Simone Testa holds an MA in History from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and a Phd in Italian Literature from Royal Holloway (University of London, England) on political discourse in sixteenth-century Italy. He has been working on the Italian Academies Database (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ItalianAcademies/About.aspx) for two consecutive phases, while teaching at various institutions in Britain. He has been Visiting Research Fellow at the John Rylands Research Institute at the University of Manchester, UK; the Newberry Library in Chicago, USA; and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. This is his second book.