Sonia Merli

Sonia Merli graduated in Lettere (Humanities) at the University of Perugia, with a final thesis on diplomatics of the medieval communes. She was later granted the Diplôme d’études approfondies en Histoire (Université Paris X - Nanterre) under the supervision of André Vauchez and earned a diploma in Archival, Palaeographic, and Diplomatic Studies at the school of the State Archives of Perugia. Upon receiving a post-graduate scholarship, she spent one year in Paris at the UMR 9963 Culture, politique et société en Europe (IXe-XVIe siècles) of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, conducting prosopographic research on members of the chancellery of Jean, Duke of Berry (1340-1416). Since then, Merli has contributed to scholarly editions of a variety of documentary and statutory sources issued in communal contexts and to a prosopographical database of information on teachers and students of the Studium Perusinum in the Middle Ages, created for the septcentenary of the Studium’s founding. From 2005 to the present, her studies have focused on the history of military orders in Italy, with emphasis on the Templars in the Lands of the Church. Among other contributions in that field, she co-organized and co-edited the international conference and collected studies Gli Ordini di Terrasanta(http://www.ordiniditerrasanta.it/) in 2019-2021 and serves as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Templar Route European Federation. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Palermo (ERC Documenting Multiculturalism).