Massimiliano Vassalli

The research of Massimiliano Vassalli focuses on the narratological study of Zoroastrian literature and on the 19th-century European travel literature in Iran. He received his PhD from the Department of Ancient Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome in March 2021 with a thesis on the 7th book of the Dēnkard. After the PhD, he continued working as research fellow (Post-doc) on Zoroastrian literature and epigraphy and participated in several inter-academic and multidisciplinary projects, such as the MAIKI Paikuli Project (2019), the Tigma project (2021 and 2023 ongoing), and the Eranshahr project (2019 ongoing). In the course of these projects, he studied European travellers, explorers and diplomats who went to Kurdistan and Iran in the 19th century. In 2023-24 he won a competition at Sapienza with a project on the British travellers J.C. Rich and Sir R. Ker Porter.