Laura Franco

Tor Vergata (Rome)/ Research Associate of RHUL Hellenic Institute

Laura Franco holds a PhD in Byzantine Literature and Palaeography from Royal Holloway University of London.

Besides Greek Palaeography, her research interests focus on the poetry of Nonnus of Panopolis, namely on the use of rhetoric in the composition of his Paraphrase of St John Gospel (with M. Ypsilanti, Nonnus' Paraphrase between Poetry, Rhetoric and Theology, Brill 2020).

Another field of interest is Late-Antique and Byzantine hagiography, more specifically the Lives of female Byzantine saints (Cinque sante bizantine. Storie di travestite, cortigiane, imperatrici, Milan 2017) those of the Stylite saints (Al di sopra del mondo. Vite di santi stiliti, Einaudi 2023) and the metaphrastic techniques in the composition of the Menologium by Symeon Metaphrastes (10th century).