Mario Sassi
Mario Sassi is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at Vassar College. He earned his Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on medieval and Renaissance Italian literature, paleography, vernacular preaching, and the role of the supernatural in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century storytelling. Before joining Vassar, Dr. Sassi taught Italian language, literature, and culture at Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarship bridges traditional manuscript studies with modern media, exploring topics ranging from plague literature in medieval Italy to representations of courtly love in modern video games. At Vassar, he teaches courses in Italian language and literature.
Contact
Box 266
Departments and Programs
Courses
- ITAL 105-01 Elementary Italian I
- ITAL 183-01 Tales of Transformation
- ITAL-205-01 Intermediate Italian I
Selected Publications
• Mario Sassi, “Living through the Plague: Filippo degli Agazzari’s Assempri and the Search for Hope,” Mediaevalia 48 (2027) (accepted)
• Mario Sassi, “Vernacular Religious Miscellanies of Exempla: The Case of UPenn Ms. Codex 331,” Manuscript Studies 8, no. 1 (2023): 1–23. DOI: 10.1353/mns.2023.0000
• Mario Sassi, “Strategies of Interpretation in French and Italian Exempla,” Medieval Sermon Studies 66 (2022): 3–19. DOI: 10.1080/13660691.2022.2139486
• Mario Sassi, “The Language of a Preacher: Cavalca, Passavanti, and the First Steps toward a National Vernacular,” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 58, no. 1 (2022): 27–49.