Lino Pertile is currently Harvard College Professor, Carl A. Pescosolido Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Master of Eliot House, Harvard University. A graduate of the University of Padua, where he studied Classics and French, before joining Harvard (1995) he taught Italian Literature in France and Italy (1964-68), and in Britain (1968-1995: Universities of Reading '68-'73, Sussex '74-'88, and Edinburgh, '88-'95). He has published essays on the French and Italian Renaissance, in particular on Montaigne and French travelers to Italy. His research has focused on the Latin and Italian Middle Ages (Dante), the Renaissance (Bembo and Trifon Gabriele), and 20th century Italian literature (Pavese and the contemporary novel). He has coedited, and contributed to: The New Italian Novel (Edinburgh University Press 1993, paperback 1997), The Cambridge History of Italian Literature (Cambridge University Press 1996, paperback 1999), In amicizia. Essays in Honour of Giulio Lepschy (The Italianist 1998), and La scena del mondo. Studi sul teatro per Franco Fido, Ravenna, Longo, 2006, 350 pp. He has published extensively on Dante. His books include the critical edition of the 16th century commentary on Dante Annotationi nel Dante fatte con M. Triphon Gabriele (1993), and the volumes La puttana e il gigante: dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso terrestre di Dante (1998, Premio Zingarelli), and La punta del disio. Semantica del desiderio nella Commedia, Firenze, Cadmo, 2005.