Transnational biographies are narratives on a person’s life that span across multiple nations and may involve multilingual archival material. In early modern diasporas, key historical figures have served the construction of national identities and historical legacies in different ways, as the appropriation of these migrant stories has varied significantly, in scale and interpretation, across cultures. Transnational biographies thus result from the difficult interplay between mythmaking, artistic imagination, and heritage discourses on documentary sources such as letters, personal records, and eyewitness accounts. Our talks will illustrate this point through a case study: David Rizzio (1533-1566) — an “Italian” at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots — who lived across different nations, including France, Italy (Savoy), Scotland. His story provides a fascinating case study for exploring the challenges of transnational history and the processes of mythmaking in heritage discourses. We will also discuss mixed methodologies which could facilitate the retrieval and convergence of archival materials in different languages, integrate critical heritage perspectives in existing historical narratives, and engage international communities in pedagogical activities. Our research is part of a RSE-funded project titled David Rizzio. History and myth across arts and media.
Emanuela Patti holds a Master's in Comparative Literature from UCL and a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Birmingham. She teaches Italian language and culture at the University of Edinburgh. Her research lies at the intersection between literary, media, and cultural studies, and it received prestigious grants from the AHRC and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A significant part of her work focuses on the circulation of themes, stories, and characters across arts and media from the Middle Ages to the present. She is particularly interested in phenomena of reception, appropriation, representation, and fictionalisation across time and cultures. Her methodology thus draws upon theories of intermediality and transmediality which she has contributed to develop. She is currently the recipient of an RSE Personal Research Fellowship for the project 'David Rizzio: History and Myth Across Arts and Media' (2024-2025). One of the outcomes of this research is the edited volume for EUP David Rizzio at the Scottish Court: History and Myth Across Arts and Media (forthcoming, 2026). Other publications include two monographs, four edited volumes, and several articles in journals.
Carlotta Paltrinieri is Lecturer in Early Modern Italian Studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Royal Holloway. Before joining Royal Holloway, she was the Assistant Director of the Medici Archive Project, and Senior Researcher in the UKRI program ‘Towards a National Collection’. She has held research fellowships at University College Cork, the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max Planck Institute for Art History, and at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (University of London).
