Sofia Bianchi Mancini

Sofia Bianchi Mancini is a Greek and Latin philologist. Sofia did her BA in Classics at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and in her final year she spent six months at the University of Tarragona Rovira I Virgili on an Erasmus exchange programme. She was awarded an MRes in Classical Studies from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and she just completed her PhD in Ancient History at the University of Erfurt with a research focus on the socio-political dimension of judicial curse tablets in Selinous and Athens.

Her research interests lie within politics and culture in ancient Greece and Rome, Greek and Latin poetic, prose, and philosophical texts, Greek and Roman oratory, archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, ancient magic and religion, emotions in antiquity.

She is currently one of the PIs of subproject A01 “Zwiespältiges Eigentum: Von der Spätantike zum Mittelalter”.

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Ein Bild von Sofia Bianchi Mancini.

Forschungsprojekt

Her project investigates how ownership is constructed and negotiated in selected philosophical and narrative texts of late first century A.D. Rome. The starting point of the overall study is the underlying assumption that gods own and are defined by all those material and non-material spaces, which writers textually assign to them. The questions that her work will seek to answer are the following: How are material and non-material spaces constructed and owned by the gods in literature? How well does the “narrative” construction of (spatial) ownership reflect into the real world? Is there an emotional dimension connected to divine ownership?

Aktivitäten

Veröffentlichungen

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2026): Legal Curses and Politics in Archaic and Classical Sicily, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Under contract)

  • Bianchi Mancini, S., Pérez Yarza, L., Fogliazza, S. (eds.) (2026): The Roman Imperial Cult: Local Practices and the Reception of the Emperor, London: Palgrave Macmillan. (Under contract) 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2026): “The Imperial Cult in Roman Attica: The Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous”, in: S. Bianchi Mancini, L. Pérez Yarza, S. Fogliazza (eds.): The Roman Imperial Cult: Local Practices and the Reception of the Emperor, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2026): "Metroac Cultic Practices and Curses: Sensorial Experiences during the Ritual Deposition of the defixiones from Mainz", in: K. Waldner, A-I. Rassia (eds.): The Multi-Sensory Experience of Mystery Cults, Berlin: De Gruyter. 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2026): “Preservation and Change: The Ambiguous Legacy of the Syracusan ἀμφιπολία after Caesar’s Policies”, in: K. Matijević, R. Raja, J. Rüpke (eds.): Caesar’s Visions and Impact on the Roman Empire: Revisiting the Archaeological and Historical Record of the 40s BC, Turnhout: Brepols, 75–87.  

  • Bianchi Mancini, S., Di Serio, C., Fogliazza, S. (eds.) (2025–2026): "Reaching the Superhuman: Ritual, Communication, and Materiality in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East", in: Religion in the Roman Empire 11(3)–12(1), 2 vols.

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2025): “Not just a virtue: the altar of clementia between resistance and freedom in Statius’ Thebaid”, Civiltà e Religioni 11, 15–35. 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S., Dell'Isola, M. (eds.) (2025): “Boundary violation between property and freedom: case studies from antiquity to the Middle Ages”, in: Civiltà e Religioni 11. 

  • Pérez Yarza, L., Herrera Rando, J., Bianchi Mancini, S. (2025): "Bilingual Phenomena and Cultu(r)al Interactions in the Roman Empire", in L. Pérez Yarza, J. Herrera Rando, S. Bianchi Mancini (eds.): One Cult, Multiple Cultures: Multilingualism and Religion in Western Roman Inscriptions, Series Diglossi@, Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 17–31. 

  • Pérez Yarza, L., Herrera Rando, J., Bianchi Mancini, S. (eds.) (2025): One Cult, Multiple Cultures: Multilingualism and Religion in Western Roman Inscriptions, Series Diglossi@, Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux. 

  • Nickel, R., Hogenmüller, B. (eds.) (2025) in collaboration with Bianchi Mancini, S., Nickel, J.: Lexikon der antiken Literatur, 4th ed., fully revised, Baden-Baden: Tectum. 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2024): "Narrating Divine Property: The Case of Sacred Groves in Statian Poetry", in: Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute 49, 53–78. 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S., Gibson, H., Schuck, D., Vinzent, M. (eds.) (2024): Relating to Landed Property, Frankfurt: Campus. 

  • Bianchi Mancini, S. (2024): “Gods’ Landed Property: Sacred Groves in Republican and Imperial Literature”, in: S. Bianchi Mancini, H. Gibson, D. Schuck, M. Vinzent, M. (eds.): Relating to Landed Property, Frankfurt: Campus.

  • Rüpke, J., Bianchi Mancini, S. (2023): Antike Epik: Eine Einführung in hexametrische Großdichtung,  3rd. ed, fully revised, Baden-Baden: Tectum (engl. trans. Ancient Epic Poetry, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2024; it. trans. Epica antica: un‘introduzione, trans. S. Bianchi Mancini, Rome: Carocci, 2025).

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Vorträge

  • Workshop “Adventgespräche 2025: Heiligtümer auf privaten Grund im Römischen Reich” (Dezember 2025): Titel des Papers: “Who Owned the Sacred? Roman and Christian Sanctuaries on Private Estates” (with Dr. Cinnamon Ducasse), University of Graz (invited).

  • Conference FIEC 2025 (Juli 2025): Titel des Papers: “To the Emperors and Empresses: Interlocal Networks and Religious Negotiation Strategies in the Aegean during the Early Roman Empire”, University of Wroclaw.

  • German-Italian Bilateral Meeting “OROMA. Objekthaftigkeit der Religionen, Religiosität der Objekte im antiken Mittelmeerraum (II)” (Juni 2025): Titel des Papers: “Das Geschenk, das bleibt: Inschriften als Produzenten ritueller Handlungslogiken” (with Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke), Villa Vigoni (Menaggio, Como).

  • Conference “2024 Conference of the European Association of Archaeologists” (August 2024): Titel des Papers: “Ubi erat lucus: Resacralisation and Transformation on the Janiculum” (with Dr. Lorena Pérez Yarza), University “La Sapienza” Rome.

  • German-Italian Bilateral Meeting  „OROMA. Objekthaftigkeit der Religionen, Religiosität der Objekte im antiken Mittelmeerraum (I)" (März 2024): Titel des Papers:  „L’agentività dei boschi sacri e delle foreste in Ovidio e Stazio", Villa Vigoni (Menaggio, Como).

  • Summer school  „Roman rituals: dynamics, topography and objects. Introduction to Roman religion through the prism of its materiality" (September 2023): Titel des Papers:  „Manipulating the Sacred: Material Appropriation and the Hierarchisation of Gods", Rom.

  • Workshop  „Community, Ritual and the Power of Memory: Past, Present and Future” (März 2023): Titel des Papers:  „Divine Ownership as Cultural Memory: Its Perception and Transformation in Latin Poetry”, Max-Weber-Kolleg, University of Erfurt (eingeladen).

  • Online-Gastvorlesung - „Classics for Breakfast“, Universität Erfurt (eingeladen), Titel „A ‘Remedy’ to Monarchical Rule: The Creation of a New Identity in Lucan’s Book III“. (Januar 2022)

  • Online-Gastvorlesung -  „Lampeter and Mid-Wales Branch Lecture Series“, University of Wales Trinity St. David, Lampeter (eingeladen), Titel:„Cursing for Status and Power: Judicial Curse Tablets and Elite Distress in Sixth and Fifth Centuries BC Selinous“. (Oktober 2021)

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Veranstaltungen

  • Celtic Conference in Classics 2025 –– Open Panel (with Dr. Charlotte Spence and Dr. Julia Kretschmer): "The Epigraphic Evidence of 'Marginal' Groups in the Graeco-Roman World", University of Coimbra, Portugal (2025).
  • FIEC 2025 –– Closed Double Panel (with Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke): "Texts and the Formation of Religious Networks in the Roman Empire", Wroclaw, Poland (2025).
  • EASR 2024 –– Closed Panel (with Dr. Giorgio Ferri): "Summumque munus homini datum arbores silvaeque intellegebantur (Plin. NH. 12.1.1). Roman Religion, Nature, and Environmental Crises", University of Gothenburg, Sweden (2024)
  • Celtic Conference in Classics 2024 –– Open Panel (with Dr. Lorena Pérez Yarza and Dr. Silvia Fogliazza): "Divine Renegotiation through the Lens of the Imperial Cult", University of Cardiff, Wales (2024)
  • International Conference "Objects as a Lens on Group Formations in the Cities of the Roman Empire (1st-4th Centuries CE) – Closed Panel Session (with Prof. Laura Carnevale): "Property of Ritual Space", University of Erfurt (2024)
  • EASR 2023 — Open Panel (with Dr. Chiara di Serio and Dr. Silvia Fogliazza): "Communication Techniques in Ancient Mediterranean Ritual Practices: Establishing a Relation with the Superhuman", University of Vilnius, Lithuania (2023)

Teilprojekte

A01 Zwiespältiges Eigentum: Von der Spätantike zum Mittelalter

Projektleitung