Pantalea Mazzitello

Pantalea Mazzitello is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at the University of California, Irvine, where she directs the Italian Language Program. Her academic expertise lies in the Italian medieval and early modern periods. She earned her first Ph.D. in Romance Philology from the University of Parma in 2016, focusing on Italian vulgarizations and Crusade chronicles. She later obtained a second Ph.D. in Italian Studies from Indiana University in 2024, where her research centered on blasphemy in Italian Renaissance literature.

Prof. Mazzitello is the author of the monograph Il Bacio Spudorato: Storia dell’Osculum Infame (Medusa, 2015) and the article “Eating the Enemy, Eating Sins: Anthropophagy in the Eracles Italian Vulgarization.” Currently, she is working on her second monograph, which explores themes of blasphemy, humor, and laughter in Renaissance Italy. At UC Irvine, she is developing a new Italian language curriculum and creating content courses for the Italian Minor, as well as medieval and Renaissance literature courses for the College of Humanities.

https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7266