The School of Arts & Sciences has appointed Associate Professor Mauro Calcagno as Director of the Center for Italian Studies. Prof. Calcagno, who joined Penn in 2014, received his training in Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Rome, in Piano at the Conservatory S. Cecilia, and in Musicology at Yale. He was previously on the faculty at Harvard, where he was a member of the Committee for the Lauro De Bosis Lectureship in the History of Italian Civilization, and at Stony Brook University, where he collaborated with the Center for Italian Studies. His monograph on Monteverdi investigates the influence of Petrarchism and Marinism on late Renaissance and Baroque music. Currently, he is writing a book on early Italian opera as presented by today’s experimental visual artists and theatre directors.