PROFESSOR JEREMY JOHNS (Principal Investigator) email webpage is Professor of the Art and Archaeology of the Islamic Mediterranean, and Director of the Khalili Research Cente for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East, in the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Oxford. He is principally interested in relations between Muslim and Christian societies in the medieval Mediterranean as manifested in material and visual culture. His research has focused upon the archaeology of the transition from late antiquity to early Islam in the Levant and, especially, upon the archaeology, history and art history of Sicily under Islamic and Norman rule, from the Muslim conquest of the island in the 9th century to the destruction of the Islamic community of Sicily by Frederick II in the 13th century. As the Principal Investigator of Documenting Multiculturalism, he will overesee the whole project, and will also lead the Arabic team, having particular responsibility for the historical aspects of the team’s research. He is the author of Arabic Administration in Norman Sicly. The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002, online 2010) and many articles on different aspects of multiculturalism in Norman Sicily. A full list of his publications is available at https://oxford.academia.edu/JeremyJohns/CurriculumVitae, most of which may be downloaded from https://oxford.academia.edu/JeremyJohns/.  

DR NADIA JAMIL (Senior Researcher: Arabic Documents) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. webpage is Senior Instructor in Arabic in the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Oxford. She is particularly interested in the language of early Arabic poetry, and in representations of the pre-Islamic ethic and its transformation in early Islam — see https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/ethics-and-poetry-in-sixth-century-arabia.html. She and Jeremy Johns are married and have collaborated effectively for almost twenty years on the study of the Arabic and bilingual documents from Sicily — see von Falkenhausen, Jamil and Johns 2016; Jamil and Johns 2015, 2018; Johns and Jamil 2004. She will be primarily responsible for the linguistic aspects of the Arabic documents, and will take joint lead in the preparation of two of the project's summative monographs: A Lexicon of the Arabic of Norman Sicily, and a companion volume on Diplomatic, Language and Palaeography in the Arabic Documents of Norman Sicily.

PROFESSOR BEATRICE PASCIUTA (Co-Investigator and Senior Researcher: Latin Documents) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. webpage is Professore Ordinario in the Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza at the Università degli Studi di Palermo. She has published editions of numerous Latin documents — e.g. Mazzarese Fardella and Pasciuta 2011 and many studies on the legal foundations of the society of medieval Sicily — e.g. Pasciuta 2008, 2016. She is internationally recognised as a leading expert upon the history of law in medieval and early modern Sicily and south Italy. She will lead the team responsible for the edition and study of the Latin documents. Her detailed knowledge of not just royal legislation, but also communal and customary law in the Latin tradition will be crucial to the project's summative monograph The Legal Foundations of Coexistence: Coexistence in Law and in Practice.

PROFESSOR CRISTINA ROGNONI (Senior Researcher: Greek Documents) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. webpage is Professore Associato di Civiltà Bizantina at the Università degli Studi di Palermo. She is internationally recognised for her expertise in the culture and society of Byzantium and, especially, for her detailed knowledge of the Greek documents and the Roman-Byzantine legal tradition and the communal and customary laws of Byzantine and Greek south Italy and Sicily. She has published two volumes of editions of the private Greek documents from the Archivo Ducal de Medinaceli in Toedo — see Rognoni 2004 and 2011 — as well as many articles on the documents and history of the Greek communities of medieval and early modern Italy, some of which may be downloaded from https://unipa.academia.edu/CristinaRognoni. She will lead the team responsible for the edition and study of the Greek documents.

DR UMBERTO BONGIANINO (Postdoctoral Researcher: Arabic Palaeography) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. webpage is Departmental Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture in the Khalili Research Centre (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford). He is principally interested in the architecture and material culture of the Islamic dynasties that ruled across the medieval Mediterranean between the 7th and the 13th centuries. His doctorate — “The origin and development of Maghribī round scripts. Arabic palaeography in the Islamic West (4th/10th-6th/12th centuries)”, Oxford, 2017 — concentrated on the arts of the book in the Maghrib and al-Andalus between the 10th and the 13th centuries. His publications on the calligraphy, palaeography and arts of the book in the Maghrib, and on a variety of other subjects, may be seen at https://oxford.academia.edu/UmbertoBongianino. For Documenting Multiculturalism, he will will analyse the scripts of the Arabic documents and write the first palaeographical study of the Arabic scripts of Norman Sicily.

DR SONIA MERLI (Postdoctoral Researcher: Latin documents) Sonia Merli graduated in Lettere (Humanities) at the University of Perugia, with a final thesis on diplomatics of the medieval communes. She was later granted the Diplôme d’études approfondies en Histoire (Université Paris X - Nanterre) under the supervision of André Vauchez and earned a diploma in Archival, Palaeographic, and Diplomatic Studies at the school of the State Archives of Perugia. Upon receiving a post-graduate scholarship, she spent one year in Paris at the UMR 9963 Culture, politique et société en Europe (IXe-XVIe siècles) of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, conducting prosopographic research on members of the chancellery of Jean, Duke of Berry (1340-1416). Since then, Merli has contributed to scholarly editions of a variety of documentary and statutory sources issued in communal contexts and to a prosopographical database of information on teachers and students of the Studium Perusinum in the Middle Ages, created for the septcentenary of the Studium’s founding. From 2005 to the present, her studies have focused on the history of military orders in Italy, with emphasis on the Templars in the Lands of the Church. Among other contributions in that field, she co-organized and co-edited the international conference and collected studies Gli Ordini di Terrasanta (http://www.ordiniditerrasanta.it/) in 2019-2021 and serves as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Templar Route European Federation. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Palermo (ERC Documenting Multiculturalism).

DR FRANCESCA POTENZA (Postdoctoral Researcher: Greek documents) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.webpage obtained her Master’s magna cum laude in Philology, Literature and History of Antiquity, at University of Rome “Roma Tre”, with a Thesis in Byzantine Philology. Her doctoral dissertation (PhD in History, at University of Rome “Tor Vergata”), “The hagiographic dossier of Saint Pantaleemon: general study and critical edition”, focused on the critical edition of the premetaphrastic Passio of St. Pantaleemon, which was passed on in different redactions, mostly unedited. From 2015 to 2019, she was a Research Fellow at the Vatican Library, for the study and cataloguing of the Greek manuscripts in the Library of Pope Nicholas the Fifth (1447-1455). Since February 2017, she’s been a Theaching Assistant in Byzantine History and Philology at University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. She is a member of the Associazione Italiana di Studi Bizantini. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Palermo. For Documenting Multiculturalism, she will edit and analyse the Greek documents.

DR MARCO LEGNANI (Postdoctoral Researcher: Latin documents) graduated in History at the “Statale” University of Milan, with a final thesis on the political life and thought of Alfonso de Valdés, secretary for Latin documents in the chancellery of Emperor Charles V. The Spanish Empire was also the subject of his phd research, conducted in joint supervision between the Universities of Messina and Córdoba. The final thesis, based on a large archival research, was later published under the title “Antonio Perrenot de Granvelle. Politica e diplomazia al servizio dell'impero spagnolo (1517-1586)”. While “cultore della materia” for Modern History and History of Spain and Latin America at the University of Milan, he got a diploma in Archival Palaeographic and Diplomatic Studies at the school of the State Archives of Milan. Legnani is currently Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Palermo within the DOCUMULT Project, his tasks being the Italian translation of the Latin documents and their tagging for the project database.

MR DANIEL BURT (Technical Lead) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. webpage has been responsible for all aspects of information technology and computing in the Khalili Research Centre (KRC) since its foundation in 2005. He has extensive experience of database development and website design, especially for the museums of the University of Oxford and for research projects based in the KRC. He is responsible for all technical aspects of Documenting Multiculturalism, including this website and the development of the DocuMult Database that will be the basic research tool of the project.