Gianmarco Braghi
PhD Student
Biography
I am from Piacenza and studied at the University of Milan (‘Statale’) under the supervision of Prof. Claudia Di Filippo for both my BA and MA degrees. My MA thesis was about ‘The Ink War: Political and Religious Propaganda in France under the Reign of Charles IX Valois (1560-1574)’. My current PhD is supervised by Dr Graeme Murdock and is funded by the Irish Research Council.
Research
‘Ambiguities and Contrasts among Early Huguenots: Politics and Religion in Sixteenth-Century France’.
My thesis will provide an integrated analysis of ambiguities and contrasts in the development of the Reformed church in sixteenth-century France. I will analyse two linked problems: first, conflicts among the early ‘Huguenot Party’, and second, tensions that arose between different French Reformed congregations and the ‘mother Church’ of Geneva. I will consider these issues both from a political and a religious point of view, with a focus on the period of the emergence of the French Wars of Religion, framed by the rule of Henri II and Charles IX, and by the activity of John Calvin and by the first years of Theodore Beza as Calvin’s successor as moderator of the Venerable Company of Pastors in the city-state of Geneva (c. 1550-1580).
My other interests vary from social, intellectual and religious history to the history of printing and publishing, and Reformation and Counter-Reformation history in France, Switzerland and Italy.
Publications:
- L’Accademia degli Ortolani (1543-1545). Eresia, stampa e cultura a Piacenza nel medio Cinquecento (Piacenza, LIR 2011).