Davide Massimo obtained his Undergraduate (2016) and Master’s (2017) degree in Classics at La Sapienza-University of Rome, and his doctorate at the University of Oxford (2022), with a thesis on the Hellenistic poet Leonidas of Tarentum, aimed at providing a full edition with commentary of his epigrams. Before arriving in Ghent in 2025, he held research awards and visiting fellowships in Rome (British School at Rome), Vienna (as a visiting researcher of the ERC-funded MAPPOLA - Mapping Out the Poetic Landscape(s) of the Roman Empire), and Oxford (at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents), and then was a Teaching Associate in Ancient Literature at the University of Nottingham (2022-2025).
In Ghent, he will work on the FWO-funded (2025-2028) postdoctoral project ‘Poetry in Stone: Hellenistic verse inscriptions from the Greek East’ (supervisor: Kristoffel Demoen). His project aims at analysing through a literary lens the poetic production inscribed on stone in the Greek East in the Hellenistic age and sits at the intersection of literature, epigraphy, and ancient history.
Davide’s main research interest lies in Hellenistic and Imperial literature and culture, especially in the following areas: epigram, epigraphic poetry, the Second Sophistic (esp. Lucian and Aelian), religion, and cross-cultural contacts. He is also interested in literary papyrology and pseudoepigraphic literature.
