Dr Rhiannon J Daniels

My current monograph project on 'The Renaissance Decameron' will be a comprehensive study of the printed tradition of Boccaccio's major work in the 16th century, shedding new light on the mechanisms by which the Decameron achieved its current position in the canon of world literature, and enriching our understanding of early print culture and Renaissance reading publics. 

My principal research interests are in medieval and Renaissance culture, reception studies, and the history of the book. I am particularly interested in the sociology of the text: finding ways of using the material form of manuscripts and printed books to (re)construct histories of reading and book production techniques. My first monograph, Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520, pioneered the application of the study of the physical form and presentation of books to Boccaccio studies. I am co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Boccaccio.

I co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Material Texts.

I would be delighted to discuss proposals for postgraduate research projects in the fields of medieval and early modern Italian literature and culture, history of the book and reception studies.