Before coming to Berkeley in Fall 2020, I was trained as an ancient historian and epigraphist in Pisa, Munich and Vienna. While approaching the Greco-Roman world, I try to combine philological care, spatial and material awareness, and a particular attention for legal, social and economic realities. My interests range from ancient Greek diplomacy (with a specific focus on Magnesia on the Maeander and the Leukophryena epigraphic dossier) to Greek economy, Classical and Hellenistic stasis, ancient ephebeia, senatusconsulta in the High Empire, Nero, Roman Tebtunis and the intersection between land and credit market, Ambrose and Late Antique imperial representation, Theodoros Metochites.
I have contributed to different epigraphical projects. From Fall 2017 to Spring 2020 I collaborated on the Scuola Normale Superiore project for a new online database of Greek Economic Inscriptions (GEI), both as author and Epidoc encoder. In Fall 2018, I worked at the Paolo Orsi Museum (Siracusa) as a trainee within the project “I.Sicily. Building a digital corpus of Sicilian inscriptions(link is external)” (supervisor: Prof. J. Prag, Oxford). In Spring 2020, I spent a semester as a trainee at the epigraphic research group of the Austrian Institute of Archaeology (supervisors: Prof. T. Corsten, Dr. V. Hofmann), working both on Ephesian archival documentation kept in Vienna and inscriptions from Kabalis (between Cybiratis and Lycia). In Summer 2021 and 2022, I was research assistant in the project “Die Inschriften des Artemisions von Ephesos(link is external)” (AIA, Vienna), and collaborated to the re-edition of two Ephesian inscriptions for TAM II (V. Hofmann, F. Santini, "Aus der Arbeit an den «Tituli Asiae Minoris» II: Die Statuenehrungen für Drusus minor und [Her]ennius Rufus (I.Ephesos 258 & 664B),"[in progress]). In Fall 2021, I started collaborating with the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG)at Berkeley as a Graduate Student Researcher, as well as carrying out epigraphical fieldwork with at Athens (Epigraphic Museum, Library of Hadrian), Nikopolis and Thebes (advisor: Prof. N. Papazarkadas).
My current epigraphical work include a paper which gathers the epigraphical documentation on exile from Chios (ca. 334-300 BCE); a two-paper project on the Athenian Standards decree (a new authoritative edition of the 'Smyrna fragment', with a lenghty line-by-line commentary and a discussion on the provenance of the fragment, co-written with N. Papazarkadas; a comparative study of the policies of standardization of Athens and the Qin Empire); I am also preparing a new edition and commentary of a newly discovered bronze fragmentary inscription from Baetica, which sheds new light on the transition of power after the death of Augustus; the edition of a fragmentary epigram from the Museum of Preveza. I have been entrusted by T. Hickey (Center for Tebtunis Papyri, Berkeley) the publication of two unedited loans concerning the so-called dossier of the 'Descendants of Patron', as well as a fragmentary testamentary will; together with N.H.Levine, I am working on a lease contract of public land from Tebtunis and, more broadly, on the issue of priestly management of public land in Tebtunis. Finally, I am planning to write a second 'Ambrosian' paper, in which I analyze the argumentative and legal strategies deployed by Ambrose in his De Obitu Theodosii.
Publications:
- Santini F., "Death and the Young Prince: Ambrose of Milan’s Funeral oration for Valentinian II," in: S. Elm and K. Sessa (eds.) War and Community in Late Antiquity. Cambridge. [in progress]
- Santini F., "Materiality and Layout of the Leukophryena Epigraphic Dossier in Magnesia on the Maeander." In: D.Amendola, C.Carusi, C.Maltomini, E.Rosamilia (eds.) Layout and Materiality of writing in ancient documents from the Archaic Period to Late Antiquity: A comparative approach. Firenze [expected 2022]
- Santini F., "Magnesia al Meandro. Una storia delle relazioni diplomatiche." In: A. Magnetto (ed.) La diplomazia delle città della Ionia d’Asia (IV-I sec. a.C.). Pisa [expected 2022]
- Santini F., Levine N.H., "Psenkebkis, Son of Pakebkis: New and Old Documents from the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at The Bancroft Library." BASP 59 (2022): 61-83
- Santini F., Gammella M., “La legge efebarchica di Anfipoli. Una difesa della coerenza interna del testo.” Ricerche Ellenistiche 2 (2021): 25-38
- Santini F., “New light on Artemis’ epiphany. The I.Magnesia 65a+75 and 65b+76 dilemma revisited.” ASNP 12.1 (2020): 61-100
- GEI019: Lokroi Epizephyrioi. Tablet from the archive of the Olympieion (2019)
- GEI015: Athens. Kitian merchants acquiring land for a sanctuary (2017)
Conference Presentations:
"Aureis litteris figenda. Readability, meaning, and diffusion of (gilded) bronze letters in the East under Nero." in: ASGLE panel - "Epigraphic Texts and Archaeological Contexts", SCS-AIA meeting (New Orleans, 5-8 January 2023)
"La diplomazia di Magnesia al Meandro: perché studiarla?" in: La diplomazia delle città della Ionia d'Asia (Pisa, 15-16 December 2022)
"Two unpublished papyri from the dossier of Patron’s descendants." in: XXXe Congrès international de Papyrologie (Paris, 25-30 July 2022)
"Shaping an epigraphical dossier in Magnesia on the Maeander: the Leukophryena ‘archive’." Layout and Materiality of Writing in Ancient Documents from the Archaic Period to Late Antiquity: A Comparative Approach, in: The International Conference in Classics and Ancient History (Coimbra, 22-25 June 2021)
