore. Chesterfield, MO: MARGIE / IntuiT House, 2006. (Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, 2006). Mantis 6 (2007): 195-197.
Le muse in giardino: il paesaggio ameno nelle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. By Maria Elisa Raja. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2003. Italian Culture 23 (2005): 170-72.
Literary Translations
Trio for the End of the Millennium (Trio di fine millennio) by Fabrizio Falconi and Justin Bradshaw (Rome: Plant.t.editions, 2012).
“Guace,” “Elegia,” and “Post Scriptum – Addio alla lingua” by Valerio Magrelli (from Disturbi del sistema binario). Mantis 6 (2007): 20-25.
Poems by Luigi Ballerini, Fabrizio Falconi, Valerio Magrelli, Lucio Mariani, Giovanni Raboni (with Robert P. Harrison), Patrizia Valduga (with Susan Stewart and Robert P. Harrison), Andrea Zanzotto, and the collection “
Sette poeti per R.M. Rilke (
Seven Poets for R.M. Rilke)” (with Robert P. Harrison).
TriQuarterly 127 (2007) Special Issue on Contemporary Italian Poetry.
“[Selections] from
Cynthia with her eyes…: An Autobiography of Sextus Propertius” (translation of selections of Pietro Zullino’s
Cinzia con i suoi occhi…: Un’autobiografia di Sesto Properzio) and “Translator’s Note.”
TriQuarterly 123 (2005): 100-123.
