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.

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• 1. Introduction.- 2. Representing Italian Academies (1569–2006).- 3. Politics, Geography, and Diplomacy in Venetian Academies.- 4. Italian Academies and Their Facebooks.- 5.  The Italian Academic Movement and the Republic of Letters.- 6. Conclusion.